In verse 7 of Ephesians 1, in whom
we have our redemption through his blood according
to the riches of his grace, our redemption
according to the riches of his grace.
This matter of redemption is a very big
one to take many hours of consideration, and
like election it is a matter which has
been misunderstood and in some ways it has
been distorted.
There has been a good deal of confusion
over the matter, this priceless wonder of our
redemption, the meaning of that word.
There may be an element of truth in
it, but it is just there that the
confusion arises when redemption is pictured as matter
of taking a slave out of bondage by
paying the redemption money.
Well, I say there may be an element
in that idea or interpretation, but the difficulty
and the confusion arises when you ask the
question to whom is the money paid?
Has God got to pay the devil something?
Get back that which he has taken?
Is God a debtor to Satan?
Has God got to go into Satan's slave
market and put up a price to redeem
that which Satan has captured?
You see, it is an untenable idea, an
unthinkable thing.
God is at the mercy of Satan, and
Satan is in the position of saying, if
you like to pay me an adequate price,
I'll let you have what is in my
possession.
We will never recognize that.
So we have got to revise our idea
of this matter of redemption.
I say there may be an element of
truth in it, may go just so far
as we shall probably see, but that is
really not the whole truth.
And if we are not clear, we shall
be in some confusion.
So I want to try and make this
thing clear, for it is important that we
have a right understanding of things.
We rejoice in redemption, we sing about redemption,
we can never make too much of redemption,
but there is some real value in understanding
what we are talking about.
Having a right apprehension of the words and
the terms that we use so commonly.
And I just trust that what I say
about this will not make it seem to
be a complicated thing, but rather help us
to appreciate the real meaning of redemption.
Now let us begin where it does begin.
Redemption begins with being unto God.
It is redemption unto God.
No, the great word, the beginning of the
book of the Revelation, hath redeemed us unto
God.
That means that something has been taken from
God, which is God's right.
And if something has been taken from God,
the balance of things has been upset.
Things are not equal.
Things are not complete.
There is something lacking, which belongs to God.
And that being the case, things are unequal,
things are unbalanced.
If there is a family, and in that
family there are two sons, belonging to the
one father.
And one son is removed.
The balance of the family is upset, it
is lopsided, it is one sided.
And the father's position is divided and incomplete.
An unequal position obtains.
If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, that
is his complete lot, that's everything, his fullness.
And one of those sheep is lost, the
balance is upset.
Everything is not complete.
His possession is interfered with, disturbed, and things
are out of proportion.
If a woman has a necklace with ten
pieces of silver hanging from it, and one
of those pieces of silver is lost, then
the balance is upset.
She has not got all that belongs to
her.
Things are unequal.
The balance is disturbed.
The bringing back of those lost things, whether
it be a son, or a sheep, or
a piece of silver, restores the balance to
the owner.
There is redemption unto God.
God has all that belongs to him, is
his right, and there is completeness restored.
Redemption unto God.
But what is it really that has been
lost?
Of course, we have the parables and the
illustrations in the scripture.
It's not an illustration, a son, a sheep,
a piece of silver.
Many other things are employed to illustrate the
truth, but they are only illustrations.
What is it really that has been lost,
that has, by being lost, upset the balance?
It is life.
Now, here is the mystery of redemption.
What we are met with in the Bible
throughout, and of course I can't trace this
thing in half an hour, but what we
are met with in the Bible throughout is
this very matter of the disturbance of the
balance of life, and God's demand that that
balance shall be restored.
He is the author, the fountain, the origin,
and the whole sum of life.
Life is God's.
He alone is the rightful law of life.
Life is God's.
It belongs to God.
It is as though, if I may put
it this way, God has so much life,
just so much life, which is a complete
measure of life, a fullness of life, an
ultimate of life.
Life is just so much in God and
with God, not less, not more, just so
much.
Take something of that life away as you
upset the balance of life.
The whole thing is out of proportion.
And redemption means restoring that balance by restoring
the fullness.
Now then, here you have your Bible.
We are in these days very much occupied,
or the government is, and perhaps the country
is occupied with this matter of capital punishment.
Capital punishment.
A life has been taken, therefore another life
must equalize the situation.
Put it straight, put it right.
The balance of life must be restored.
That's the heart of capital punishment as in
the law of Moses, or before the law
of Moses.
In the law of the first covenant, whosoever
taketh man's life, his life shall be taken.
The law of capital punishment.
Oh why?
Just revenge?
Just judgment only?
Malice?
You do that to me, I do that
to you.
Is it just that?
No, there's a deep principle here.
So much life has been taken by the
slaying of that man.
God says that's got to be put straight.
That's got to be equalized.
The balance has got to be restored.
