Redemption in Christ
- Tim Cain
- Mar 13, 2010
- Series: Ephesians
Kaleo El Cajon
Tim Cain
March 13, 2010
Eph 1:7
Has anyone ever come and told you about something that sounded too good to be true? Told you about a vacation, a business deal, a house, something that sounded amazing but seemed way too good to be true? How do you feel when you hear about these deals? You feel torn don’t you? There is a part of you that wishes it was true. You wish it were true because it is something you have always longed for but never thought was actually possible. And so when someone tells you that you might be able to afford a dream vacation, or that you might be able to own your own home, or that you might be able to change the way you look, or find someone who would truly understand you and love you, when you hear about these things there is a part of you that wishes so much they were true. A part of you seems to come alive doesn’t it? If we are honest all of us have these feelings. These are the feelings that drive people to take great risks simply because there is a chance, however small it might be, that they might be able to have something they never thought was possible. This is the feeling people get when they gamble and they see all the money in the pot, money they never thought they would be able to have and the dice are rolling or the cards are turning or their team has the ball at the end of the game. All of us have dreams, things we long for really bad but don’t really think we could ever have. And then someone comes and tells us that we might be able to have them and a part of us comes alive.
However, that part that comes alive, that part is also the part that is crushed when these amazing promises don’t pan out. This is the part of us that is crushed when we felt like something we really longed for was within our grasp and then it was ripped away from us. And the more this part of us has been crushed the smaller it becomes. The more promises that have been broken, the more skeptical we become. The more walls we put up, the less likely we are to trust someone just because they seem to have amazing plans. We see this with kids all the time. A kid will believe anything, they believe it because they want it to be true and they trust the person telling them. But as they grow older they no longer believe everything they are told. The more promises that are broken, the more times they have been crushed, the more walls they put up and the more guarded they become.
All of us here today have been hurt by broken promises. All of us have put our trust in things that have failed to satisfy us. We have been burned. We have been burned by stuff we bought that did not actually satisfy us in the way we thought it would, we have been burned by people who have promised us they would never leave, promised us they would always be there for us, and promised us they would never hurt us. We have been burned and now we are no longer able to believe something just because it sounds amazing. We realize that simply believing something won’t make it come true. And we know how painful it is to be crushed and so we have become skeptical of amazing promises. Promises make us ask questions. Questions like, “how are you going to pay for it?” or “How do I know I can trust you?”
Over the past few weeks we have come together and we have heard amazing promises. We have heard about God’s amazing plans for us. We have heard that before the foundation of the world God chose us in Christ. And he chose that we should stand before him holy and blameless. We have talked about how God has predestined us for adoption. How he has come to adopt us as his children. Not simply to rule over us as our king but to adopt us into the royal family. To give us an inheritance, to call us his children, and to let us call him Dad. The God of the universe wants us to call him Dad. He wants us to feel like we can talk to him whenever we want, like we can tell him about our day and he will always listen. He wants us to know that everything good we ever have has been a special gift from our Father. These have been sweet promises. These have been amazing truths. And deep down inside I have felt an insane longing for these things to be true. We hear them and a little part of us comes alive and says if these things were true everything would be different. If God was my father I wouldn’t have to be so bitter about how my parents treated me, I wouldn’t have to feel empty cause I didn’t have a father to raise me, I wouldn’t have to feel this huge void because my parents or my spouse or my children don’t love me and treat me like I think they should. If this was true I wouldn’t have to feel like an orphan anymore. I wouldn’t have to feel alone at night. I wouldn’t have to feel like no one really understood me.
We want these things to be true. We hear them and everything in us says “Oh if this was true.” “If God chose me to stand before him holy and without blemish I wouldn’t have to be so ashamed of my past. I wouldn’t have to be afraid that everyone was judging me. Everything would be different.” But then there is a part of us. A part of us that doesn’t know if we can be hurt again. A part of us that feels like these promises are too good to be true. A part of us that doesn’t understand how this could be possible.
