What does it mean to be saved? When sharing the gospel with people, we often focus on getting them to decide to follow Jesus which often is concluded with a prayer where the person acknowledges some form of allegiance to Jesus as his or her savior. In sharing the gospel, we rightly focus on the need for a person to believe and trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins because after all, the Bible does say: “…if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation” (Rom. 10:9-10). However, biblical salvation and what it means to be saved is so much more than the forgiveness of your sins.
There are over two hundred words in the apostle Paul’s long sentence that makes up Ephesians 1:1-14; within these verses we discover what it means to be a Christian. When it comes to what it means to be saved, Paul shares with us the role of a God who is Triune: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When it comes to the salvation of our souls, we discover that the Father planned our salvation (vv. 3-6), the Son provided our salvation (vv. 7-12), and the Holy Spirit applied our salvation (vv. 13-14). It is in Ephesians 1:7-12 that we now turn our attention where we discover the three “R’s” of what it really means to be saved, and the three “R’s” are redemption, regeneration, and reconciliation. It is my hope this morning that by plumbing the depths of these very rich verses, that you will discover that your salvation is so much more than the forgiveness of your sins.
Because you are in Christ, you are saved! But what does it mean to be saved? That is the question I hope to answer with the time that we have left.
God’s Plan for Redemption is by Jesus (vv. 7-8a)
To be “saved” is to be redeemed. To be redeemed is to be ransomed. And for the Christian, to be ransomed is to be freed from the captivity and slavery of sin; to redeem something is to reclaim or take back something that has been taken away or is held captive. One person said of redemption, “Sin (both our personal sin and the sin nature we inherited from Adam) takes away the righteousness God intended to characterize our lives and holds us hostage to Satan’s purposes.”[1] How was this redemption accomplished? Through, “His blood…”. Not through your pedigree, not through your religious devotion, not through your Christian upbringing, and not by showing up to Church today, but through his blood you have been redeemed. No, your redemption is owed to one person through one act, and that one person is Jesus and His one act was His death upon a cross for all your sins.
There are three Greek words used in the New Testament for “redemption”. The first word is the Greek word, agorazōand means “to buy” or “to buy in a marketplace.” When used in the context of Jesus’ death, it refers to the price he paid for our salvation, and what it cost Him was His own life. The second Greek word used for redemption is closely related to agorazō and that word is exagorazō, which means to buy out of the marketplace; it is the kind of purchasing that once purchased, that thing or person might never return to the marketplace again. When Jesus died for our sins, both words are used to describe what it was that He accomplished upon the Cross:
“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought [agorazō] for a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor. 6:19–20)
“Christ redeemed [exagorazō] us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a Tree”—” (Gal. 3:13)
Now, when it comes to what Christ accomplished on the cross, He purchased us as His own (agorazō) and He purchased us from the slave market sin (exagorazō), and Paul no doubt looks back on both of these ways in which Christ redeemed us. It is in Christ that we have been redeemed to be holy and blameless, and it is in Christ that we are, “adopted as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ to Himself…” (v. 5).
But there is a third Greek word used for redemption, and it is used here in verse 7, and it is completely different than the other two words. The third Greek word used for redemption is lutrǒsis, which literally means, “to fully liberate.” The kind of redemption the Christian has is one where he/she has been purchased, but that is not all. The kind of redemption the Christian has is one where he/she has been purchased from the bondage of sin, but that is not all. The kind of redemption the Christian has is full, complete, and guarantees a redemption free from all the curse of sin.
The kind of redemption that you have, Christian, is one that not only includes the forgiveness of your sins and the freedom from slavery to sin, but also the eventual freedom from the tyranny of disease and death, the promise of a physical resurrection, and the assurance of an inheritance that can never be destroyed, will never again be stained by sin, and will never ever grow old (see 1 Pet. 1:3-5). This is the redemption we have through the blood of Jesus, and it is a redemption that cannot be added to because it is complete; it is a redemption that includes, “…the forgiveness of sins of our wrongdoings, according to the riches of His grace.” It is a redemption available through the riches of His grace, which He alone is qualified to “lavish” upon those whom He has redeemed (vv. 7-8).
God’s Plan for Regeneration is in Jesus (vv. 8b-10)
Regeneration as it relates to the Christian is the work of God where He grants spiritual life to the Christian that raises him/her from spiritual death to spiritual life. It is what is described in Ephesians 2, “And you were dead in your offenses and sins…. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our wrongdoings, made us alive together with Christ” (vv. 1, 4-5).