The law of capital punishment.
The law of the cities of refuge for
the manslayer.
Very interesting matter is that of the manslayer,
the cities of refuge provided because he has
taken life and the avenger of blood is
on his track to equalize this.
To take his life.
Put it straight, put it even.
Measure another thing up again.
Of course that's negative so far as the
Old Testament is concerned, but we haven't finished
yet.
You can see the principle is quite clear
I think.
It's just a matter of restoring the balance
of things.
Restoring the balance of things.
Now through the Old Testament it's like that.
It's all wonderful illustrations of great divine truth.
The point is life has been taken which
belongs to God.
It belongs to God because he is the
author of life.
It's been taken and God demands because he
is an equal God.
Equality or equity or righteousness which is a
perfect balance of things belongs to God.
Things must be even in God's universe.
Not out of proportion, not out of order,
not out of measure, but just perfectly even.
We come to the end of redemption.
Everything will be even.
Everything will be straightened out.
There will be nothing out of balance or
out of proportion, but all will be just
right.
Just right.
And righteousness will cover the earth as the
waters cover the sea.
And no one will have any ground for
a quarrel with God.
It's just right.
Now that's the point you see over this
matter of redemption.
It's a question of life.
There is in God's order, in God's universe,
in God's system of things a great equalizing
principle.
You can never be in fellowship with God
and be unrighteous in a detail.
Your fellowship with God, your oneness with God
is upset, is unbalanced.
It's like a dislocation of a limb in
the body if there is a point of
unrighteousness in life, in business transactions or in
relationships.
That's unrighteous.
All right.
Balance is upset.
And God is going to demand that that
is straightened out, evened out.
Righteousness is a tremendous thing with God because
it just means that God has things balanced,
perfectly balanced.
Now the focal point then, as we have
said, of this is life.
Now the Old Testament tells us that the
blood is the life.
The blood is the life.
You and I can never, never straighten this
matter out.
Man can never put this thing right with
God.
Man can never give God that which has
been taken from him.
Therefore his own son took flesh and blood.
And Christ's infinite blood, infinite blood.
You never yet fathom the depth of the
wonder of the blood of Jesus Christ.
It's returned for his life.
His infinite blood is given to God to
restore the balance, to make up what has
been lost, what has been taken from God
by ruthless hands, by the murderer who has
come in.
He restores to God by his own, let
us repeat it, infinite blood because it's got
to be sufficient to meet the demands of
an infinite God on the one side and
of all men on the other side.
Yes, sufficient life poured out by Jesus Christ.
God's son, for God's satisfaction, God shall have
all that he has of right and poured
out to meet that demand of God in
all men from whom this life has been
taken.
The payment is not to Satan, it's to
God.
It is redemption by his blood unto God.
There follows this that because man is by
this terrible thing that has happened in a
position of weakness, defectiveness, helplessness, he is in
bondage.
He is in bondage.
He is helplessly in bondage.
Now you of course can take your illustration
from your own testament.
Israel in Egypt, always referred to as the
land of bondage.
They were in bondage.
That's the word which governs their position there.
How were they delivered from that bondage?
Well we say by the blood of the
Lamb.
By the blood of the Lamb.
The operation was two-sided.
It depended entirely upon the attitude of the
heart.
The attitude of faith.
In unbelief and rebellion of heart as in
Pharaoh and the Egyptians persisted, the blood testified
against them.
It was their undoing.
But Israel was just as much in bondage
to sin to the world as Egypt was.
Just as much.
No difference.
The difference which did come about was by
their attitude toward the blood.
If any Israelite had by unbelief or rebellion
of heart refused to take that shed blood
and sprinkle it upon the doorpost, the mental
threshold making a circle of blood, they would
have done the same way as the Egyptians.
Remained in bondage and death under judgment.
But recognizing, of course they didn't understand.
They didn't know what we are talking about.
But they had the simple prescription and the
simple command that they should take that blood
of the Lamb without spot, without blemish.
Take it and sprinkle it.
And with that simple demand arose the demand
for the obedience of faith.
And thereby that blood answered for them to
God's requirements.
God knew the secret, the mystery of that
blood.
God who is the timeless, the eternal God
was not moving so many hundreds or thousands
of years before he was moving then and
there on the ground of his own Son
at Calvary.
The Passover Lamb.
And he knew the meaning of it while
Israel did not have the understanding.
God knew.
And he just made his simple requirement.
But bound up with this deep, this timeless
mystery of life.
Life.
God had a right to life.
God must have that which is his own.
Life.
And so the Lamb with its shed blood
symbolically answers to God's demand.
And in that life blood poured out, it
is unto God.
Remember, through all the Old Testament ritual in
Israel, the blood belongs to God.
