Redemption

In this series I will be teaching on what the Bible says about "redemption" as it relates to sin and salvation. Like most bible topics, the average lost person knows next to nothing about the subject, and many Christians have a shallow understanding of the subject.

Most people have heard of the word "redeem" thanks to people using "coupons" (i.e. "redeeming coupons") in sales transactions. Others also think of the idea of "redeeming" when they make use of the "pawn shop." When a possession of value is "pawned" it is given as security for money lent. At this point, when the exchange occurs, a change in the one who has actual possession of the property also occurs. However, full "ownership" (or "title") does not immediately occur.

In those pawn agreements there are stipulations that make it possible for the previous owner and possessor of the property to "reclaim" his lost property, to have full title and possession of it restored. Those agreements at least contain

1) the price to redeem the item pawned (or "hocked"), and

2) who may buy it back, being the person who has the right to buy it back (the one who pawned it or has the proof of it, i.e. the "pawn ticket"), and

3) the time limitations and parameters for when the pawned property may be redeemed and how and when all rights to redemption are forever lost.

These particulars of what it means to "redeem" something are not limited to using coupons and pawn stores. The history of the world knows these terms in regard to buying slaves out of their slavery, and in regard to freeing or ransoming prisoners, and in regard to regaining lost inheritances.

If we ask the average Christian the question - "is redemption an accomplished fact or is it  yet to be accomplished?" - we would probably find more affirming that "redemption was what occurred at Calvary when Christ paid the price for it." Thus, to most, it is something in the past, and applies not to the future. Do the scriptures not speak of redemption as an accomplished fact? (Gal. 3: 13; I Peter 1:18)

Redemption does not consist merely, however, in the one act of Christ paying the redemption price, in his sacrificial death upon the cross, but includes actual deliverance of the redeemed from the effects of their debt or imprisonment.

Redemption is not only objective, a legal or commercial transaction, but subjective, being an actual change in the condition of the redeemed. The redemption price has been paid. In that sense redemption is accomplished in that the enslaved/debtor is guaranteed deliverance and freedom. Redemption is not complete, however, until there has been a restoration of what was lost.

The objective side of redemption is a one time act, never to be repeated. A debt paid by a redeemer is paid once. A slave is "officially" or legally redeemed by a redeemer when the slave's debt or obligation is paid or satisfied. This occurs in a single act of exchange between the redeemer and the master or lord who has power, control, and authority over the slave.

The subjective side of redemption is not a one time act, but is progressive as it relates to the actual deliverance of the soul from the enslavement of sin. Getting out from under the power and control of sin and its enslavement is progressive in this life for the soul.

Redemption occurs in three stages.

Redemption occurs first when the price is paid for the release of the slave or for the restoration of what was lost. Redemption then occurs in the life and soul of the believer at first conversion and then through progressive sanctification until departing from the body to be with the Lord in death. Finally, redemption is completed in the resurrection at the second coming of Christ when the body is made spiritual and immortal like that of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

In order for us to understand more on the meaning of "redemption" I would like to quote from the famous Christian author and theologican, J.A. Seiss. In his book "The Apocalypse," when discussing what is the significance of the "seven sealed scroll" of Revelation chapter five, Seiss wrote (emphasis mine):

"It is not ecclesiastical history, which this book is introduced to foreshow, but something to which all ecclesiastical history is only the prelude and introduction, and which the Scriptures call “The redemption of the purchased possession.”

It may be well here for us to correct a misapprehension which largely obtains in the common conception of what redemption is (just what I have stated - SG). When this word is used, most men’s minds go back to the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and think of something already accomplished and complete in the blessed facts of the blessed Saviour’s history. This is well enough as far as it goes, and touches indeed, the great central particulars on which redemption reposes. But, viewed as a whole, redemption is a vastly wider and more wondrous thing."

Well, amen to that! Oh that Christians could understand how "redemption" is indeed "vastly wider and more wondrous" than they generally know.

Wrote Seiss:

"It stretches back through a history of six thousand years, and yet its sublimest part is still future. It includes all past dispensations and theophanies, and the coming and achievements of Christ in the flesh; but it embraces still other dispensations, and more wonderful theophanies, and a more glorious advent of Christ, and vastly more far reaching achievements, of which His miracles were the symptomatic preintimations. There is already much of redemptive power and blessing in the world. The truth is, that everything on earth rests on a mediatorial basis. The world stands, and man exists, only because of Christ and His undertaking to be our Saviour. But for His mediatorship, Adam would have perished the day that he transgressed, and never a human being would have been born. The very ungodliest of the race owe whatever blessings they enjoy to the blood and engagement of Christ. Even the lower animals, and the very grasses of the fields, live and flourish by virtue of the same. Redemption is therefore so far a living force. Like a golden chain, it girdles the world, upholds it from destruction, and sustains, and blesses all the varied and successive generations on its surface. But, all this sea of mediatorial mercies is as nothing, compared with what is yet to come." 