Jesus used the metaphor of birth to describe how a person goes from spiritual death to spiritual life in his conversation with Nicodemus in the gospel of John, where Jesus said things like: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (v. 3). Jesus also said to Nicodemus, “That which has been born of the flesh is flesh, and that which has been born of the Spirit is spirit” (v. 6). What was Jesus’ point? His point was that the way a person is born again is through a supernatural miracle that only God, through His Spirit, is capable of doing.
A picture of regeneration is given to us in Ezekiel 37:1-14 with the prophet’s vision of the Valley of Dry Bones where Ezekiel was told to speak the Word of God over the dry human bones, and when he did, God breathed life into them. In Ezekiel 37:14, we read these words: “And I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your won land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it, declares the Lord.’” What Jesus said in John 3 to Nicodemus and what we read in Ezekiel 36 and 37 is picture of regeneration that only God is capable of doing; regeneration is the act where God makes the spiritually dead, alive in Jesus Christ. To be saved, is to be regenerated in Christ.
The mystery of God’s will in verse 9 is the plan God had from before dirt existed to make the dead live through the work of His Son and the power of His Holy Spirit (see 13-14). If you are a Christian, God has regenerated your dead soul to life through Christ! What this means is that if you are a Christian, you are not only born again, but you are a new creation: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Cor. 5:17). If you are a new creation, then you have a new life and a new heart. Are you seeing how these verses are connected to Ephesians 1:4, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him.” Or how about their connection to Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” The evidence that your faith is in Christ is marked by the kind of desire that loves and longs for Christ more than you love and long for sin (see Romans 8:12-25).
The mystery Paul mentions in verses 9-10 is the redemption and regeneration of people that must take place before the rest of creation, under the curse of sin, experiences the same kind of liberation the Christian is experiencing in Jesus. All of history is moving to the subjugation of all things in heaven and on earth under the eternal and universal lordship of Jesus Christ. The first to experience this are Christians, those who have redemption through His blood the forgiveness of their sins and are experiencing the riches of His grace lavished upon all whose faith and hope rests in Jesus alone.
Jesus’ Plan for Reconciliation is Through Jesus (vv. 11-12)
When I read Ephesians 1:11-12, I cannot help but think of Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep where the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine in the open pasture to go after the one that is lost until he finds it, and when he finds that last sheep, puts it on his shoulders while rejoicing of that which was lost and now is found (Luke 15:1-7). When I read these verses in Ephesians, I think of the parable of the lost coin about a woman who rejoices after find the one coin she searched her entire house to find (see vv. 8-9).
But the parable that overshadows them all, and to me has the strongest connection to Ephesians 1:7-12 is the parable of the Prodigal Son - who left his father to live a life free of all moral constraints, to the point where he squandered his inheritance and seemingly destroyed any hope of reconciliation. The son decided to return not as a son, but as one of his father’s hired hands, he even rehearsed in his mind what he would say to his father upon seeing him: “I will set out and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired laborers” (Luke 15:18–19). But you know how the story ends, for when the father saw his son, he ran to his wayward son, embraced him and kissed him, and said to his servants: “But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, slaughter it, and let’s eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ And they began to celebrate” (Luke 15:22–24).
Now against the backdrop of these parables, especially the parable of the Prodigal Son, listen to Ephesians 1:11-12, “In Him we also have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things in accordance with the plan of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in the Christ would be to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:11–12). What is our inheritance? It is redemption in its fullest sense. It is a life regenerated in the fullest sense. It is the eventual freedom from the curse of sin and the inheritance of a new heaven and new earth. It is the city that motivated Abraham to leave his home because, “…he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10).
The city Abraham longed for is a resurrected earth free of the curse of sin when “all things” that started with the spiritually dead are made new. All of history is moving toward that end when, “what is mortal will be swallowed up by life” (2 Cor. 5:4), for when our salvation is complete, the redeemed will be able to celebrate a new reality where we will finally be able to say: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting” (1 Cor. 15:54-55). The Christian will finally know what it means to be “saved” when our redemption is complete, the rest of creation experiences a type of regeneration we have experienced, and the kind of reconciliation that will culminate is what we read in Isaiah 51:11, “And the redeemed of the Lord will return and come to Zion with joyful shouting, and everlasting joy will be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”
Conclusion
Christian, all your redemption, all your regeneration, and all your reconciliation to God, is all because of Christ alone—nothing more and nothing less! Can you see now how evil and demonic it is to add anything or to take away from what only Jesus Christ can provide? There is no other application or advice I believe is appropriate to give in light of these verses today: Your salvation is owed only to Jesus and nothing else! This is why the apostle could write what we must treasure: “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor. 1:18). Don’t you dare try to add to it or to take away from what only God can and has accomplished by hanging on a cross for your sin and defeating death through His resurrection! Amen.
