Click here for an audio version of this study

Click here for a .pdf file that retains all of the original formatting. Easier to read.

­­­­LSB  Ephesians 1:7-10

7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He caused to abound to us in all wisdom and insight, 9 making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him 10 for an administration of the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth in Him.

I feel like we've had a bumpy beginning in Ephesians.  Probably just me.  But I am frustrated that the depth of truth here is so massive and I am so limited that we're just sort of walking through an orchard and picking a tiny bit of the low hanging fruit instead of fully harvesting the fullness of the crop.

Vs. 3 has begun us on a journey of worship and praise to God who has lavished us with blessings.  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

We were born into a world into a family into a race that is condemned.  Blanket condemnation.  Our father is Adam.  And every human born under Adam's corporate head is born into a rebellion against God.  We are born condemned.  Born into sin.  Prejudged before we were born.  Born rejected.  Born lost.  Born dead, in a way.  Disconnected from God our owner, designer and creator.  Born to wander in darkness like a blind person trying to feel where he's at.

12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned— Ro. 5:12

That death that is referred to that all sons of Adam hold in common is the death of removal and separation from the God who we were designed to know and worship.  Spiritual death is being cut off from God's presence and blessings.  Spiritual life is an intimate knowing, an intimate relationship with God the Father.  Death is being removed, being separated from God.  That's the natural state we are born into in Adam's race.  Separation in darkness.

Why do I keep going back to the negative?  Because the positive shines brightest against the background of where we began.  I'm a photographer.  I understand contrast in order to bring definition.

In Adams race, under Adam, we were born dead.  Born blind.  Born lost.  We couldn't find God.  We couldn't find meaning.  If you think I'm overstating the case, click on the news.  Something in man just keeps on inventing bigger and more effective evil.  

80 years ago we invented nuclear bombs.  Now we've invented artificial intelligence to throw those things at each other better than our enemies can throw them at us.  

I have to laugh.  At least I'm consistent.  Because of this book.  52 years ago I was sitting in a Navy indoctrination class in boot camp and the instructor said something crazy.

I had learned to be invisible.  Let the other idiots get noticed and take the brunt.  That was my modus operandi.  Keep your mouth shut and be as invisible as possible.  Do as you're told.  Let some other idiot shine the trash can with brasso.  My downfall is always the same.  When someone says something contrary to the Word of God, I have trouble keeping my mouth shut.

But the teacher, the first class was saying something I knew was false.  Man is basically good.  My hand shot up.  Breaking my protocol.  I said, Sir, the Bible says that The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?  Jer. 17:9

The human condition is we lie to ourselves and each other and we are desperately wicked.  That first class wasn't impressed.  He walked over to the little school desk I was sitting at so he could get a better look at whoever it was that was insane enough to interrupt and disagree with the Navy, and he told me he didn't care what the Bible says, this is what the Navy says.  Men are basically good.

And yet, here we are, 52 years later, with the world trying to come up with something that can regulate artificial intelligence before we use it to annihilate each other.  The White House, and the Prime Minister of Great Britain both published documents this week.  We must control this threat.

And we all sort of know, we can't do it.  Christians especially know, we can't do it, because of a single verse in Jeremiah that states the case.  Adam's race is hopelessly and uncontrollably evil and we are on a course to extinction.  If left to ourselves.

That's the backdrop to verse 3.  That's the background contrast for the beautiful words Paul tells us.  

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

There is selection there.  That verse is NOT for every person.  This is exclusive truth.  It is not for anyone who is within Adam's sinful rebellion.  We could say, not for those who are IN Adam.  Those blessings are for those who are In Christ.

There is a subject pronoun.  There is a modifier that defines the subject pronoun.  The subject is someone Paul simply refers to as "us".  And the defining modifier that tells us who the us is, are the words, In Christ.  These massive blessings are for all christians.

"Us" is anyone who has left Adam's race behind and who has been born again into a new race under a new federal head.  Christ.  We are rescued out of Adam's race and born again into Christ.  We are IN Christ.  He is our new federal head, because of all the things Paul is defining after this first verse that describes our position in Christ.  Every blessing, ours, in Christ.

Last week we looked at the beginning of that blessing.  Election.  We are chosen before the foundation of the world to be IN Christ.  We are adopted into a new family.  Rescued from Adams' condemned race and placed into Christ.  New creations in a new family.