And we don’t get how this could be possible because we know we don’t deserve these things. We know deep down inside that we don’t deserve to be children of God. Not only do we know that we don’t deserve these things, the Bible actually tells us that we don’t deserve these amazing promises. The Bible tells us that we don’t deserve to be children of God, in fact it tells us that we are God’s enemies, that we are hostile toward the things of God, that we are sinners and not merely sinners but that we are slaves to sin. Jesus says in John 8:34, “Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” Galatians 4:8 says, “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.” The Bible says we are born slaves to sin. Do you understand what that means? It means that we are born enslaved to doing those things which make God sick. We are enslaved to disobeying God. Enslaved to fighting against his good commands and instead doing things our way. Enslaved to rejecting the very purpose of our existence, which is worshiping him and choosing instead to worship stuff that he made. And the wages of this sin is death. Death is what we deserve. Not merely physical death and then heaven or nothingness, but physical death followed by an eternity of bearing the just and fair wrath of God as punishment for our open rebellion against him.
You see when we rightly understand our condition it actually makes the promises harder to believe doesn’t it? When our eyes are open to just how sinful we are, how selfish and proud we are, how much we abuse and mistreat others who are created in the image of God and how much we give our lives and our energy to temporal things which will never satisfy us. When we truly understand our position it makes these promises seem even more impossible, even more too good to be true.
And so even though every single fiber of our being longs to believe them, there is a part of us that still has questions. A part of us that wants to know how on earth it is possible. How can a holy perfect God who hates sin and must punish it truly adopt people who are slaves to sin? How can he do that? We are slaves to sin who deserve death, how can we be adopted and God still be just?
Paul knows that this question is coming. He understands how impossible it seems and so he tells us how God can possibly adopt slaves to sin. The answer is found in Ephesians 1:7, “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us…” The way God adopts sinners is by redeeming them. Paul spells out this same concept in Galatians 4:3-7 where he says, “In the same way we also, when we were children were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”
Do you see what he is saying? He is saying that the way God adopts slaves is by redeeming them through Christ. That is how he does it. Of course to really understand this we must know what the word “redemption” actually means and exactly how God does it through Jesus. So, lets take a moment and try and understand what Paul means by the word redemption. Both in Old Testament times and in Paul’s time slavery was a very common thing. Now there were many reasons someone might become a slave but one very common reason someone might become a slave was because they owed money and couldn’t pay it back. You see in the ancient days there was no bankruptcy, no foreclosures or short sales. If you borrowed money to start a business and it failed, you would have to sell yourself and your family into slavery in order to pay back what you owed. However, built into the system was a way to freedom. You see slavery didn’t have to be the end. Even for slaves there was hope. There hope was in the word redemption. D.A. Carson explains what this looked like in the ancient times. He writes: Speaking of a slave He says,
But suppose that you have a well-to-do cousin twenty-five miles away (a day’s journey) who hears that you have sold yourself into slavery. Not only is this cousin well to do; he is pretty decent. So he decides to buy you back. He redeems you. He travels a day’s journey to where you have become a slave, and he makes an arrangement with your owner. There was adequate provision for this under the law. The way it normally worked was like this: the redeemer paid the price money for the slave but he paid it to a pagan temple plus a small cut for the temple priests. Then the temple paid the price money to the owner of the slave, and the slave was then transferred to the ownership of this temple’s god. Thus, the slave was redeemed from the slavery to the slave owner, in order to become a slave to the god. Of course, if you are a slave to a pagan god, that basically means that you are free and can do anything you want. It was in part a legal fiction in order to say that the person does not lose his slave status but nevertheless is freed from slavery in the human sphere because the price has been paid.
When this would happen you would say that the slave had been redeemed.
So, you can see just how loaded this word redemption is. It is a word from the marketplace. It is a word about slaves. Redemption speaks of how slaves are freed. They were freed when their debt was paid. Whatever the price the slave owed, that price would have to be paid and when it was paid the slave was said to be redeemed. Guys this is amazing news. This means that our slavery to sin doesn’t have to be the end. There is hope even for slaves. There is hope because redemption is possible.
So, Paul tells us how it is that slaves can become children. He says, yes, yes you were slaves. Yes, you were utterly helpless and could never pay back the debt you owed. However, in him we have redemption. In him we have been set free. In him we have been rescued from our slavery to sin. And so we must ask, “Who is the him?” Who is the one who has paid for our redemption? Don’t you want to know? Don’t you want to know who it is that has come to redeem us from our slavery to sin? The him refers back to the previous verse where Paul is talking about the beloved. In the beloved we have redemption. The word beloved is referring to Jesus and it is referring to Jesus as the beloved son of God. The son in whom God is well pleased. And so we see that our redemption is “in the beloved.”
