Ephesians 1:7a declares that redemption is found in Christ alone: “In him we have redemption through his blood.” Paul is moving from God’s eternal purpose in salvation to the moment in history where that purpose was accomplished through the cross of Jesus Christ. Redemption is not found in human effort, morality, religious ritual, or self-reform, but only in the Beloved, the Lord Jesus Christ. From before the foundation of the world, God purposed that every spiritual blessing would be found in his Son, so that salvation would be entirely his work and all glory would belong to him alone.
Redemption is the deliverance of helpless sinners by the payment of a ransom, and the price of that ransom was the blood of Christ. Humanity is not merely weak, but in bondage to sin, under death and the wrath of God, unable to rescue itself. Yet God, in both justice and mercy, provided the payment himself through the violent, substitutionary death of his Son. Christ’s blood is not symbolic, but the very cost of salvation. Therefore, the call of the text is to look to Jesus Christ alone, the Redeemer who paid the full price, and to respond with faith, assurance, humility, and praise.
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This morning we continue in our study of the letter of Ephesians. We have made our way through the first six verses of chapter 1. And this morning, as is our practice, we pick up right where we left off. This morning, we look at verse 7.
So far in this section where we are right now, beginning in verse three and continuing through verse 14, we know, as I have stated multiple times so far, that this is one long sentence in the original Greek language. While we have different sentences broken down here and we even have the verses broken down into numbers, none of those were original. The original Greek starts with blessed and ends with glory in verse 14. And it is a doxology, meaning it is a praise. It just flows out of Paul here at the beginning of his letter following just a simple statement of God’s grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And it’s like Paul just had a word vomit all after that. Overwhelmed by the grace and peace of God in our Lord Jesus Christ, he begins this long sentence, beginning with the blessing, blessing God for all the blessings that he has blessed us with in his great salvation.
And so far we have seen this salvation, parts of this salvation, bits at a time as we work our way through this sentence. We have seen God’s eternal purpose unfolding here step by step. He has chosen us in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world. He has predestined us. And let me remind us in the room that the us is believers. It’s the church. It’s Christians. This is not a general statement including all of humanity. He is speaking directly to those who have been saved by God here. Okay? He has predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. And what we saw last week is that he did this, all of this so far, according to the good pleasure of his will, according to the praise of his glorious grace that he has lavished on us in his beloved Son.
So God, in this sentence, in these verses, is opening us up, opening up eternity to us. He is revealing to us his glory in salvation. He’s showing us what we could not see. We cannot see eternity, can we? You weren’t there before the foundation of the world, were you? So, it is God’s good pleasure, in his good pleasure, he has decided to reveal these things to us, to tell us, “Hey, here’s what I’ve done. You weren’t there. You would have no idea how I brought this about if I wouldn’t tell you how I’ve done this.”
And that’s what God is doing for us through the Apostle Paul, and originally to the context of these early Christians in Ephesus and the surrounding area. He is revealing to the church who God is and what he has done, showing us his sovereign delight, the purpose of his love, his grace that is overflowing more than anything we can fully comprehend.
And now we come to verse seven and it just keeps going. Paul brings us now from eternity, because all that we’ve talked about so far is from eternity past. Again, I know I keep bringing this up, but it just bears repeating. We keep arguing about these words and about these phrases and about how it happened, and all of those things happened before anything else existed. So, how can we even possibly think that we can take credit or think that we can understand these things fully on our own? It’s all beforehand. We would not know any of those things unless God revealed them to us.
All we know in our experience of things is how God saves us now, what he has done in time. And that’s the transition here from verse 6 to 7. All that has taken place so far that we’ve learned about happened before anything else existed. Now, between, in our English again, the period after beloved and the capital I in in, time, a whole lot of things took place. God created all things, the heavens and the earth. He created the entire universe and set it in motion. He created and formed man and woman, set us on our trajectory. Although we’ve fallen, and now because of that fall, we are all in need of salvation. Everything that has happened from that point up to where we are talking about today has taken place. There’s a whole lot between those two words that we don’t see. But everything we’ve learned about so far happened before there was anything that existed except for God.