This week Paul takes us into the mechanics of how that was even possible.  How is it possible for condemned rebellious dead sinners to be made alive together with Christ.  How is it possible for us to flee from the condemned race and be adopted into unimaginable wealth and blessing.  How??

7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions, according to the riches of His grace

Redemption is still a word that is in regular use.  Usually it's used in sports.  I went to google and pulled some news headlines;  Rangers Redemption: At long last, Texas wins its first World Series.  In sports redemption is winning back a title that was lost.  Regaining through victory.    

The dictionary says;  redemption is  .  .  .  the action of regaining or gaining possession of something in exchange for payment, or clearing a debt.

Minnesota leaders tout benefits of 'redemption' under new expungement law
Minnesota earlier this year became the 11th state to enact legislation making it easier to expunge certain nonviolent criminal records.

In Minnesota a new law lets your record be cleared.  Expungement.  Redemption.  Decrees against you removed from your public record.

I'll give away my age, not that it's any secret, but in my garage I have an old metal painted sign that says we give S&H green stamps.  High school kids would walk in there and see that and they wouldn't have a clue.  What in the world are S&H green stamps.

Well, it was a for profit scheme where retailers would give out these stamps based on how much money you spent.  Maybe $5 was a page of those stamps.  And then you took those home and pasted them in a green stamp book on empty pages and you'd fill up the books.  And you'd save all those books and once every couple of years you'd take them to the green stamp redemption center.

I'm trying to remember but I think ours were blue chip stamps.  Same thing.  But when Pam and I were newly weds, we took our wealth of stamp books to the redemption center and we bought ourselves camping equipment, and I'm trying to remember if we are still using some of it 50 years later.  Coleman stuff lasted a long time in those days.

But, same idea.  Redemption is a purchase.  We traded the value of those books of stamps for useful articles.  It was like a catalog deal.  A certain number of books full of stamps had a dollar value in merchandise and you redeemed the value of your books by trading them for useful merchandise.

Redemption is a value trade.  A purchase.  But here's the shocker.  God traded the most valuable thing in the universes, the life of His only Son, in order to purchase us out of Adam's fallen race, to belong, again, to Him.  See it there in verse 7.

7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions, according to the riches of His grace

Redemption through His blood.  Just a few second side bar to protect you against a modern error.  In the Bible, blood is used as an equivalent to death.  Leviticus 17:11 says;  The life of the flesh is in the blood.  Drain the blood out and death occurs.  Blood letting causes physical death.  When Cain slew Abel, God said that The voice of your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground..   Blood is synonymous with death.  Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. Heb. 9:22  Death caused by sin requires a 1 for 1 purchase.  

The wages of sin is death.  Therefore to purchase someone out of death, requires a 1 for 1 trade.  Death for death.  To purchase me requires someone to die the death that was my rightful wages for my sin.  

But we have people who are superstitious about the blood of Christ as if there is superstitious magic in the blood.  Weird.  My question to them, if the blood of Christ splattered on the Roman soldier with the spear who rammed it into the side of Christ, did that blood splattered by accident on him save him.  Is there some miracle quality of Christ's blood.  All kinds of weirdness.  No, blood is equivalent to death.  Death is what made the purchase, not physical blood.

So when Paul says; 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood,
Paul is speaking of the purchase of life for us through death we deserved, of another, in our place.

God bought us.  We could go back 200 years to when slaves were sold on an open market place.  A handbill would go up in the town square.  Slave sale at such and such a place and time.  Now the possibility existed, even in all of that darkness, for someone to purchase another person, redemption, value for value, in money, whatever that slave was worth to open bidders, and then you could set that slave free.  You redeemed the slave with the equivalent value in money, and then you made that slave a free person.

We were slaves to sin.  Trapped by sin in Adam's race.  On our way to our deserved condemnation.  But God redeemed us.  God purchased us for Himself.  He bought us out of our slavery to sin and condemnation.  And the purchase price He paid was death for death.  The death of His only Son in place of the death I deserved.

7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions, according to the riches of His grace

In a sense, God already owned me, as creator and owner of everything.  He didn't need to purchase me.  Ultimately He owned me and the condemnation I deserved was defined by Him for all who would rebel against Him.