The blood belongs to God.
It's sacred unto God.
Don't you drink the blood.
Don't you appropriate the blood.
That's poured out unto God.
That's God.
God's right.
You know that preserve of the blood, don't
you?
It's God.
It represents the life which belongs to God.
And in the giving that God has his
right, his portion, what belongs to him.
So when we come to this word in
Ephesians 1, we have redemption through his blood.
The forgiveness of our trespasses.
We have redemption through his blood.
And have, says John, redeemed us unto God
by his blood.
Would you like to change the word?
You can.
We have redemption through his poured out life.
Redeemed unto God through his poured out life.
That's the meaning of it.
The Lord Jesus, because of the infinite value,
the infinite measure of that which he gave
in his cross unto God, satisfied God perfectly.
In this matter of his requirement, his demand.
And although the explanation may sound a little
complicated and difficult, well of course it is.
It's the unsearchable riches.
Oh how, oh the depth of the riches
beyond us.
After all, in experience it's very simple.
You know dear friends, when you and I,
at the beginning of our Christian life, take
by faith the virtue of the blood of
Jesus Christ, we don't understand that.
We do not comprehend its meaning.
But in simple faith, we see that it
is by way of the blood of Jesus
Christ that we are saved.
And in that simple, that genuine, heart faith,
in the efficacy and virtue of the blood
of Jesus Christ, we take it.
And give ourselves to God on the ground
of it.
What is our first consciousness?
Everything's alright.
The dislocation has been adjusted.
The unbalanced state of things has been put
straight.
We call it peace with God.
Peace with God.
It's only another way of saying the same
thing.
God has what he requires for his satisfaction.
And if God is satisfied, we'll be well
satisfied.
If there is that in us that satisfies
him, the spirit will bear witness.
And although, I say again, we do not
understand, we are in the depths, the mighty
depths, depths which it will take eternity to
comprehend.
There's the simple beginning of this fact.
Everything was distorted, deranged, unbalanced.
There was something lacking that was essential, vital
to our peace.
All that sort of thing.
And now, we have peace with God.
The balance is restored.
God is satisfied in our hearts, we feel.
Although we cannot explain, we feel.
Well, somehow or another, a great adjustment has
taken place.
Things are equal now.
Things are straight now.
Put it as you will.
It's a consciousness, isn't it?
And what is true in that sense of
the initial aspect of our salvation will be
an abiding law throughout our Christian life that
if on any matter whatsoever, God's rights are
being withheld, he is not getting that which
is his due, in that measure, we shall
lack the wholeness of his rest and his
peace.
Sort of.
Now, if not an unbalanced state of things,
there's an oscillation in the balances.
Do you know something about that oscillation in
the balances of your heart?
Just not steady.
Something here that's uncertain, that's wavering, not sure
about this yet.
But immediately, you and I get that thing
cleared up with God.
It may be only one thing.
Get that straightened out and God gets what
he requires.
Peace is restored.
It's a wonderful truth in the Christian life,
isn't it?
It's simple in that way, but there is
the explanation.
Oh, why have I been holding out so?
Why didn't I get that thing cleared up
before now?
I've been spoiling everything for myself because the
Lord has not had what he had a
right to.
Now, redemption is initial, redemption is progressive, and
redemption is final.
There are the three tenses.
You can change the word from redemption to
salvation if you like.
It's the same thing.
We were saved.
We are being saved.
And we shall be saved.
Those are the three tenses of salvation.
Well, the first is what he has done
for us perfectly and completely, of which we
have accepted.
The second of the process of redemption or
salvation is that God is getting more and
more of that requirement of his in our
life.
And as he does, we are knowing more
and more of the balanced life, the steady
life of rest and confidence.
But, thank God, while that will go on
to the end of our days, salvation will
continue right to the last breath.
There is that ultimate, perfect salvation when with
that prong around the Lamb on the throne,
we shall see and hath redeemed us unto
God.
By his blood.
That is the final, last phase of redemption.
It's all in the infinite value of the
blood of Jesus.
See how great this is?
Well might the apostle here include this in
the riches of his grace.
The unsearchable riches of his grace.
The depth of the riches of his grace.
Providing God with that which we could never
give him.
Answering to God for his righteous demands which
we could never give him.
All these words are bound up together.
He is made unto us from God's righteousness.
Sanctification.
Redemption.
Righteousness.
The righteousness which is of God through faith
in Jesus Christ.
God has provided it all in his Son.
Now, I will add just a word here
as to the next thing in this group,
five-fold group of riches of his grace.
It will not take me more than a
few minutes to do this because it is
so closely linked in with what we have
been saying.
Election.
Adoption.
Redemption.
