In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace. Ephesians 1:7
What is your greatest need? The answer to that question depends on how you see your circumstances. To a thirsty man in the desert, the answer is ‘water’. To a starving refugee, the answer is ‘food’. To a debt-laden bankrupt, the answer is ‘money’. To a lonely outcast, the answer is ‘company’. Ask anyone, the answer depends on how that person views their need at the time you ask therm. But there is a need that is greater than all the temporary and temporal needs that we encounter in this world. Because time is short and eternity is long, we must give the greatest consideration to what we need for eternity. And because our sin will forever banish us from Heaven and condemn us to hell, our greatest need is to resolve that great sin issue. We need our sins forgiven. And our text declares that forgiveness of sins is included in the great treasure of spiritual blessings that accompany our salvation.
When we use the words ‘redeemer’ or ‘redemption’, we are usually speaking in Biblical conversation, referring to Christ and our salvation. But those words held a very special and powerful meaning for people in the days when the book of Ephesians was written. Remember that as Paul wrote this book, as many as one third of the population of cities such as Ephesus were slaves. A redeemer was a person who paid the price to set a slave at liberty, and redemption was that act of purchase and setting at liberty. For a freed slave, no person was more important than the redeemer and no event more important than the redemption. Do we see these terms in that light? We should. Sin held us in a deeper slavery than ever a Roman taskmaster could, and we had no resources at all to purchase our freedom from that awful bondage. That is why we make much of the blood of Christ. We sing joyfully of it; we speak of it thankfully in our prayers; we remember it gladly as we take the cup during the Lord’s Supper. It was only ‘through His blood’ that our Redeemer could purchase our redemption. And because He has paid that great price, He extends to us the forgiveness of sins.
We use the term forgiveness today when we refer to a debt that no longer has to be paid to the party to whom is was owed. If you owed me five dollars, I could wave it aside and tell you to forget it, because it’s just a small matter. But if you owed me five thousand dollars, my willingness to forgive that debt would diminish, because it would cost me considerably to do so. The debt that you and I owed to God because of our sins was far beyond calculating, because every one of those sins required a death, demanded the shedding of blood. But it was a price that the Lord Jesus was always willing to pay, and that He did pay in full at Calvary. God can forgive us on the basis of that infinite payment.
Our chief occupation in eternity will be to explore the riches of God’s grace. And we will learn so much more than we know today about our redemption, the forgiveness of our sins. – Jim MacIntosh