God owns every condemned sinner.  In another world, at judgement, every knee will bow to Jesus.  The condemned will acknowledge Him as Lord, as they go to their righteous punishment.  He owns us.

The purchase, the redemption, was to buy us out of the death and condemnation we justly deserved.  That's what was purchased at redemption.  Death for death.  The death of God's Son in place of the death I rightfully deserved.  

The wages of sin is what?  Death.  Separation from God.  God owned me in my condemned state.  Good only for hell.  So the purchase of redemption wasn't to regain ownership, it was to get rid of the sin that condemned me.  Death for death.  Redemption overturned my position of separation from God because of my sins and filth.   7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions

Colossians 2:13-14 says,  13 And you being dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive with Him, having graciously forgiven us all our transgressions. 14 Having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us which was hostile to us, He also has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Sin caused a barrier, a removal, between us and God.  We get dead things out of the house as quickly as possible.  They stink.  That's what sin did to me.  I was about as appealing as a 10 day old bloated corpse.  Whoa!  Overwhelming stench.  Put on the Tyvek suit and the self contained breathing apparatus and get that thing out of here.  Pull up the carpets and call in a painter.

God doesn't want sinful rebellers around any more than we want a bloated dead rotting corpse around.  But;  He loved us and purchased us out of our sinful deadness by removing the filth.  God did that by imputation.

God sent His only Son to the cross and He piled onto Him, all of our filth, all of our sins, by imputation.  Then, likewise, by imputation God took the righteousness of Christ, His perfect life, and imputed that righteousness to my account.  When that was completed, He raised His Son from the dead.  The sins stayed at the cross.  Jesus burst out of the grave, the first fruit of many more sons and daughters.  The US in verse 3.  

You say, that's a LOT of sin.  Was Christ's singular death enough to forgive all of my sins, past present and future.  Is that really possible?  All of it?

7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He caused to abound to us in all wisdom and insight,

There is a limit to God's forgiveness and blessings.  It's right here in this verse.  In case you marvel and wonder if there's enough forgiveness and enough blessings to go around.  Do you see it there in verse 7?

7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions, according to the riches of His grace

There is no limit.  God's grace is limitless.  Infinite.  Psalms 103:12. - As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

You know, if the inspired author had said, as far as the north is from the south, we'd be in trouble.  That measurement from pole to pole could be made.  But it says - As far as the east is from the west . . .
How did some goat tender in the ancient world know that?  David, the shepherd King wrote those words.  

The limits of our forgiveness are the limits of the riches of His grace.  Limitless forgiveness in the blood of Jesus.  OK, He purchased us by redemption.  Death for death.  Sin removed.  Why?  What's next in these blessings.

according to the riches of His grace 8 which He caused to abound to us in all wisdom and insight, 9 making known to us the mystery of His will,

In Adam, we were stumbling around in our spiritual blindness, feeling around, trying to find God, trying to discover our purpose, hopelessly confused and lost.

But now, In Christ, with sins removed, according to the riches of His grace He has lavished us with abundant wisdom and insight.  He has made known to us the mystery of His will.

There are answers in this book.  Answers to the BIG questions. Wisdom and insight that the world is blind to.  And the light in this world's darkness is only turned on for the recipients of this grace.  When my sins were removed, in Jesus, the lights came on.  

And yet, that wisdom is only for regenerated, forgiven, Holy Spirit indwelt believers.  Lost people in Adam read this book and find confusion and anger.  I read it and find peace and security and wellness.

God has designed the blessings of wisdom and insight so that the they are singularly and exclusively available to those who have come out of Adam and who have been born again into Christ.  The world can read this book and be as lost as ever.  

But for us, it is wisdom and insight into the biggest questions there are.  Why are we here?  Where are we going?  Why is everything so broken?  What does it all mean?  Should I be afraid that nuclear warheads are aimed at Israel from every direction?  

The difference between the lost sinful world in Adam, and the US, those who are born again, In Christ, is that the world is in a panic.  All the time.  This world is all they have.  This is all there is.  And utter destruction looms from every angle.  If we don't nuke ourselves to death first, we're going to carbon ourselves to death anyways.  The doomsday clock, I just checked, it's 90 seconds to midnight.