And so now Paul brings us into the place where this salvation that was planned beforehand actually touched down on the earth, touched into time, came at just the right time as he has planned, and that is the cross, the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In order that his plan from eternity actually is accomplished, this must take place.
So today we’re going to look at one single phrase from this verse. So, if you will stand with me for the reading of God’s word, I’m going to begin in verse three at the beginning of our sentence and read through our text this morning. Paul says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will to the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood.”
Father, this morning as we open your word, open your word to us as we see, Lord, this central moment in history, the reason that all of this exists. As we think about what has happened, what has taken place in time to bring about your plan from eternity past, Lord, overwhelm us once again with your great salvation. Overwhelm us once again with who you are. Teach us through your word. Reprove us, correct us, train us in righteousness through your word this morning. Do all this by your Spirit for your glory. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated.
We’re focusing our attention on this first phrase: In him, we have redemption through his blood. We’ll get to forgiveness. We’ll get to the riches of his grace. We’ll get to the wisdom. But let’s focus in this morning on this God who has redeemed us. It says, “In him we have redemption.”
We’re going to break this down into three points. You know, like a good Baptist, I’ll give you the points up front. It’s according to the text. But first, we’re going to look at God’s Christ. You’re like, “That sounds weird.” You’ll get it. Number two, we’re going to look at God’s ransom. And number three, we will see God’s payment.
In him, we have redemption. Notice right off the bat, where is redemption found? It’s in him. We who have been a part of this series so far, who have been here, you know who the him is. We just ended with the word last Sunday: the beloved. Who is the beloved? Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, fully God, God himself, but God the Son in particular in Christ. We could replace the him here so that we understand the context, but it is in him. Redemption is found in Christ alone.
Redemption is not found in human effort. It is not available through different kinds of religious rituals. Redemption is not found through being more moral. It’s not moral improvement. It’s not left as a possibility for those who try really, really hard. Redemption, being redeemed by God, which we’ll dig into here next, is not something that God just prepared beforehand. “Okay, I’m going to have this thing called redemption. And if you work your way into redemption, then you will also be redeemed.” No, he has redeemed. Redemption is found, it’s located in him by God. It was on purpose. If you would be redeemed, it will only be in the person of Jesus Christ. Amen.
And that’s not because we say it should be in Jesus because he’s a great example and that’s the one we should be redeemed by. It was placed in Christ by God himself. There is only one way to redemption and that is through Christ because God set it that way. It’s not because the church decided one day hundreds of years ago or thousands of years ago that you must believe on Jesus, that it must be through Jesus that you are saved. No, God decided that in him we have redemption.
God determined every spiritual blessing. This is another one in the line of spiritual blessings as we’ve been going through, even this one, that every one of the spiritual blessings that we have, as we have said multiple times, would be found in his Son. Paul says the very same thing in Colossians as he does here to the Ephesians. In Colossians 1:13, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption.”
This is not a coincidence. Like, wow, man, thank God that somebody named Jesus was born and figured out what needed to happen. No, this was by design. This is why all that we’ve talked about over the last few verses is so important, that we understand that it was before the foundation of the earth, that it was in eternity past, and it was according to God’s plan and purpose and will for his grace and for his glory, so that we understand that all of salvation in time as we experience it is all God’s plan. It’s his plan working out in time.
God did not leave redemption up to chance as a general offering up that anyone could just claim on their own. He put it in Jesus. He said, “You must look to Jesus. You must look to my Son.” It’s not a concept that we can understand as men trying to get there, to attain, to work towards, to earn.
You believer, and I believe that the believers in this room know this, at least the ones who are members of our church know this, you did not save yourself. You did not redeem. That’s not even how redemption works. That’s not even how being redeemed works.
If your testimony, and I’m going to step on possibly some toes either in this room or from somebody that might listen to this later on, if your testimony sounds anything like, “I finally decided to get my life right and came to Jesus,” or “I got my life together and started following God,” that’s not redemption. That’s deception. You are deceived. If you believe you have done something to earn God’s redemption, you have not received God’s redemption, because it is not of works lest any man should boast. You have deceived yourself or somebody has deceived you into thinking that you made it possible for God to save you.
