Because of the God of Israel and the Messiah, we are saints. We have been set apart to accomplish some very special purposes. We are set apart from the forces of sin and death, separated from a lost and dying world, set apart for salvation, set apart to be close to God, set apart to serve the Lord, set apart to live forever!
Messianic Believers are “in Messiah.” We have been “joined to Messiah” and are “part of Messiah.” There is a real connection, a real joining, a real unity that takes place between us and the living Son of God. We are in Messiah, and Messiah is “in God” so we are in Messiah who is in God!
As followers of the God of Israel and Messiah Yeshua, we are the recipients of grace and peace. Unmerited favor, undeserved goodness, unearned blessings; and peace – a life that is lived the way God wants so that wholeness results; a life that is full of integrity so that well-being is experienced, comes to us from the Three-In-One God.
We have been blessed not with some, but with every heavenly spiritual blessing.
We were chosen by God before the universe began, and one day we will be separated from all ignorance and sin and evil and error and corruption. All of our moral and spiritual pollution will be cleansed. All of our sins will be perfectly atoned for, all our guilt gone, all our shame ended. We will radiate a glorious purity!
We are God’s eternal sons and daughters, created in His image, blessed with mind, emotion and will, and the ability to be aware of ourselves, and the capacity to think, reason, and make choices. By means of creation and then redemption we are partakers of the Divine Nature and recipients of the precious Spirit of God.
Let’s start with the middle of verse 5: all of these good things that we have been considering are according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
People have wills. They can direct their will to do this or that. God is the Ultimate Person, and He has a will. And, praise be to the Living God for directing His will to do all these great things for us! He didn’t have to, but He willed to do so. Thanks be to the Lord for His desire to bless us and His willingness to be kind to us!
All these wonderful things come from His grace – not our merit. We deserve none of them. We have earned none of them. Life, salvation, unity with Messiah, sainthood, sonship, redemption – we are owed none of them! If none of them – life, salvation, unity with Messiah, sainthood, sonship, redemption were given to us, God would be perfectly just. It is only God’s will, God’s kindness, God’s grace, which is the source of it all, and that is what is to be honored and praised!
All of these things have been freely bestowed, given without necessity, gifted without obligation, to those human beings who are “in the Beloved” – joined to the Messiah, the One that God loves so much, who pleases Him so much because of who the Son of God is, and the great things He has done. And so, if you are in the Beloved, then you are loved by God with a great and everlasting love, the exact same kind of love that God the Father has for God the Son. Believe me, you want to be in the Beloved One. Are you in the One that God loves? Have you been joined to the Messiah that God loves so much? Do you have a real and living connection to Him?
And there’s more my friends! Verse 7: In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.
In Him – joined to and connected with the living Savior, we have redemption. Apart from Him, outside of Messiah there is no redemption for human beings.
What a glorious word – redemption! What a tremendous concept! When you think about redemption, think about having been taken over by a superior power and held in its grasp so that you can’t escape. Then someone else comes along, and pays a price that releases you from the power that is holding you.
In our case, due to the sins of our first parents, and our continued participation in Adam and Eve’s rebellion, we were captured by the powerful forces of sin, Satan and death. Sin held us in its fierce grip, so that we couldn’t break free. Death dominated all of humanity. We could not escape its deadly control. Satan became the god of this world. Our situation was terrible! But then the mighty Son of God came to the rescue! He came from Heaven to Earth, and humbled Himself, and became a man. He became our Kinsman Redeemer. He offered His life instead of ours, His blood instead of ours, His death instead of ours.
The Righteous One was nailed to a cross, and shed His blood, and died; but death could not hold the Sinless One, and He rose from the dead. By becoming a man, and dying and rising, the Son of God and the Son of Man fully paid the redemption price. He overcame sin and Satan and death, and freed us from their deadly grasp.
In Him we have redemption through His blood. The redemption price was not gold or silver or lambs or bulls or goats or pigeons; it was not the quality of our lives; not in our goodness; not our ability to keep the commands of God, not in the percentage of commands we have kept but the infinitely valuable blood of Messiah, ben Eloheem. The redemption price didn’t come from Islam, or in non-Messianic Judaism, or in Eastern Religion, or in any other religious or philosophical system; not in the quality of our lives; not in our goodness; not in the percentage of commands we have kept, but only through of His blood – because of what He actually did by becoming a man and shedding His blood – and then our knowing that He died and rose again, and believing that, and then being joined to Him because of our faith and the activity of God.