The world is either in panic, or for many, the pain of these realities is neutralized by sex, drugs, and alcohol.  90 seconds to midnight, and I'm helpless to do anything about it, I may as well die medicated.

If this world is all there is, panic is a logical response.  And yet the reality of sin keeps inching those armies closer and closer to each other and we can't seem to control our destiny.  

And the college students are shouting peace, peace.  Just STOP it!  But no one can stop, so they riot and burn down cities because they want peace and safety and the evil is unstoppable.  If this world is all there is . . . we're in a mess.

But christians have blessings.  And one of those blessings is wisdom and insight.  We know this world is on a crash course to destruction.  Our book defines that very well.  So when Hamas fires a few thousand rockets and murders thousands of innocent humans who happen to be jewish and happen to be on real estate that God gave to Abraham;  we aren't surprised.

Dismayed, yes.  Saddened, definitely.  Surprised, no.  Panicked, no.  Or when the mega rich get in their jets and fly to wherever it is they fly to in order to figure out how to turn off my fossil fuels and comforts (for everybody else, not them) in order to save the planet, I think to myself, wait until you see what Jesus does to this planet, when He returns.  Greta, you're wasting your life over nothing.  Jesus has a plan for this real estate, and He actually can carry it out.

We have answers.  God has revealed to His elect, His saints, enough about what the future holds that we are at peace in the goodness of His sovereign plan.  

One caveat.  Good for His elect; but horrific for those who hate Him.  They should be panicked.  But not for global warming or nuclear holocausts.  They should be panicked that they are at war with the Creator and owner of everything, and time is in fact limited to come to terms of peace.  90 seconds is not that innacurate.  That much is realistic.  Every knee will bow in worship to King Jesus.  Most will bow on their way to eternal judgement.  That's the real reason to panic.

Jesus said some telling things about this current world before His departure.  They are the basis for this wisdom and insight that is our gift, our blessing.  He said;  In THIS world, you have tribulation.  Jn. 16:33  He makes distinctions between this present world, and the world to come in the future.

Likewise in John 14:30 He makes a similar distinction when He says;   the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me;  In John 16:11 and John 12:31 Jesus speaks of the ruler of this world.  The prince of this world.

Here is wisdom and insight into the biggest questions.  At the original sin, in the garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve sinned, the authority to reign, in this world, which God had given to them, was forfeited to Satan.  

Satan rules in this dark world.  In a way, if you think about what happened, Satan robbed Christ and the Father of the glory of their creation.  We could think of it in simple terms just to try to understand.  

God through Christ, with the Spirit, created this world, created everything that is, this world included.  In human terms which are very limited, but perhaps useful to us to understand, God sublet this world to Adam.  Man was to rule and reign here, in fellowship with God.

But when Satan fooled Eve and Adam into rebelling against God in disobedience, the rulership of this world was forfeited to whoever owns sinful men.  That's Satan.  And Jesus speaks of that in those verses, calling him the prince, or the ruler if you will, of this world.

But God set in motion a plan to retake this world.  Satan will be deposed and locked away.  There will be cataclysmic events leading up to that ultimate reality.  The prophets have foretold of those events.  Mountains melting like wax.  Men crying out for the boulders to crush them so they don't have to look into the face of Christ who they hated.  It's all spelled out.

Here's where everything is ultimately going;  It's in Revelation 11;  15 Then the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever.”

In the Bible, kingdoms are authorities to reign.  “The authority to reign of Satan in the world has become the authority to reign of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever.”

That's our wisdom.  That's our insight.  That's where everything that we see happening is headed.  Satan will be deposed.  Jesus will reign, forever and ever.  The world has no clue.  We are given wisdom and insight into future things.  And the next part of what Paul says in vs. 9 and 10 make perfect sense to us.  

9 making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him 10 for an administration of the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth in Him.

God sublet His creation to man.  Man forfeited everything and became slaves to Satan who rules this world.  God is taking it back, in the One obedient man, Jesus Christ.  

The summing up of all things, in Christ, is that day when all evil is vanquished and removed forever, and there is no discord, no rebellion against the Creator and the Son, and His elect, forever.

Listen again to the power and authority of the sovereignty of God over everything in those verses.  All things are summed up in Christ, but how?  Why?  What is the cause for all of this overwhelming triumph?