But what about the cost? What price was paid for our freedom? Well, in the ancient days the price that was charged for redemption would be the amount of money that you owed right? The more you owed the more it would cost to redeem you. So, what is it that we owed? Well, if you remember the Bible says that the “Wages of sin is death.” We owed our lives. And not just our physical lives but the wages of sin is eternal death; it is the wrath of God poured out on us for our sins. That is why Paul talks about Jesus blood. He says, “In the beloved we have redemption through his blood.”
I Peter 1:18 again emphasis the costly nature of our redemption when it says, “Knowing that you were redeemed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Our redemption cost the precious blood of God’s beloved son. I want you to think about it. I want you to think about Jesus for a moment. I want you to think about all the power that was at his disposal. I want you to think for a moment about what it means to be God. The bible says that Jesus created the heavens and the earth. Everything that was made was made by him. And so let us imagine we were redeemed with silver or gold. Let us imagine that we were redeemed with ten million dollars, how hard is that for Jesus to come up with? How hard would that be? He owns everything; he could pay that for each of us without any problem. But we cost more. You see that would not be enough to redeem us. Hear me, if you owed ten million dollars there would be no way you could every redeem yourself. You would be a slave, you would be utterly helpless, you would desperately need God, and yet it would be nothing for God to redeem you. He would simply snap his finger. But you cost more.
Imagine for a moment if you owed ten million dollars and there was no bankruptcy and you were sold into slavery and ripped from your family in order to work in the coalmines of West Virginia for the rest of your life, never again to see anyone you knew. You would feel miserable. You would feel desperate. You would beg for mercy. But I promise you your condition is far worse. The Bible says we are slaves to sin and death and when the time comes to pay our debt we deserve to be ripped from everything good we have ever known and suffer for all eternity the utter torments of hell. That is how much we owe and were all the world to get together they could not muster the price to free one person from this slavery. That is why God himself could not redeem us with anything perishable. Were God to make another universe all the wealth of that universe would not be enough to appease the righteous wrath that he has against us.
And yet Paul says that we have been redeemed? Peter tells us that redemption is possible because God has paid for it and he has paid for it with something more valuable than even another universe. He has paid for it with the only limited resource God had. You see if value is determined by how rare a resource is then there is nothing that could ever be more valuable than the precious blood of God’s beloved son Jesus. It is the only limited resource God has. The blood of Jesus is of infinite value, for it is the only thing that God does not snap his fingers and make more of.
The perfect, beloved, human Jesus poured out his blood for sinners on the cross. On the cross he paid our redemption price. The cross was where we were redeemed. When we ask God how he could possibly redeem sinners, when we ask him where he is going to get the money, when we ask him how we know that he’s going to keep his promises, he points to the cross. There, there is how I will redeem sinners. There, in the death of my beloved perfect son will I pay the redemption price for sinners. Oh what a price it was. On the cross we see just how much we owe. On the cross we see that we owe our lives. We owe not merely our physical lives but we owe the wrath of God poured out upon us just as it was poured out on Jesus. We deserve to be forsaken by God, tormented eternally for our sin. And yet we have redemption, through the blood of the beloved.
On the cross our savior came and took our place. His blood was shed where our blood should have been spilt. He bore the payment we owed for our sins and trespasses. I have been trying to think of how we could better understand the preciousness of our savior’s blood. How we could understand it in a way that would lead us to worship. And I was thinking about the story of Abraham and Isaac.
Do you remember the story where God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? I know I often think about it from Abrahams perspective, but lets take a moment and contemplate this story from Isaac’s perspective. He is a young man. Maybe he was in his teens. He must have been excited as his dad took him on a trip to make a sacrifice to God. It was just him and his dad and three servants. What a special time. And then they left the servants. And Isaac was carrying the wood. Just him and his dad. And as they were walking up the hill it suddenly struck him that they didn’t have anything to sacrifice. And he said, “Father, behold the fire and the wood but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham responded, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering.” I can’t imagine how those hours must have felt for Abraham as they walked up the mountain. He must have said some amazing things to his son. He must have seen this as such an important time to spend with his son. He must have made sure he told his son everything that he wanted him to know. And then they get there and they build an alter. And by now Isaac must feel like something is wrong with his dad. Certainly things can’t be going normally. And then Abraham comes to talk to his son. Imagine Isaac. Imagine as he hears that he is to be the sacrifice. Imagine how his whole body must just go weak. He must feel like he has just been punched in the stomach. He probably had to take some deep breaths as he tried to process what his Dad was saying. He no doubt pictured his mother, he would never get to say goodbye to her. He had to feel like this was so crazy. He had so much passion for life. He was so young, from the time he was born he had been fed all these promises, all these amazing promises and now this was to be the way it all went down.
