Studies in Ephesians

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 28, 1913

Studies in Ephesians

(NOTE.— We study at this time a few more clauses in this marvelous sentence of Paul's, beginning with verse 3 and closing with verse 14. Each clause, almost each phrase, has a volume of suggestion in itself.)

Questioning the Text

1. What do we have in the Beloved?

“In whom we have our redemption.” Verse 7. Note 1.

2. Through what do we have redemption?

“Through His blood.” Verse 7. Note 2.

3. What does this mean to those who accept His redemption?

“The forgiveness of our trespasses.” Verse 7. Note 3.

4. According to what does He grant forgiveness?

“According to the riches of His grace.” Verse 7. Note 4.

5. How has He made this grace abound toward us?

“Which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence.” Verse 8. Note 5.

Notes

1. “In whom we have our redemption.”—Man can not buy himself. No combination of men can buy another back from the sin into which men have fallen. It is not a matter of purchase. Sin is a disease, a deadly disease,—mortal, fatal, always so, so far as the human heart is concerned. It was the contemplation of this which led the prophet to exclaim, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is desperately sick.” Jer. 17:9, R.V. The American Revised puts it, “and it is exceedingly corrupt;” the Common Version, “and desperately wicked.” Paul very gently puts it, in Rom. 3:23, as coming “short of the glory of God.” But in the 7th chapter of Romans, he likens it to a body of death, which the poor, sinful soul must be weighted with until he himself is overcome with it, and which led him to exclaim, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Rom. 7:24. Truly the psalmist sang, in speaking of mortals, “None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him.” But God in His mercy gave His only-beloved Son, and that Son in love gave Himself. The price paid was an infinite one: He died to redeem us. In Him we have our redemption, slaves bought back from the bondage of sin; and all, irrespective of age, or race, or tribe, or nation, or sex, belong to Him by purchase.

2. “Through His blood.”—The blood stands for the life. Lev. 17:11. The life of the flesh is the blood. Jesus was “the Word made flesh.” We can not understand, we need not understand all the mysteries of it; faith can grasp the great fact. “When the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” Gal. 4:4. “He poured out His soul unto death;” and in the last expiring agonies of the cross Heaven itself seemed shut out from Him, as He bore the penalty of even the impenitent. Had it not been for the perfect, righteous character, free from every stain of sin, the Son of God would not have come back from the grave. It had no power over Him (Acts 2:24), because there was no sin upon Him of His own; yet He bore our sins, for God “made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Cor. 5:21.

3. “The forgiveness of our trespasses.”—What a blessed thing it is to one who hates sin! How even the hardened heart at times, wooed by the blessed Spirit of God, longs to be free from sin. He looks back over a dark past; he sees where he has wronged others, more than all else, wronged his own soul. Sometimes his crime haunts him. He goes over it again in his dreams. If he believes God, he knows that sometime it will face him in the judgment; it has eaten out the very moral fiber of his life. Truly, it is a body of death which drags down to destruction. But there is forgiveness, and forgiveness of our trespasses means that the trespasses are forgiven,—taken away, so that God looks upon us as sinless in His sight. The righteousness of God in Christ Jesus is imputed to us for our sinfulness; it is changing the old, filthy garment of our own failures for that woven in the loom of heaven by Christ Jesus our Lord. Read the graphic picture told in Isaiah 61: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.” Verse 10. See also verse 3.

4. “According to the riches of His grace.”—How good it is that God does not work according to our poor, mean conceptions of His goodness! He does not forgive us as men forgive. He does not say, I will forgive you if you will never sin again. He freely forgives. Even tho He knows that we may sin the next day, yet He freely forgives. He knows, whether we see the sin in our heart or not; but He sees, He knows, that we may fall to-morrow. We do not know it, and the tender, penitent heart does not feel that it will; but God knows it, knows that we are children, knows that He can not teach us so that we could appreciate that we would stumble again. But He forgives, and forgives us in order that we may know that there is no being in all the universe that welcomes us back from the fall, who is so ready to reach out the divine helping hand and lift us up, as is He. The permanent turning away of mortals from God is not because God will not forgive; it is because the human heart becomes so saturated with sin that it will not return to God. Praise God, He forgives “according to the riches of His grace,” so that inspired prayer left us through the psalmist after he had committed his awful sin, opens with such words of encouragement to the sinner: “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy loving-kindness: according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.” It is the prayer for the sinner to plead. God has left it on record, and every prayer that He has left on record His Spirit waits to “make good” to the one who will appropriate it by faith; so He grants us forgiveness “according to the riches of His grace,” the eternal riches in Christ Jesus. And then He looks upon us as tho we had never sinned.

5. “Made to abound.”—Always to abound, all that is necessary; and yet He gives it in “wisdom and prudence;” But the wisdom and prudence is such that there is never a lack. When men try to draw the line of prudence, sometimes it makes them niggardly and stingy; not so with God. The grace abounds above the sin, for “where sin did abound, grace did super-abound.” See Rom. 5:20. “Mercy glorieth over judgment.” He does not give us too much, however. There are some whom Satan would encourage to be very great; they want not only forgiveness of sins, but they want recognition as great men in God’s cause. So far as the development of workers is concerned, God tests men in all wisdom and prudence. There is always-abounding grace for the forgiveness of sins; there is always prudent grace in the development of our own soul for service. Let us be willing to leave it all with Him,—grace for forgiveness of sin, grace for victory over sin, and all the grace that we need to serve Him where He chooses.