Introduction
Every discipline in secular life has its own vocabulary and definitions which must be mastered by those who would excel in that particular calling. This fact is of much greater importance in relation to the Scriptures, because the choice and meaning of its words are not the outcome of human invention, but are those which the Holy Spirit has seen fit to use. How often we sing of “pardon” for sinners, yet the New Testament Scriptures never mention the word because “pardon” is not the same as “justification”. The misunderstanding and consequent misuse of scriptural words may lead to confusion and even result in wrong doctrine. Our purpose in this series, God willing, is to examine some of the great truths which are summed up in particular words, with a view to a greater understanding of the terminology of our calling by grace.
The Foundation of Redemption – Purchase
What is redemption?
One of the first points to be understood concerning redemption is that it is not simply the payment of a purchase price in order to obtain someone or something. The Greek word exagorazo, which literally means “to buy out”, is translated “redeem” in our Bibles and carries the familiar notion of a slave being purchased out of the market with a view to his liberty.
The distinction between ransom and redemption
There is, however, an important distinction between the payment made and the ultimate deliverance of the slave out of bondage. The scriptural word for the payment that makes deliverance possible is “ransom”, and, whilst the ransom lays the legal basis for the deliverance of the slave, he does not know the real truth of redemption until he is walking as a free man. Payment establishes legal entitlement to the property and is an essential element of redemption, but the object or person that has been purchased is only redeemed when the legal owner claims the possession for himself, thus providing deliverance from all previous claims. The purchase price secures the possession for himself, but deliverance secures the possession to himself. Thus redemption is based upon the payment of a ransom, but does not mean payment or purchase.
Examples of ransom and redemption
The distinction between ransom and redemption is made in Jeremiah 31.11 - “For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he”. Again, in Hosea 13.14, we read, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death”. Noting the distinction between the ransom, which establishes ownership by payment, and redemption which displays ownership by possession, gives help in understanding Ephesians 1.14 - “Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession”. The act of purchase, at Calvary, was at least 2000 years prior to the Lord claiming to Himself that which He has bought with His blood, but, when He does call us all home to glory, that will be the redemption of the purchased possession. One of the clearest illustrations of this aspect of redemption is seen in Jeremiah’s experience of buying the field of Hanameel, his cousin, as recorded in Jeremiah 32. Payment of an agreed price was the basis of the redemption of the field, so seventeen shekels of silver were duly paid over and the transaction was witnessed and sealed. The curious nature of the divine instruction to buy the field, as far as Jeremiah was concerned, was that God had already revealed that the whole land, including the newly-bought field, was to be overrun by the Chaldeans. To buy land that was soon to be invaded seemed folly indeed! Jeremiah realised by faith, however, that God was able to deliver the purchased possession, even though many years and the wrongful occupation of the Chaldeans might separate the ransom payment and the final redemption of the field. Legal entitlement had been established, sealed and witnessed, and the passage of time could not erode the authority of the purchaser to claim, one day, that which was lawfully his. We thus observe that payment is with a view to redemption, and establishes legal ownership. Again, by differentiating between the payment made and the deliverance wrought, any previous difficulty in understanding 2 Peter 2.1 should disappear. The false teachers mentioned in that verse, “even denying the Lord that bought them”, are included in the purchase price paid in blood at Calvary, but refuse to accept the liberty that has been obtained for them. They are purchased but not redeemed.
The ransom paid by the Lord Jesus
In like manner, “the man Christ Jesus…gave himself a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2.5,6) but not all will thus be saved. So enormous was the price He paid in the giving of Himself, He has obtained the legal right to all things in Heaven and Earth, an illustration of which is seen in Matthew 13.44 where the man sold all that he had to buy the field in which the treasure was hidden. He bought the whole field for the sake of the treasure it contained. Interestingly, the Scriptures do not tell us to whom the ransom was paid, and it serves no edifying purpose to speculate, save to say that the payment of a ransom expresses the thought of a costly transaction, implicitly stating the preciousness to the redeemer of the purchased possession.
The Fulfilment of Redemption – Power
The act of redemption
From what we have considered so far, we understand that redemption as a process includes the payment of a ransom, but the act of redemption itself is to take into personal possession that which legally belongs to the redeemer. Often in Scripture that act is opposed, so legal entitlement is enforced by strength and power. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the redemption from Egypt’s bondage of the children of Israel.
Israel redeemed from Egypt
The first recorded song in Scripture is all about the greatness of God in redemption, and in that song we learn of God’s wonderful purpose in the redemption of His people: “Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation” (Ex 15.13). Was this redemption based upon payment? It was, for in that song on the farther shore of the Red Sea Israel sang of “the people…which thou hast purchased” (Ex 15.16). Here is another indication that literal payment is not always in view, for the children of Israel were already the legal possession of their God by virtue of His sovereign elective will. Nevertheless, Psalm 74.2 says, “Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old”, indicating that a great value and a preciousness are attached to the people of God in His eyes. The redemption of Israel by the strength of the Lord was preceded, of course, by the Passover in Egypt, in which was prefigured the death of Christ and the ransom price that He would pay at Calvary.
“Redeemer” in the NT
Though it is clear that the Lord Jesus paid the ransom upon which the whole work of redemption is based, we do not read of Him as the “Redeemer”. In fact, the word “Redeemer” is not mentioned at all in the NT, although it should perhaps be used in Acts 7.35 where the word “deliverer”, referring to Moses, is the English translation of the Greek word lutrotes. Where lutrotes is used in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the OT Scriptures) it is translated “kinsman” in Ruth 3.9, “avenger” in Numbers 35.12, as well as “redeemer” in numerous other references. Thus the same Greek word gives us redeemer, kinsman, avenger and deliverer. Consider these words in the light of Hebrews 2.14-15: “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same (the Kinsman); that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil (the Avenger); And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (the Deliverer)”. The thought of the Kinsman and the Deliverer in these verses will be readily understood, but an explanation of the Avenger might be in order. In Numbers 35.19 we read “The revenger of blood himself shall slay the murderer: when he meeteth him, he shall slay him”. (The revenger of blood is the same person as the avenger in v.12). In John 8.44 the Lord says of the devil, “He was a murderer from the beginning”, and, when He died at Calvary, the divine Avenger “met the murderer and slew him”. Payment and power combined at the Cross to provide redemption, and the scriptural summary is this: “By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption” (Heb 9.12).