Reconciliation uses an analogy from ordinary human relationships to help us understand God’s great salvation. In a similar way, redemption employs an analogy from life events to help us understand salvation. For instance securing a slave’s freedom by payment of a redemption price helps us understand the salvation God provides through faith in Christ. Titus 2:13–14 refers to “our Savior Jesus Christ who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity.” Romans 3:23–24 explains that even though “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” God’s gracious gift of His Son provides the way for sinners to be “justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
The idea of redemption has deep roots in the Old Testament. For example God’s deliverance of His people from Egyptian bondage is referred to as redemption, with God Himself being the deliverer or redeemer (Ex. 6:6). For centuries to come, the people of God would be able to recall that historical event. As Psalm 78:35 says, “They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God their redeemer.” Again on the human level, God’s Law provided that in the case of a man who lost his family inheritance through debt, the property could be redeemed if someone of near kin provided the redemption price (Lev. 25:24–28).
Salvation as redemption suggests we consider the bondage from which sinners need release, the ransom price and the possibilities after the release.
Bondage
Caused by human sin, this bondage has more than one dimension. As Titus 2:13–14 declares, redemption means deliverance from iniquity. In addition to redemption from sin, Galatians 3:13 speaks about deliverance from “the curse of the law.” Christ wrought this aspect of redemption by “becoming a curse for us.” Redemption from sin’s guilt and punishment, as well as redemption from the curse of having broken God’s Law, are among the conditions from which Christ delivers repentant sinners.
Ransom price
The idea of redemption through payment was at the heart of Jesus’ well-known declaration, “The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Hebrews 9:12 tells us that by means of His own blood Christ secured “an eternal redemption.” If words have any meaning at all, then “eternal” means eternal. A believer’s redemption is a secure release from sin’s consequences — a deliverance that will not be revoked.
Possibilities after the release
As Christians, since we have been redeemed, we have divine forgiveness according to Ephesians 1:7, “In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.”
In addition to present forgiveness we also have future hope that includes participation in all of creation’s deliverance from the bondage of decay, something that will include the redemption of the body. “[T]he whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And … we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved” (Rom. 8:22–24).
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