Ephesians 1:7-10 Podcast
7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. (Ephesians 1:7-10)
In Christ we have redemption ... the forgiveness of sins. The Greek word for sins describes our attempts to measure up to perfection. It describes our missing the mark, our missteps. Although we may want to hit the mark, not only are our arrows defective, but our bow is warped.
The Greek word for forgiveness means our sins punishment has been absorbed by the Lord Jesus and His work on the cross. While living on this earth, the Lord Jesus lived a perfect life. He did what we could not do. And, while on the cross, the Lord Jesus took the punishment for our sinful brokenness.
Due to the doctrine of Original Sin, we were born enslaved to our sinful condition. Even though we try to measure up to God's perfect standard, we are incapable to do so. As a result, we are separated from God, and It is our guilty awareness of our sinfulness that makes us hide from God and to not trust Him.
When we trusted the Lord Jesus to be the satisfying sacrifice for our sinfulness (propitiation), we were forgiven and set free to have a personal relationship with God. It is the blood of Christ that identifies us with Christ.
Paul says in v.7, it is “through his blood.” We read in Hebrews 9:22, “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins." It is the blood that underscores the reality of our guiltiness and Jesus' perfection. The Lord Jesus died because our sinfulness separated from a personal relation with God. The Lord Jesus died because he took our place.
Jesus' blood was special. It was the blood of perfection. And, it was through His shed blood that the believer is purified in the eyes of God. The blood of Jesus Christ makes accessible to the believer the forgiveness of God.
The Old Testament has 39 books in it. The one thread that ties them all together is God’s covenant to His people and a foreshadowing of the coming of Christ. The one thing that ties them all together is the blood of the lamb.
In Exodus 12, on Passover night, Israel was delivered by the blood of an unblemished lamb. This blood spread over the doors of their houses was applied in faith. The sacrifice of the lamb, the blood shed in their place, caused death to pass over them.
The Israelites were not saved because they were good people, they were saved because they trusted in the blood of the lamb.
In 2 Corinthians 5:21, we read, “He who knew no sin, was made sin for us.” And when He became what we are, God put Him to death, because in doing so, He took upon Himself that which separated us from God.
In v.9 of our text we learn that God made known to us the mystery of His will which is, according to v.10, that all things might be in unity under the rule of Christ.
The Greek word for "unity" means "to head up," to relate to Christ as a body relates to its head. The Lord Jesus will one day be the leader, the supreme operator, of all things, both in heaven and on earth.
Now, we live in a divided world. We are out of step with nature because we are separated from it. Sin has even come between us and creation. Sin works to keep us from being in harmony with the world of nature in which we live. We are even at war among ourselves, with nation against nation, class against class.
Struggle, strife and division are evident on every side. We even fight within ourselves. We want to do the right things, but at the same time we want to do exactly the opposite. The Lord Jesus came to stop all this. He has come to heal the division, to end it, to heal the broken relationships, and to end the strife.
In v.8, Paul writes, God has lavished His grace upon us "in all wisdom and understanding." These two words, sophia and phronesis, were well understood by the Greek world. Sophia was the passion of the philosophers. They loved to try to find the secrets of life and to seek after wisdom. Phronesis was the common-sense, practical application of these to the problems of life. So Paul says that this mystery of God's will came to us through wisdom and understanding made known in Jesus Christ.
The key to all of this is a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Himself. It is only in a personal and interactive relationship with God the Father through His Son that we access His wisdom and understanding. When we do this, we see the foolishness of feeding the flesh, the sinful part of our being.
