Redemption, Forgiveness and Our Understanding of God’s Grace
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.
Ephesians 1:7,8
Paul has previously written that the Father has ‘blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ’ (1:3). He has then noted God’s choosing us ‘before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight’ (1:4). This led into the great truth of God lovingly predestining us to be His sons and daughters, adopted into His family through Jesus Christ (1:5). All of this is ‘in accordance with his pleasure and will’ (1:5).
Our adoption into God’s family has great privileges. All God’s children have free access to their heavenly Father, and their confidence before Him is because they have been both redeemed and forgiven. ‘In him we have redemption’ (1:7). The people of Israel were themselves a redeemed people. They had been slaves in Egypt, and later in Babylon, and God had redeemed them, making them His own people (Exodus 15:13; Isaiah 48:20). The fundamental idea of redemption is the setting free of something or someone that has come to belong to another. Sometimes in both Old and New Testaments, there is no specific reference to the price paid for the redemption but Paul immediately adds here ‘through his blood’ (1:7). The means of redemption, Christ’s blood, is a more startling description of its cost, Christ’s death. In the Jewish Passover a sacrifice was essential for the redemption of the nation. Instilled deeply into the consciousness of the people was the fact that sin could not be set aside lightly. Sin required sacrifice; ‘without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness’ (Hebrews 9:22; cf. Leviticus 17:11). Christ’s death, pictured through the shedding of His blood, was the price paid to appease God’s anger and redeem those who trust in that atoning death for them. His death meant blood had been shed as a sacrifice for sin. His death meant sinners could now be forgiven because sin had been righteously atoned for. ‘The forgiveness of sins’ (1:7) could at last be enjoyed by those who trusted in Christ’s death. The word ‘forgiveness’ means ‘the loosing of a person from what binds them.’ We are ‘loosed’ from our sins which formerly bound us. This forgiveness is ’in accordance with the riches of God’s grace’ (1:8). Paul speaks of God’s rich grace six times in this letter (1:8,18; 2:4,7; 3:8,16).
This grace has been ‘lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding’ (1:8). ‘Lavished’ expresses the super-abundance of God’s giving, the overflow from a deep and abundant source. ‘With all wisdom and understanding’ can be grammatically connected to God’s lavishing His grace on us (1:8) or His making known to us the mystery of His will (1:9). The NIV links the wisdom and understanding with God lavishing His grace on us. Wisdom and understanding are gifts from God but must be cultivated to be effective in a believer’s life (c.f. Colossians 1:9 where Paul prays that believers might be filled ‘with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding’). Only a little later in this same chapter in Ephesians Paul will write of his prayer that the believers be given ‘the Spirit of wisdom and revelation’ (1:17). In 1:8 here, the ‘already’ aspect of the gift is emphasised.
If ‘with all wisdom and understanding’ (1:8) relates to God making known His will (1:9), Paul is emphasising that those God has reconciled to Himself as children, He also enlightens with the understanding of His purpose (‘with all wisdom and understanding … he made known to us the mystery of his will’). Wisdom here is ‘the knowledge which sees into the very heart of things, which knows things as they really are,’ contrasted with understanding which is ‘the understanding that leads to right action.’ If this is correct, God’s wisdom is not just a higher philosophy as the Gnostics taught but the source of understanding the practicalities of daily living (c.f. Philippians 1:9,10).
Since we are now joined to Christ, we have been given the treasures of salvation by His blood–the total cancellation of our sins—all because of the cascading riches of His grace. 8 This superabundant grace is already powerfully working in us and flooding into every part of our being, releasing within us all forms of wisdom and practical understanding.
Ephesians 1:7,8 (The Passion Translation)