All the promises of God and this was the way it was going to end. Who knows how long it took him to process this. To think about it. Maybe he asked for a few moments alone. Maybe he just hugged his dad and wept. Who knows? But eventually he goes to his father and gives him his hands. And his father ties ropes around his arms. And then he lets his dad pick him up. He feels everything. Every nerve is tingling trying to soak up the arms of his father. Trying to feel every last feeling so deeply. He isn’t ready. His mind must be so confused. And then his father lays him on the wood. The wood pricks his back; he hears some of the twigs break under his weight. He feels splinters as they pierce his back. And he lies still upon the alter. His eyes take in every last view. The sun, the clouds, the breeze, he feels everything. And then he sees his father pull out the knife. Maybe he closes his eyes, who knows, but he braces himself for the end. He braces himself to feel the knife upon his neck, to choke for a moment as his throat is cut, and then the end. The end of everything. Can you fathom what this must have been like for him? And then, as he is braced for the end he hears a voice. And he opens his eyes and he sees the knife but its not coming down on him anymore. And he hears an angel tell his father not to harm him. And then he sees his father’s eyes go toward a bush. And he looks and he turns his head and sees a ram. And his dad takes the knife and instead of slitting his throat Abraham cuts the rope from his wrist. Then he picks him up, takes him off the alter and they go and get the ram. And they bind the ram with the rope that was just around Isaac’s wrist. And then they placed the ram on the alter that Isaac just laid on. And then Abraham takes the knife and slits the rams’ throat and Isaac watches the blood come out. And as he watches the ram die. As he watches the blood drain out onto the wood, smells the scent of burning flesh, he knows that was supposed to be him. He knows it. Not just in his head, his back still stings with the splinters. He knows that was supposed to be him. His blood, his flesh, that was supposed to be him. The ram had taken his place. How do you think he felt? Seriously how do you think he felt? How precious was the blood of that ram to Isaac?
Oh nothing in the entire world could compare to that blood. It should have been his. That should have been him. Oh how he must have loved the sight of that ram. Oh how much he must have loved that sweet, innocent ram who took his place. Oh my friends when we realize our slavery to sin. When we realize the death that we deserve, the hell that we have earned with our selfishness and sin. When we know that we are the ones who should have been hung on the cross. When we don’t just hear it with our ears but when it sinks down, when our backs feel the splinters of the cross, when we know that truly, truly we deserve to be in hell. When we get that. When we realize we were slaves to sin, without hope, without any possible chance of saving ourselves. When we realize that we have been redeemed. We have been taken off the cross and another has taken our place. One who was not more guilty than us but less guilty. One who was completely and totally innocent. One who never should have died but who, in order to demonstrate his amazing love has come and died the death that we deserved. Then and only then can we know what it means when it says that his blood is precious. Oh how precious is the blood of the one who took our place. Oh how much we will love the blood of Jesus when we truly grasp that it should have been ours. It was our death he died. Our sin he bore in his body on the tree.
When we get that. When we begin to grasp what it means that Jesus, the only beloved son of God has redeemed us with his precious blood. When we get that then we can know what it means to be free. To have all of our sins forgiven. You see when he redeemed us from slavery to sin he forgave us all of our sins. He paid for their punishment. Oh when we see how beautiful his sacrifice is, we can no longer doubt his promises. When we see him shed his blood for us we know that our sins are forgiven. Really, truly forgiven. They are paid for. When we rightly see the cross we can no longer view God as an angry father who is disappointed in us. NO, when we rightly understand the cross we know that our God has poured out his wrath against our sins on Jesus. There is no other explanation for Jesus death. The beloved should never have had to shed his blood, so since he did, it can only be for someone else that he shed his blood.
So as we look at the cross we know that we are forgiven. Our God can’t be disappointed with us, he poured out all his disappointment for our sin out on his son. He can’t be mad anymore at our sin, look at the cross, at the cross God’s wrath against our sins was exhausted. It was poured out. There is no more left. He is not angry with us anymore. We are no longer slaves to sin, no longer enemies of God, no longer separated from the promise. No, we have been redeemed. Bought with the precious blood of Jesus, bought not in order to live however we want, but bought in order to be adopted. Bought in order to live like children. Bought in order to be loved, protected, cherished, and conformed into the image of our Father. Bought to be able to cry out to God “Abba Father.” Bought to be able to approach him blameless and holy in the righteousness of the beloved. We are redeemed through the blood of the beloved.