God is the one who redeems. Redemption is a sovereign work of God alone. It is God’s specific, personal work accomplished through the beloved in Jesus Christ. Beloved, God is the great Redeemer. He does not just permit redemption to take place. He performs it. He redeems. He is the sovereign one who has treasured up all these things, every blessing in Christ, so that, just like we looked at last week, Christ alone, God alone, receives the glory in saving people, in redeeming sinners.
The in him here is not giving us a location for our convenience. Paul is declaring the Father’s eternal decision that all salvation will flow through the Son because the Father willed it to be that way. This is God revealing himself as the one who rules over redemption. He is not just a passive giver of redemption. He is an active, purposeful Redeemer who has centered everything in him, that is, in his beloved Son Jesus Christ.
In him we have redemption.
Let’s look at number two here. We’re going to dive into redemption: God’s ransom. The word redemption here means deliverance by the payment of a price. Basic definition. But in this context, in the original language, it is a word that was used within the slave market. Scary. That’s history. That’s what it is. The word was used in referring to a person who was captured, who was owned, who was powerless, who was without hope until a redeemer comes to pay the full ransom price to redeem them and set them free forever.
So in the Old Testament, we see in a physical sort of way God redeeming Israel from Egypt. He didn’t do it because they were righteous and deserving. Obviously, and they proved that pretty quickly after they got out. He did it because he’s the faithful Redeemer who remembers his promises and keeps his covenant. Listen to what he says in Exodus 6:6: “Say therefore to the people of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with great acts of judgment.”
So there in Exodus, he is speaking of redeeming them from a physical, earthly captivity. But here in Ephesians, we’re not talking about liberating slaves in the world. To make that jump is to miss the context of this whole passage. It’s better. As much as we should try to free slaves, we should understand this is way deeper, way more important because the bondage that mankind, that all of us, are in is way worse than any physical slavery. Amen. I don’t know if everybody really understands that or believes that.
I know we don’t like slavery and there are some things in our world that are happening today that we hate and we don’t want to see and are terrible things and should not be happening. But the state of every single human being born naturally in this world, the bondage to slavery to sin that every person is in, is worse than all of that combined. You’re like, “How dare you? You’ve never been in that situation.” You don’t really understand how spiritual things work. You can be a temporary slave all your life, but if you die as a slave to sin, you spend eternity lost. That’s way worse. And that’s the redemption that he is talking about here.
The bondage we are in is to sin. It’s to death. But more than even that, what we fail to realize oftentimes when we’re talking about this topic, it’s the wrath of God that is the worst of all. We were not merely captives. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, children of wrath by nature like the rest of mankind, where we’ll get to in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 3. That’s what it’s talking about. There was no possibility of rescuing ourselves there. There was no opportunity for us to redeem ourselves. We might get out of physical slavery. We might get out of physical bondage. But you cannot get yourself out of spiritual bondage.
No amount of good deeds will ever outweigh in some large mystical balance. You can’t pay the ransom that you owe. You are hopeless. We were all slaves to sin without even a penny to pay toward the huge debt that we owed for our freedom. And yet Scripture repeatedly presents Christ and his work that he has done as our ransom.
Listen to these words. Matthew 20:28 says, “The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many.” Acts 20 talks about the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. Romans chapter 3 talks about the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. 1 Corinthians 6:20 says, “You were bought with a price.” Galatians 3 says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” And 1 Timothy 2:6 says, “He, that is Jesus, gave himself a ransom for all.”
It is clear from this verse that a price has been paid. It says, “We have redemption.” The price has been paid. But to whom? Notice who holds the claim here. It’s not Satan. Man has not sinned against the devil. Man has sinned against God. The debt that requires being cancelled is owed to God, to his justice. It’s not owed to that rebel archangel Lucifer, the devil, Satan. The payment is made to redeem the sinner from the demands of God’s justice, not from the devil.
Listen, Satan has no legal claim on anyone. God holds the claim and it is God who receives the payment. But even more than that, God is the Redeemer who pays the very price that is necessary himself. He doesn’t stand at a distance. He enters in. And he buys back what was lost.
