The Elements of Redemption - The Redemptive Results (Part 1)

Passage: Ephesians 1:6b-10

by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.  7In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, 10that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth-in Him.

 Redemption involves every conceivable good thing. This is the “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (v. 3). But here Paul focuses on two especially important aspects. One is negative, the forgiveness of our trespasses, and the other is positive, wisdom and insight.

Forgiveness. The primary result of redemption for the believer is forgiveness, one of the central salvation truths of both the Old and New Testaments. It is also the dearest truth to those who have experienced its blessing. At the Last Supper, Jesus explained to the disciples that the cup He then shared with them was His “blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:28). Redemption brings forgiveness.

Behaviorists and those from some other schools of psychology maintain that we cannot be blamed for our sin, that it is the fault of our genes, our environment, our parents, or something else external. But a person’s sin is his own fault, and the guilt for it is his own. The honest person who has any understanding of his own heart knows that.

The gospel does not teach, as some falsely maintain, that men have no sin or guilt, but rather that Christ will take away both the sin and the guilt of those who trust Him. As Paul told the Jews in Pisidian Antioch, “Through Him [Christ] forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things” (Acts 13:38-39).

Israel’s greatest holy day was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. On that day the high priest selected two unblemished sacrificial goats. One goat was killed, and his blood was sprinkled on the altar as a sacrifice. The high priest placed his hands on the head of the other goat, symbolically laying the sins of the people on the animal. The goat was then taken out deep into the wilderness, so far that it could never find its way back. In symbol the sins of the people went with the goat, never to return to them again (Lev. 16:7-10).

But that enactment, beautiful and meaningful as it was, did not actually remove the people’s sins, as they well knew. It was but a picture of what only God Himself in Christ could do. As mentioned above, afiemi (from which forgiveness comes) basically means to send away. Used as a legal term it meant to repay or cancel a debt or to grant a pardon. Through the shedding of His own blood, Jesus Christ actually took the sins of all who would believe upon His own head, as it were, and carried them an infinite distance away from where they could never return. That is the extent of the forgiveness of our trespasses.