It is only as we begin to grasp this that we can begin to comprehend what are the riches of God’s grace. Oh how valuable, how precious is the grace of God which he lavished upon us. Guys our God is rich in grace. He is rich beyond your wildest imaginations. The cattle on a thousand hills is his. The universe is his. Every star, every planet, every dollar, every life, all of it is his and yet were he to wrap the universe into a ball and give it to us it would not compare to what he has already given us in his son. The riches of God’s grace are seen in the precious blood of the beloved that he freely gave to sinners. The riches of his grace are seen in the distance between how much he paid to redeem us and how worthy we were of redemption. Do you see that? The distance between the cost of our redemption and our own worthiness to be redeemed is the amount of grace that was required.
And at the cross we see both. At the cross we see first the great cost that God paid to redeem us. He paid with the precious blood of his only son. But we also see just how unworthy we were. We see how unworthy we were because it is our sins that killed Jesus. We killed the son of God. It was our sins that held him to that cross. Oh my friends, slaves to sin, who killed the only Son of God, we are not worthy of redemption. God did not choose us because we were worthy. Worthy people would have cost much less. But God chose unworthy people, slaves to sin, pathetic rebels who worship created things instead of the creator who is absolutely worthy. He chooses people who were so unworthy that they cost the blood of his only son in order to demonstrate to the world the riches of his grace. Guy’s there is no way to describe the riches of his grace. Words do not do justice to how gracious our God is. Eternity is not long enough to grasp the riches of his grace. It is that big. His grace is so big.
I want you to hear this, your sin, your sin is big, it is pathetic, it is terrible, it is worthy of infinite hell, the universe itself could not atone for it, but your sin is small compared to the grace of God. Oh yes your sin is a joke compared to his grace. Do not be a fool. Never think your sin is too big for God. Never think you have fallen too far from him to be rescued, never feel beyond redemption. There are some of you who feel like you are too sinful to be forgiven. Some of you who feel too evil, like you have waited too long, done too much, for God to forgive you. I tell you tonight you are wrong. You are wrong. The riches of God’s grace are infinitely greater than your sin. He has forgiven the cumulative sin of millions, your sin, your sin is nothing compared to his grace. Try as you might, you can never fall beyond his reach. Oh the riches of his grace. Oh the riches of his grace that he has lavished on us in the beloved when he redeemed us through his blood.
Guys these promises are massive. The blessings that God has blessed his people with in the beloved are massive and were they to come from anyone other than God you would be a fool to believe them. But as massive as these promises are, your God is able to fulfill them. He is rich in grace. He has what it takes to make good on all his promises. You can trust him. He proved himself when he sent his only son so that through his blood we might have redemption from our slavery and be adopted as children. Seriously what more proof could we ask for? What more could he give?
Tonight as you come up to take communion. As you come up and take the bread and dip it in the wine know that this is the price of your redemption. The broken body of the beloved. The shed blood of the beloved. Know as you rip off the bread this should be your body, torn in pieces because of your sin. As you dip it in the wine know that this should be your blood, spilled out for your rebellion.
My friends your God offers you his grace tonight. The grace to forgive all your sins. To rip your sins off of you and separate them as far as the east is from the west. To remember your sins no more. Your God does not forgive you like your wife forgives you. He does not forgive you like your bosses, or like your parents. No, when he forgives you he remembers your sin no more. He rips your sins off of you and places them on his only son and then he pours out his wrath against your sin on him so that his precious blood pours out and the punishment for your sin is satisfied. And you are now seen as blameless and holy in his sight. Your father sees you as his beloved child. As perfect and precious in his sight. He is not mad at you anymore. Not disappointed in you anymore. No, his grace has been poured out upon you. Your sin has been paid, you have been redeemed.
These are no mere promises. No pipe dreams. The price has already been paid. I beg you tonight to know the joy of being redeemed. Know the joy of being adopted. Know the joy of being a child of the king. Please, please I beg you that you would no longer live like slaves to sin but instead live like children of the king. You don’t have to ignore your sin anymore, to hide it, or to minimize it. You serve a God who is rich in grace and he has lavished it out on all who put their trust in him. To everyone who turns to Jesus and clings to his death for us on the cross God has given you the rights to called his children.
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