You see, this shows who God really is. He’s holy and he is against sin. Yet, he is merciful to sinners. He is just in his wrath for sin, but he’s willing to bear that wrath in his Son. Listen, here it is simply: We are saved by God, from God, for God. God redeems us for himself, from himself, and all by himself.
So look to the cross and see our God, beloved. See the one who hates sin so much that blood must be shed. See the one who loves sinners so much that he’s the one who sheds it. Redemption is not a transaction that God is overseeing. It is God himself displaying both his righteousness and his mercy in that moment, in one moment of redeeming a sinner. The cross itself is God upholding his holiness and at the same time extending his grace. It is God satisfying his own justice so that he can remain just and at the same time justify the ungodly. This is the God we worship. He is the Redeemer who does not delegate the cost to you or anyone else, but he pays it willingly.
In him we have redemption.
Number three: God’s payment. In him we have redemption through his blood.
You see, Paul doesn’t say here, listen, Paul doesn’t say here, in him we have redemption through his example. It doesn’t say here, in him we have redemption through his teachings. It says in him we have redemption through his blood.
And now this isn’t like maybe you’ve seen movies or maybe growing up you would cut a little part of your hand or on your finger and you would shake hands with a friend and we’re blood brothers now. Or you’ve seen movies where they have to, to break a spell or something, you have to get some blood from the person and then he… No, that’s not what blood means here. And it doesn’t mean that Jesus put a nick on his thumb and on the redemption receipt he just went, “Okay, there’s that. There’s some of my blood for that.” No.
Through his blood is referring to a violent and substitutionary death. That is the price of our redemption. You see, Leviticus 17:11 says, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.” And then Hebrews 9:22 makes it very plain and clear: “And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.”
God requires blood for sin. God required blood for sin. And for our redemption, God also provided it. God gave his only begotten Son. He gave him up. Romans 8:32 says, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all.”
This is who God is. This is the God who loves his Son with perfect eternal love like we talked about last week and yet loves sinners enough to crush that Son under his wrath so that our redemption would be secured. The cross is not an accident in history. It is God’s deliberate act of mercy toward sinners through the blood of Christ.
God shows himself to be both just and the justifier. Again, he satisfies his own holiness and extends mercy all in that one act. Beloved, unlike what some liberal churches teach today, the blood of Christ was not a symbol. It’s not symbolic. It’s the price God paid. It is the evidence of his love and the demonstration of his justice.
When we read these words, through his blood, we’re not looking at what we did. We’re looking at what God did. He provided the lamb. He offered the sacrifice. He accepted the payment. This is God revealing himself as the Redeemer who stops at nothing to save his people.
So throw out any thought that redemption is some cheap automatic thing or something man-made or man-initiated. Here’s the truth of the text: God paid blood, his own Son’s precious, priceless blood, to redeem sinners. So when that temptation comes, when the guilt accuses you, when life gets hard and starts pressing in, look to Jesus, the one who died on the cross and rose from the dead to pay for your sins. Preach that truth to yourself daily. That’s my God. He’s the Redeemer. He is the one that paid everything.
Listen, one look at God’s costly love in the gospel drives out complaining. Hey, you complainers, look to Jesus. One look at God’s gospel drives out fear. Hey, you who are afraid, look to Jesus. One look at God’s love in the gospel drives out all doubt. Hey, you doubters, look to Jesus. One look at God’s redeeming work fills up the Christian heart with praise for the Redeemer who alone is worthy. Listen, one look at Jesus will change the way you live today.
Oh soul, are you wearied and troubled? No light in the darkness you see? There’s light for a look at the Savior and life more abundant and free. Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.
Here is the truth we stand on today: Beloved, in Christ alone, God has accomplished redemption through his blood. He planned it in eternity. Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, and he purchased it in time at Calvary. This is God revealing himself as the holy Redeemer, the only one willing and able to pay the price, the ultimate price. And he did it all to display his own glory.
Beloved, behold your God, the one who did not spare his only Son, the one whose blood alone redeems. Look to Christ who condescended, took on flesh to ransom us. And praise God that you are redeemed. Amen. Amen.
If you want, I can also format this into a cleaner manuscript layout with Scripture quotations set apart and section headings preserved for preaching notes.