Redemption
There is a predicament you are in that you cannot get out of — and a price you could never pay. Redemption is the word the Bible uses for what God did about it.
Have you ever considered that you need to be purchased? That you need to be rescued from something you couldn’t escape on your own — a predicament in which you are in and that you can’t get out of?
Most people have never thought about their condition in those terms. We think of freedom as a natural state, something we possess by default. The Bible thinks otherwise. According to Scripture, every man and woman outside of Jesus Christ is not free — they are bound. They are in a slave market, held by a debt they did not choose and cannot pay, under a sentence they cannot overturn.
Redemption is one of the major themes in all of Scripture. It runs from Genesis to the Lord Jesus Christ and beyond. It is not a theological abstraction. It is a transaction — a real purchase, a real price, a real deliverance. And to understand it is to understand why the gospel is not merely good advice, but the only rescue available to man.
What Redemption Means
Redemption means to purchase something back. There is a transaction involved — a price paid in order to deliver something or someone from one condition and bring them to another. Scripture calls this price a ransom.
In the Old Testament, almost anything could be redeemed. Land, animals, even a person. The context of slavery was one of the primary settings in which the concept was established. Leviticus 25:25 shows a man who has sold his possession out of poverty, and his kinsman coming to purchase it back for him. The law made provision for it. The mechanism was real.
But those redemptions in the Old Testament — the land, the slave, the possession — were real redemptions that pointed to something greater. They were figures and shadows of the redemption that concerned man’s relationship to God.
The Old Testament Pictures
God declared to Israel in Exodus 6:6, “I will redeem you with a stretched out arm and with great judgments.” The final of those great judgments was the blood of the Passover lamb. Every firstborn in Egypt died that night — except where the blood had been applied to the door. The angel of death passed over those covered by the blood. This was not incidental. It was a picture, painted centuries before the cross, of what a greater sacrifice would accomplish.
Exodus 15:13 records the song of the redeemed: “Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed.” The pattern is clear — bondage, blood, deliverance. The same pattern that would appear, in full and final form, at Calvary.
There is another picture, a quieter one, in the small book of Ruth. Boaz is called a kinsman redeemer. He is related by blood to Ruth’s family, and he is both willing and able to redeem. Ruth 4:14 says, “Blessed be the Lord which hath not left thee this day without a kinsman.”
The law of redemption required the nearest kinsman. And there was a nearer kinsman in the story — but he was unwilling. He could not redeem without compromising himself, so he stepped aside. Boaz took his place. He was the nearest kinsman who was both willing and able, without compromise. He redeemed what could not redeem itself.
Boaz is a type of Christ. The picture is unmistakable.
Our Nearest Kinsman
Adam was a figure of him that was to come. The Lord Jesus Christ, by taking on flesh, became our nearest kinsman. He was identified with man — born of a woman, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh. And He was both willing and able to redeem, without compromise.
That last word matters enormously. The nearer kinsman in Ruth could not redeem because it would have compromised him. Christ was not compromised with the very thing from which we needed to be redeemed. 2 Corinthians 5 says He “was made sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” He was not tainted by sin. He did not share our guilt. He could stand in our place precisely because He had no debt of His own to pay.
He willingly gave up the ghost on the cross. No one took His life — He laid it down. He was able, and He was willing, and He was uncompromised. That is the portrait of our kinsman redeemer.
The Bondage, the Price, the Deliverance
Every redemption has three features: the bondage, the price, and the deliverance. In the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, all three are defined by Scripture.
The bondage is sin. Romans 3:23 declares that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 6:17 speaks of men as servants of sin. That is not merely a description of bad behavior — it is a description of a condition. We are not sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners by nature, by birthright, from Adam. We are carnal, not spiritual. We are not holy, not just, not righteous in the eyes of God. And so the law of God — which is holy, just, and good — does not help us. It condemns us. It shows us how exceeding sinful we are by the very fact that we cannot keep it. All men are in spiritual bondage to sin, and the law proves it.
Galatians 4:3-5 captures it plainly: “When we were children, we were in bondage… But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, to redeem them that were under the law.” The law was not made for a righteous man — it was made for sinners, to show sinners what they are.
The price is the blood of Christ. 1 Peter 1:18-19 says, “Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things… but with the precious blood of Christ.” Not your riches. Not your sincerity. Not your Christian heritage, your tears of sorrow, your prayers, your church attendance. None of those can pay the wages of sin, which is death. There is nothing you can do, nothing you possess, nothing and no one you belong to naturally that can deal with your sin debt. The price had to come from outside of you, and it had to be of infinite worth. The blood of Christ is that price.
Galatians 3:13 states it with striking directness: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” He bought us out of the slave market of sin. Titus 2:14 says He “gave himself… that he might redeem us from all iniquity.” The cross was the payment. His blood was the price.
The deliverance is unto God Himself. We are not merely freed from something — we are brought to Someone. Colossians 1:13-14 says we are “translated into the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” Past sins, present sins, future sins — all of them. We were servants of sin; we become servants of righteousness, servants of God.
Present and Future
The redemption that is in Christ Jesus is not only present — it is also future. He purchases us now through the redemption of our souls. But He has given us the promise of a future redemption that is the redemption of our body. Romans 8:23 speaks of believers waiting for “the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” What Christ has begun in the soul, He will complete in the resurrection. Redemption looks forward to glory.
What You Cannot Do
Redemption is necessary because we cannot free ourselves. We cannot save ourselves. We can never do enough good to pay for our sin debt. How can you both live and die? The wages of sin is death — and you would have to die to pay it. We can only do that in the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, as Romans 3 declares, we are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
Not your redemption. Not religion. Not your acts and service and works — all of it is tainted with sin. We need a price to be paid for us outside of ourselves, and outside of those that are closest to us. Yet we need someone close to us. That is the wonder of the incarnation: the Son of God became man, became our near kinsman, so that He could legally, righteously, and willingly pay what we could not.
A Personal Provision
Redemption is not a mere theological concept. It is a personal provision of Jesus Christ for the world. It is life-transforming, and it is only by Jesus Christ.
The provision of freedom is the result of the cross. And He offers that to you as a free gift of His grace — Him doing the work, Him providing what you cannot provide, Him paying the ransom price. He does not ask you to work for it. He asks you to believe it. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and what He did for you on the cross, and the redemption that is in Christ Jesus becomes yours.
If you have believed, remember Him. Hold Him in your knowledge. Remember that His body was broken for you and His blood was shed for you. Trust in Jesus Christ who paid the full price for your soul, and who will one day redeem your body in the life that is to come.
Look Up,
—Josh Strelecki, Pastor-Teacher