Verse explainer

What does Ephesians 1:7 really mean?

Forgiveness here isn't a sentimental pardon — it's a redemption with a price paid, grounded in grace so vast Paul calls it 'riches.'

KJV

In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

BSB

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace

The plain meaning

Paul is mid-sentence inside a long blessing (vv. 3–14) that stacks up everything believers have received 'in Christ.' Verse 7 names two of those gifts as one package: redemption and forgiveness. The word behind 'redemption' (Greek: apolutrōsis) is marketplace and ransom language — it pictures someone bought out of slavery or captivity. Paul specifies the purchase price: Christ's blood. Then he names what that purchase actually delivers: the forgiveness of sins. But Paul will not let readers think God forgave cheaply. The phrase 'according to the riches of his grace' sets the scale — this isn't a reluctant pardon squeezed out of a just God, it flows from an abundance, a wealth of grace. Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown note that grace here is practically synonymous with glory (cf. v. 6, 'the praise of the glory of his grace'). The redemption is a present possession — 'we have' it now, not merely hope for it — rooted in the historic event of the cross.

The common misreading

'Through his blood' is just poetic language for God's love — the death part isn't really the point. This reading is common in settings that find substitutionary or sacrificial language uncomfortable, and it trades on the fact that 'blood' can feel archaic or merely metaphorical to modern ears. But Paul's Greek won't support it. He chose apolutrōsis — a word with a specific, concrete commercial and legal background meaning a ransom paid to secure release. He then specifies the instrument: 'through his blood,' not 'through his life' or 'through his example.' Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown identify the blood as 'the propitiation — the price paid to divine justice.' John Gill notes that the sufficiency of the price turns on who shed it: not a mere human life, but the blood of one who is truly God as well as man. Adam Clarke makes the same point — 'Christ's blood was the redemption price paid down.' To flatten 'through his blood' into a warm metaphor for divine affection is to lose the very mechanism Paul is describing. The good news here isn't just that God is loving in a general sense; it's that a specific, costly act accomplished a specific liberation. The 'riches of grace' phrase does celebrate the generosity behind it — but that generosity expressed itself in a price, not in its absence.

What the commentators say

John Gill18th c. · PD

Gill emphasizes that redemption presupposes bondage — to sin, to Satan, and to the law's condemnation — and that Christ was uniquely qualified as both kinsman and God to pay the ransom. The blood shed was sufficient because it was not merely a human life but the life of one who is truly God as well as man. Forgiveness, Gill stresses, covers all sins — past, present, and future — and is freely given to those redeemed, who contribute no price of their own.

Adam Clarkeearly 19th c. · PD

Clarke reads the verse as a single, tightly linked movement: God glorified his grace by providing redemption through his Son's blood, and that redemption consists precisely in the forgiveness and deliverance from sin. The measure of redeeming grace, Clarke argues, is nothing less than the measure of God's own eternal goodness — making 'the riches of his grace' not hyperbole but a sober statement about the divine character behind the act.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown19th c. · PD

JFB underlines that 'remission' here means more than non-punishment. It includes deliverance from sin's pollution and enslaving power, plus the positive reconciliation of a justly offended God. They also draw the kinsman-redeemer thread from Leviticus 25:48 forward: the Son of God became the Son of man precisely so that, as our near kinsman, he had the right to redeem what had been lost.

The word behind it

ἀπολύτρωσις apolutrōsis

'Redemption' — from apo (away from) + lutron (a ransom price). In Greek usage it described the payment that freed a prisoner of war or a slave from captivity. Paul's choice of this specific word insists the forgiveness was not a waiving of the debt but a settling of it. Thayer's Lexicon defines it as 'a releasing effected by payment of ransom.' The word forces the question: released from what, and at what cost? Paul answers both — from sin's bondage, at the cost of Christ's blood.

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