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God made plans for us that gave Him pleasure in putting together. It was not an inconvenience to Him in any way at all. Just as we as parents love to make plans for our children, our heavenly Father delights in an even greater way.

God sent His son Jesus to make us completely free. Not just a little. Abundantly and completely free. He was willing to risk and sacrifice everything for us. Freedom comes from God. God, through the sacrifice of His Son, the Messiah Jesus, made us a free people. This freedom is a gift from God. We did not earn it but Jesus, on our behalf, willingly sacrificed so we could be made right with God.

  • He has made provision for everything.
  • No detail left out at all.
  • It is all spelled out in His new plan and goals for us.
  • His mission of love makes everything right. Now that is good news.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Master Jesus the Messiah, who has blessed us in Jesus with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus the Messiah, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in the Messiah as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

English Standard Version. (2016). (Ephesians 1:3–10). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

He has redeemed us. To redeem means “to purchase and set free by paying a price.” There were 60 million slaves in the Roman Empire, and often they were bought and sold like pieces of furniture. But a man could buy a slave and set him free, and this is what Jesus did for us.

  • The price was His own blood.
  • This means that we are free from the Law, free from slavery to sin, as well as free from the power of Satan and the world.
  • If we were slaves, we would be poor, but because we are sons, we are rich!

Because we as sinners are in bondage to sin and to Satan, we need someone to supply redemption and thereby “redeem” us out of that bondage. When we speak of redemption, the idea of a “ransom” comes into view. A ransom is the price paid to redeem someone from bondage or captivity. Jesus said of himself, “For even the Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

  • We were redeemed from bondage to Satan because “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19), and when the Messiah came he died to “deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb. 2:15).
  • In fact, God the Father “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col. 1:13).
  • As for deliverance from bondage to sin, Paul says, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in the Messiah Jesus.… For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace” (Rom. 6:11, 14).
  • We have been delivered from bondage to the guilt of sin and from bondage to its ruling power in our lives.

He has forgiven us. The word forgive means “to carry away.” This reminds us of the ritual on the Jewish Day of Atonement when the high priest sent the scapegoat into the wilderness.

  • First the priest killed one of the two goats and sprinkled its blood before God on the mercy seat.
  • Then he confessed Israel’s sins over the live goat, and had the goat taken into the wilderness to be lost. Jesus died to carry away our sins so they might never again be seen.
  • No written accusation stands against us because our sins have been taken away!
  • Sin made us poor, but grace makes us rich.

He has revealed God’s will to us. This letter has much to say about God’s plan for His people, a plan that was not fully understood even in Paul’s day. The word mystery has nothing to do with things eerie. It means a “sacred secret, once hidden but now revealed to God’s people.” We believers are a part of God’s “inner circle.” We can share in the secret that God will one day unite everything in the Messiah. Ever since sin came into the world, things have been falling apart.

  • First, man was separated from God.
  • Then man was separated from man, as Cain killed Abel.
  • People tried to maintain a kind of unity by building the Tower of Babel, but God judged them and scattered them across the world.
  • God called Abraham and put a difference between the Jew and the Gentile, a difference that was kept until the Messiah’s death on the cross.
  • Sin is tearing everything apart, but in Jesus, God will gather everything together in the culmination of the ages.

We are a part of this great eternal program. We have the amazing experience in being set free because Jesus has redeemed us. How glorious is that?