REDEMPTION

 The word redeem in the English has three meanings: To buy back, to compensate for, and to release.

To buy back could indicate a normal business transaction; but the thrust of the meaning is the return of property back to its original owner by means of an appropriate payment.  Recover by payment.  

To compensate means to offset a wrong by means of a counteraction, or pay back a debt by an acceptable payment.

To release is to set free from some form of obligation or confinement.

To redeem therefore, is to recover property which was given as security or forfeited as a penalty, and to release it for its original owners use.

W.E. Vines’ expository dictionary of New Testament words shows that the English word ‘redeem’ is used in place of the Greek words:

1.     Exagorazo, which is a strengthened form of agorazo ‘to buy’.   The prefix ex or out, gives the meaning to buy out, and especially of purchasing a slave with a view to his freedom.  In the middle voice it is used in Ephesians 5:16 and Colossians 4:5 for redeeming, or buying the time.

2.     Lutro`o, or to release on receipt of a ransom.  It is used in the middle voice and it signifies to release by paying a ransom.  To redeem in the natural sense of deliverance (Luke 24:21).

Lutrosis and Apolutrosis are extensions to lutro`o and depict the completed action; e.g. redeemed and redemption.

 

The English words redeem, redeemed and redemption are therefore more than adequate to convey the truth of God’s great work on man’s behalf.  We have been redeemed from the penalty of sin so that we might be to the praise of our Creator’s glory.

Biblical usage:

      

Colossians 1:4.  “In whom we have redemption through his blood, [even] the forgiveness of sins:”

1 Peter 1:18-19.  “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, [as] silver and gold, from your vain conversation [received] by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ (of Messiah), as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:”

Galatians 3:13.  “Christ (Messiah) hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, CURSED [IS] EVERY ONE THAT HANGETH ON A TREE:”

Note:            

Christ is from the Greek word Christos meaning ‘anointed’.                  

Messiah is the English transliteration of the Hebrew word for ‘anointed’.

Messiah and Christ are therefore Hebrew and Greek equivalents

A literal rendering of the name and title of our Lord would be, the Lord [Jehovah] Jesus [Yeshua or Joshua i.e. saviour] Christ [Anointed]: The Lord Jesus Christ or Jehovah, the Anointed Saviour.

The Law is perfect and good and has its foundation in God’s righteousness.  God cannot accept or embrace anything less than His righteousness, for to do so would adulterate it and it would cease to be perfect.  The Law becomes a curse, only to those without righteousness equivalent to Gods and is the negative result of God maintaining His righteousness.  God maintains His righteousness by not allowing it to be compromised and separates those creatures without it, from Himself.  This is the curse. God’s righteousness is absolutely perfect, and in point of absolute truth there is no other righteousness, therefore the Scriptures say: “There is none righteous, no not one…”  (Romans 3:10; Psalm 14:1-3).  God’s righteousness cannot be compromised and all unrighteousness must be excluded. The wages or the results of unrighteousness, (the Bible describes this as sin) is separation from God and death. 

It was by the action of the man Adam that sin and subsequently death entered into the world, so that death passed upon all men (Romans 5:12).  Death passed to us directly from Adam, therefore was ours from our very conception, a fact that David recognised when he wrote Psalm 51. “…in sin did my mother conceive me.” 

It is interesting to note that David, a sinner, was of the seed of Jesse while Jesus of Nazareth, who was without sin (John 8:46; 2Corinthians 5:21) was the seed of a woman and that woman was a virgin.  From this we can confidently state that sin and death pass to sons and daughters, not from the woman but from the man.  Mary was born a sinner for she had a human father, but she did not pass that nature onto her children.  Her first born, Jesus, was conceived by the Holy Spirit and so was free from the Adamic nature because He was literally The Son of God and not the son of Joseph.

Because the rest of us are born sinners, we are spiritually dead from the moment of birth and no amount of keeping the law can overcome that.  We are dead in trespass and sin and separated from God from birth.  We need to be born of God’s Spirit, we need to be born again (John 3:3-6). 

(Children, who die before they are able to understand the gospel of Christ, are automatically saved. An example of this is found in 2Samuel 12:23).

This nature from Adam is a barrier to God’s righteousness, it is a cage from which we are not able to escape and we are held captive by it.  We are slaves to it (Romans 7:14; 2Peter 2:9).  We are slaves to it and need to be set free; we need to be redeemed. 

Christ Jesus was made a curse for us, or was cursed on behalf of us (Galatians 3:13), He was made to be sin for us, or a sin offering for us (2Corinthians 5:21) and He made, of himself, an offering to bear the sins of many (Hebrew 9:28).  He paid the only appropriate ransom - His sinless life (Matthew 20:28) and He paid it in substitution for our unrighteousness “…that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”

“Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, [as] silver and gold, from your vain conversation [received] by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ (of Messiah), as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (2Corinthians 5:21B).

We have redemption because we have been redeemed; we have been bought with the price of Christ Jesus’ own blood and have been released or freed, to serve God in our bodies.

Redemption of the Body

Romans   8:23  

“And not only [they], but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, [to wit], the redemption of our body.”

Those who have been born of God and have the first fruits of the Spirit, that is, have experienced the reality of salvation; look with longing to the resurrection of their bodies. 

Old Testament Redemption Fulfilled

Hebrews 9:14-15

“How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

And for this cause he is the mediator of the New Testament that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.”

"The redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant" is the paying of the ransom for the transgressions that were designated as sin by the covenant of Moses.  Those believers of this first covenant, who in faith made the necessary sacrifices for sin, had their sins atoned for, or covered; for that is the meaning of the word atone.  They were only covered until Messiah (Christ) came to take away sin and to introduce the new covenant with His blood, not the blood of bulls and goats.  The book of Hebrews deals with the sacrificial system and its fulfilment in Christ’s death on the cross.

All mankind, as slaves and subject to the old sin nature, have been purchased by their original owner and been potentially set free.  Mankind has the option to believe and to step free from sin and death or remain subject to his own works.  He will not be judged for sin, this has already occurred on the cross, he will be judged according to his works (Revelation 20:12).

The Outworking of Redemption

 We as Christians have the option to remain subject to our old nature in carnality or bond ourselves to our new master as did Paul in being a bondservant, gk. Doulos, to Jesus Christ.

Exodus 21:5-6

“And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever.”

Romans 1:1

“Paul, a servant (doulos) of Jesus Christ, called [to be] an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God…”

Forgiveness:  Gk. Aphesis

Release from bondage, in this context from the bondage of sin.  We are not to be bound by sin in allowing it to dominate our lives, nor are we to be bound by the memory of past failures.  We must press on to the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Recap:

In Jesus Christ we have been purchased from the bondage of sin, both inherent sin (old sin nature) and personal sins (misdeeds) and have been forgiven.  Christ was free from the inherent nature of Adam because of the virgin pregnancy.  God was His father not Joseph and the sin nature is past down through the male.  His humanity was perfect in both His birth and His life and in this perfect life we see the payment necessary for our redemption; A perfect, sinless life in exchange for our sinful lives.