And we have the forgiveness of our trespasses. A trespass is the kind of sin that comes from crossing a boundary. The reality is that we live in a God-designed universe, and in this universe there are boundaries that should not be crossed. There are different kinds of boundaries. There are natural and physical laws and spiritual and moral laws, and if those boundaries are crossed, unpleasant consequences result.
For example, there is the law of gravity. If you get too close to the edge of a cliff or high building, and you cross that boundary, you will suffer for it. Last summer we drove to Colorado, and one afternoon we spent it up on the mountains behind Vail. We’re were around 12,000 feet up, and were driving on a dirt road that goes on the edge of one mountain, and it has a cliff with a drop off of several hundred feet. Along the side of the road is a small guardrail. Stay on the road, and within the guardrail, and you are safe. Cross that boundary and you are in trouble.
If you are near a high-security facility run by the government, there may be warning signs like: “Warning. Don’t go any further. An electrified fence and guards protect this facility. If you go any further, your life is in danger and you may be subject to arrest and prosecuted to the maximum extent of the law.”
Many people thinks the laws of God, the “thou shall nots” are too restrictive, unnecessary and spoil our fun. But they are good. They are necessary. They keep us safe.
Just as there are boundaries that operate in the physical universe, so there are moral and spiritual boundaries are just as real, and must not be crossed. There are boundaries like: remain within the truth; don’t lie; only worship the true God; only offer to Him a God-ordained sacrifice; remain within the proper boundary of what belongs to you; don’t take the possessions and property of other people. Treat people kindly, the way you want to be treated. Remain within sexual boundaries; don’t have sex with another man’s wife.
Even though there are boundaries, and they are like guardrails that have been put in place for our benefit, to help us not to go too far, and stay within the realm of safety, the sad reality of the situation is that all of us have at one time or another crossed one or more of these moral and spiritual boundaries. In doing so, we became trespassers. We became guilty of trespass.
In violating these good and necessary barriers, we harmed ourselves and harmed others. We brought unpleasant consequences upon ourselves. And we sinned and are in trouble with the One who made these boundaries. But the same One who made the boundaries made it possible so that those who violated the boundaries could be forgiven. And God’s way is “in Messiah.”
In Him – Yeshua of Nazareth we have the forgiveness of our trespasses. In Him, and not in Buddha, not in Mohammed, not in Freud, Darwin, Marx, Mao, Stalin, or any of their disciples, do we have forgiveness. When we come to know who Yeshua is, and what He has done, and we place our faith in Him, and yield our lives to serve Him, a great unification takes place. We are joined to Him. We become intimately connected to Him. We become part of Him, bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh. It’s like the joining of head and body; it’s like the unity and closeness that exists between husband and wife, so that the two become one flesh. It like the assimilation between the bread and wine that are eaten and drunk and then absorbed into the body.
And we are not the recipients of partial redemption just a little redemption; we have not been forgiven for just one or two of our trespasses; we have not been released from just a few of our sins. The Lord is not stingy, and the Almighty is not frugal with the amount of the freely given forgiveness and redemption that He extends toward us. No! He has lavished on us the riches of His grace to forgive and redeem! All of our trespasses, all of sins that resulted from violating all of the boundaries that we have improperly crossed have been forgiven!
Think of great riches. Imagine tremendous wealth. Think of a great feast hosted by a fabulously wealthy king, with innumerous guests, and a huge banquet table overflowing with an abundantly supply of the best foods in the kingdom, and you are one of those guests. Think of a treasure room piled with jewels, hoards of gold and silver and precious things, and suddenly you discover that that treasure is yours. This is the amount of grace resulting in forgiveness and redemption that the Lord has lavished upon us!
Therefore we don’t have to have to carry a heavy weight of guilt and shame as we remember our sins. When you are struggling under a load of guilt, knowing that you have done things that you should not have done, crossed borders that you should not have crossed, remind yourself: Because I am joined to Messiah I have redemption. I have been released from the forces of Satan, sin and death. The costly redemption price has been fully paid – the infinitely precious blood of the Son of God! I have redemption through His blood – not because of my hard work, not due to my efforts, or my goodness. But out of God’s grace which He lavished on me, and out of the wealth and riches and treasures of His mercy and forgiveness I have the forgiveness of all of my trespasses! Lord, to pay You back, help me to have a grateful heart, and be a more faithful servant.