9 making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him 10 for an administration of the fullness of the times,

In the Bible, when Paul uses the word mystery, he is talking about new revelation that previous dispensations and generations didn't yet know.

The church age, the dispensation of grace through the blood of Christ was a mystery.  The temporary setting aside of the jews as Gods people while God reaches out to all nations, through Christ, to form the church, elect by God, was a mystery.  The old testament didn't see that coming.

This wisdom and insight into the folding of all things into Christ, the world lost, the world regained, through Him and for Him and in Him was a mystery until God revealed His plan to His elect saints through His apostles of the church.  This is new information that God didn't fully reveal in the Old Covenant.

Listen again to the sovereignty of God in almost every word of this statement in vss, 9, 10  9 making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him 10 for an administration of the fullness of the times,

God is in full sovereign control over every event leading up to the fullness of times when He sums up all things, in Christ.

Tik Tok.  Hamas fires thousands of rockets murdering thousands of jews.  Just one little second, under God's sovereign control, in His clock of events leading up to the summing up of all things in Christ.

10 for an administration of the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth in Him.

There is nothing in the heavens, all of the limitless universes we're just beginning to see for the first times, the unfathomable reaches of space we didn't even know existed, that falls outside of this word heavens;

things in the heavens   It all belongs to God.  It will all be summed up in Christ.  Things David never even fathomed as he gazed into the heavens.  It all belongs to Jesus.  It all falls under God's sovereign control.

 and things on the earth   How tiny the earth has become by comparison to what our generation has learned about the heavens.  God is sovereign over the earth, even though for this time, an evil ruler has reigned in terror here.  God owns it and His plan to fold it all into Christ, is in place.  

Listen to just a few simple words from the Lord's prayer that you may have not thought much about.  So common our brains are disconnected.  Think again about what Jesus told the disciples when they asked Him to teach them to pray.  Listen to what we're asking for;

Our Father, Who art in heaven;
Hallowed by Thy Name.
Thy kingdom come!
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

What did you just ask for?  Everything we talked about this morning!  

Thy kingdom come.  Thy?  Whose?  The Fathers.  What?  His kingdom.  His authority to reign.  As opposed to the current prince of this world.  That's what you're asking for.

God, come and depose Satan and evil, and rule over this world in righteousness.  Crush the rebellion.  Take back this world and rule here.  That's what you're asking for in that prayer.

You're praying for God's plan to happen.  You're praying for the cataclysmic events involved in the retaking of this fallen world from it's current ruler back to it's rightful owner.  Thy Kingdom Come.  It's all in those simple words!  

It gets better;  Jesus breaks down what that request entails;
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Is God's will done on earth?  NO.  Why not?  An evil prince has usurped the rule of this world and God's will is not done on earth, with one exception.  His Elect do His will.  The rest of this world is in full  rebellion and hatred of Him and His will.

Thy will be done on earth   That can only happen if Satan is deposed and removed along with all rebellious sinners, and Christ reigns here.  That's coming folks.  But it's exceedingly messy for the rebellers.  Really ugly what takes place as Satan fights to keep this place and Christ throws bowls of wrath at the rebellion here.  

Panic is logical.  But not because Russia is dusting off it's nuke's and getting them ready.  That's just the beginnings of terror.  Jesus is coming back, and He is dressed for war.  He's coming back to re-take what is rightfully His.  

I can't resist one final poke at the foolishness of this world.  
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

Apparently, according to that verse, earth is the single place of rebellion.  The way that falls, God's will be done on earth, like it is, everywhere else.

We've been watching this ridiculous Netflix series called Roswell.  Space aliens.  Flying saucers.  Blah blah blah.  We watched for a while, but the story is so shallow and ridiculous we looked at each other and said, we can't endure 50 episodes of this level of stupidity.

The rebellion is on earth.  God's will is done, in heaven.  Earth is the problem.  Earth is where Satan dwells and reigns.  Earth is where Jesus is returning to and deposing Satan, and reigning on David's throne in Jerusalem for a thousand years.

7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our transgressions, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He caused to abound to us in all wisdom and insight, 9 making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him 10 for an administration of the fullness of the times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth in Him.

And we say with John the apostle at the end of Revelation;  Even so, Come! Lord Jesus.