Thus each which he made to abound toward
us in all wisdom and prudence.
He made to abound unto us in all
wisdom.
One of the riches of his grace here
is this wisdom which he has made to
abound unto us.
Are this so many-sided and full matter
of wisdom made to abound unto us?
Christ made unto us from God's wisdom.
I am only going to say one thing
in this context, what we have said and
what the rest of this chapter contains.
What is wisdom in its meaning here?
Well, when the apostle, we will put it
this way, when the apostle has tabulated these
five profound things, unexplorable things, he goes on
his knees.
Now that was something extraordinary for a Jew
very rarely knelt down to pray.
He always stood up to pray.
If it was in the synagogue, he stood
up to pray.
Paul refers to this in one place when
he stands praying.
Now that was something extraordinary for a Jew
very rarely knelt down to pray.
He always stood up to pray.
If it was in the synagogue, he stood
up to pray.
Paul refers to this in one place when
he stands praying.
The common attitude and posture of prayer for
the Jew was standing and lifting up holy
hands.
It's only occasionally that you find such a
one on his knees.
You'll find Daniel on his knees.
And now here Paul says, I bow my
knees unto the Father.
What is this?
Why?
This unusual attitude, position, something unusual so to
speak, or is involved.
It's an occasion for something extraordinary.
You'll agree that that was so with Daniel.
Remember when he prayed, there was something tremendous
involved.
Now the apostle says, I bow my knees.
There's something here that is a tremendous matter.
And what does he ask, he pray for?
He has said all these things.
He knows how incomprehensible they are.
But he would grant unto you a spirit
of wisdom and in the knowledge of him,
the eyes of your heart being enlightened.
Now you've gotten the heart of wisdom.
What is the heart of wisdom?
It is the gift and ability of seeing
right into the heart of things.
The ability given to see into the heart
of things.
The spirit of wisdom and revelation.
Now Paul is writing in this letter about
the mystery, hidden from ages and generations.
From before times eternal.
Hidden in Christ.
Now brought out from the hidden place and
committed, conveyed.
Paul is trying to explain this.
To speak about this mystery.
And these five things are in the mystery.
Predestination, poor ordination, redemption.
And while they hear doubt that they are
mistress and men are fiends.
Putting themselves into intellectual distortions through hundreds of
years to explain just these words.
Predestination, poor ordination.
They are still going on with it.
Paul knows how deep are these riches of
his grace.
What a tremendous thing is brought to us
in Christ.
And before it all he falls down on
his knees.
I bow my knees to the Father.
He would grant unto you a spirit of
wisdom and revelation.
Wisdom and revelation.
That is the ability to see into the
heart of things.
And all I can add to that is
that the Holy Spirit has come, is with
us, in order to disclose to us the
heart of these things.
Perhaps the greatest need of Christians today is
to see the meaning of the things that
they believe.
See the meaning of what true Christianity is.
The meaning of all these things that make
up our Christian faith.
They are depths beyond our reaching.
They are abysmal things, these things.
We need an ability God given to be
able to see into the heart of this.
But thank God that is possible.
Thank God the Holy Spirit is given for
that very purpose.
And what I am saying to you dear
friends is just this, that you and I
may have this same spirit and this work
of the Spirit to open our hearts, the
eyes of our hearts.
Give us this wisdom to see into the
heart of the things of Christ.
And what a wonderful thing it is just
to see a little way in.
I never saw that before.
That is light.
That is indeed illumination.
That is revelation.
That is the truth.
It has an effect.
It is not just the mental pleasure, fascination.
It does something in us.
It puts us into a position where we
cannot throw that away easily.
It has become a part of us.
We will never say we can do without
that.
Well that is all very wonderful.
That is all very nice.
And so on.
But let us come back to the simplicities.
The things easily understood.
We cannot do that once we have seen
into the heart of things.
Cannot throw it away.
Cannot part with it easily.
To do so would be to do irreparable
damage to our own spiritual life.
I am this truth.
This light of one.
It is not some thing that I have
got.
It is myself, my very self, my very
life.
I have seen.
God has made it known to me.
No use, I cannot explain it all, but
there it is.
It is myself.
He has made it a part of myself.
That is wisdom.
Seeing right into the heart by the opened
eye.
Knowing in an inward way, an interior way,
the meaning of the things we have heard
and read.
Perhaps believe that dear friends, as I think
you will see from what I have said
this afternoon, there is a depth, a fullness
in such a word as redemption, which we
have only just touched the fringe of.
And everything else in our salvation is in
the same category.
It is of the dimensions of God himself.
And it is going to take eternity for
us to comprehend.
But it is given to us here to
know and to know more and still more
of the depth of the wisdom of his
grace.