Yes, indeed, as respects "redemption," we may say "the best is yet to come."

Wrote Seiss:

"Redemption has its roots and foundations in the past, but its true realization lies in the future, and connects directly with the period and transactions to which our text (Rev. chpt. 5) relates."

Again, we give a hearty "amen" to these words. "Its true realization lies in the future."

Wrote Seiss:

"The Scriptures everywhere point forward to Christ’s Apocalypse, as the time when first the mystery shall be finished, and the long process reach its proper consummation. Jesus talked to His disciples about the signs which were to precede His coming, and said, “When these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21:28.) In His view, then, redemption proper, or in its true reality, lies far more in the future than in the past; so much more that the past is hardly to be named apart from what is yet to come. And with all Paul’s glorying in the cross, he did not hesitate to say: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are, of all men, most miserable;” and that “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now; 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 the body.” (1 Corinthians 15:19; Romans 8:22, 23.) He speaks of Christians as indeed “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,” which he commends greatly, but which he pronounces the mere “earnest” or pledge penny of something vastly greater — of an “inheritance” still future, which is only to come at a yet unaccomplished “redemption of the purchased possession.” (Ephesians 1:13, 14.) To him, therefore, redemption is still largely a subject of hope. There is an inheritance pledged, and a possession purchased, but it is not yet redeemed. The action of claiming, disencumbering, and taking possession of it is still future. And it is just this action that is brought to our view in the taking up of this book and the breaking of its seals."

I think the proposition has been proven which affirms that redemption is not solely an event of the past and involves more than Christ paying the price of redemption.

Wrote Seiss:

"The word redemption comes to us, and takes its significance from certain laws and customs of the ancient Jews. Under these laws and customs, it was impossible to alienate estates beyond a given time. Whatever disposition one may have been forced to make of his lands, and whoever might be found in possession of them, the year of Jubilee returned them to the lawful representatives of their former owners." 

Suppose that the laws of the USA were the same as that of the ancient Jews. In that case, foreclosures would not necessarily be final for there would always be the "right of redemption" held by a person or his legal kinsmen. At any time, when the original owner was able, he could "buy back" his lost property, or his "inheritance." Further, the law concerning the year of Jubilee restored a man's family property.

Wrote Seiss:

"Upon this regulation there was founded another, which made it the right of the nearest of kin to one who, through distress or otherwise, had alienated his inheritance to another party, to step in and redeem it; that is, to buy it back, and retake it, at any time, or at such times not falling within certain stipulated intervals. When an inheritance was thus disponed away by its rightful possessor, there were two books, or instruments of writing, made of the transaction, the one open, and the other sealed, specifying price and particulars. These books or mortgage deeds went into the hands of the one to whom the property was thus made over. A sealed book thus became a standing sign of an alienated inheritance, but so held as to be liable to be recovered on the terms specified. And when any one legally representing the original proprietor, was found competent to lift and destroy that sealed instrument, and thus to buy back what had been disponed away, he was called the goel, or redeemer, and the inheritance was considered redeemed, so far that he now had full right to dispossess of it whoever might be found on it, and to enter upon its undisturbed fruition."

Well, that is absolutely hitting the nail right on the head!

Wrote Seiss:

"From this it will be seen, that the transactions which John witnessed, in regard to this sealed book, accord precisely with this ancient arrangement for the redemption of inheritances. And the coincidence is so complete, and sealed books in Scripture are so much confined to this particular sort of writings, that I take it as separating this book in God’s right hand from all other subjects to the one subject of forfeited inheritances.

Redemption, as it pictures the way of salvation, involves mainly 1) the "redemption of inheritances" and 2) redemption of people who have been sold into slavery.

Wrote Seiss:

"We also know very well, that there has been an inheritance forfeited and disponed away for these thousands of years, and that for all this time the proper heirs have lain out of it, and had no proper possession of it. That inheritance we know to be just ta panta — the all things — in which man, in his first creation, was installed, and which God made good, and sin made evil. Everything testifies that it was a high, holy, and blessed investiture. But, alas, its original possessor sinned, and it passed out of his hands to the disinheritance of all his seed. The sealed book, the title deeds of its forfeiture and mortgage, are in the hands of God, and strangers and intruders have overrun and debased it. And from the days of Adam until now, those deeds have lain in the Almighty’s hands, with no one to take them up or to dispossess the aliens. And even when the saints are caught up to the sky, they will find it still lying there, awaiting this very scene of the text, when the Goel adjudged worthy shall appear and take it up, and destroy the sad testimonial by breaking its seals forever."

What we should understand by now is that "redemption" involves two things:

First, there is the payment of the redemption price by the redeemer.

Second, there is the actual restoration of what was lost.

In the next posting we will continue our study of this delightful subject.