The Road To Redemption Series

A common tactic among ISIS insurgents is the practice of taking hostages for ransom. They seize journalist, soldiers or people that identify with their enemy, like Christians, for the purpose of receiving a ransom from their host nation. If the host countries cannot extract their citizens by force, they tend to redeem their citizens from this captivity by payment.

During New Testament times the Roman Empire had as many as six million slaves, and the buying and selling of them was a major business. If a person wanted to free a loved one or friend who was a slave, he would buy that slave for himself and then grant him freedom, testifying to the deliverance by a written certificate. Lutroō was used to designate the freeing of a slave in that way.

That is precisely the idea carried in the New Testament use of the term to represent Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross. He paid the redemption price to buy for Himself fallen mankind and to set them free from their sin.

Every human being born since the Fall has come into the world enslaved to sin, under total bondage to a nature that is corrupt, evil, and separated from its Creator. No person is spiritually free. No human being is free of sin or free of its consequences, the ultimate consequence, or penalty, for which is death (Rom. 6:23). “The soul who sins will die” (Ezek. 18:4).

Redemption is one of the central themes of Scripture and of the book of Ephesians, but it carries much more than the idea simply of exchanging one thing for another of equal value. In Ephesians 1:6b-10, the Apostle Paul shows the Road to Redemption by showing five elements of the redemption God offers fallen humanity through His Son, Jesus Christ: 1) The Redeemer (Ephesians 1:6b), 2) The Redeemed (Ephesians 1:7a) , 3) The Redemption Price (Ephesians 1:7b), 4) The Results (Ephesians 1:7c-9a), and 5) The Reason (Ephesians 1:9b-10).

1) The Redeemer (Ephesians 1:6b)

Ephesians 1:6b [6](to the praise of his glorious grace, with which) he has blessed us in the Beloved. (ESV)

From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry the Father declared Him to be “My beloved Son” (Matt. 3:17). When we believe in Him, “He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col. 1:13). Because we are now in the Beloved, we, too, are “beloved of God” (Rom. 1:7). To be Beloved represents one who is in the state of being loved by God. Jesus Christ is our Redeemer from sin, who Himself paid the price for our release from sin and death. Because we now belong to Christ, by faith made one with Him and placed in His Body, we are now acceptable to God. The perfect participle reaches into the past and extends into the present and the future. Christ is “the One Beloved” because of his mediatorial obedience to God (Lenski, R. C. H. (1937). The interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles to the Galatians, to the Ephesians and to the Philippians (p. 363). Columbus, O.: Lutheran Book Concern.).

Please turn to John 14 (p.901)

Only Jesus Christ has the inherent right to all the goodness of God. But because we are identified with Him by faith, that goodness is now also our goodness. Because our Savior and Lord is the Beloved of the Father and possesses all the goodness of the Father, we are also the beloved of the Father and possess all His goodness. The expression ‘in the Beloved’ continues the notion that all of God’s blessings come to us ‘in Christ’ (vv. 3, 4; cf. 5). ‘Beloved’ marks out Christ as the supreme object of the Father’s love (O’Brien, P. T. (1999). The letter to the Ephesians (p. 104). Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.)

Jesus said:

John 14:15-24 [15]"If you love me, you will keep my commandments. [16]And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, [17]even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. [18]"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. [19]Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. [20]In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. [21]Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." [22]Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" [23]Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. [24]Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me. (ESV)