Redemption is the price God paid to set free sinners in bondage in the slave market of sin (Ephesians 1:7; 1 Peter 1:18). Not only have sinners been redeemed from slavery to sin (Romans 6:17-22) but sinners have been redeemed and set free as prisoners who were on death row (Exodus 21:29-30).[1]
Redemption was the price paid to make propitiation possible. Redemption is the man-ward accomplishment of Christ’s death because sinners are redeemed from sin. Propitiation is the God-ward aspect because God’s wrath against sin is satisfied. There are three important words that tell us the redemption story: ἠγόρασα [agorazo], Christ purchased us in the slave market of sin with his own blood (Rev. 5:9, 10); ἐξαγοράζω [exagorazo], Christ purchased us out of the slave market of sin so that we are no longer under the Law (Gal. 3:13, 4:5); λυτρόω [lutroo], Christ has delivered us to a state of freedom (Titus 2:14). Ryrie smartly summarized these three words and their effect on believers. “(1) People are redeemed by something; namely, by the payment of a price, the blood of Christ. (2) People are redeemed from something; namely, from the marketplace or slavery of sin. (3) People are redeemed to something; namely, to a state of freedom.”[2]
Leon Morris in The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross conveyed similar thoughts when he concluded after extensive Hebrew and Greek word studies of redemption: “From the foregoing examination then we see that where the redemption category is employed there are three aspects of the process of atonement, especially in view.”[3] Morris then discussed the three aspects:
The first is “The state of sin out of which man is to be redeemed.”[4] The second aspect is “The price which is paid.”[5] Morris referred to 1 Peter 1:18-19 which describes the price as the blood of Christ. The third aspect is “The resultant state of the believer.”[6] Morris elaborated:
In the Scripture, we see the price paid, the curse borne, in order that those who are redeemed should be brought into the liberty of the sons of God, a liberty which may paradoxically be called slavery to God. The whole point of this redemption is that sin no longer has dominion; the redeemed are saved to do the will of their Master.[7]
This third aspect of redemption is found in Paul’s words: “For he who was called in the Lord as a bondservant is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise, he who was free when called is a bondservant of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become bondservants of men.” (1 Cor 7: 22, 23). Believers are not only delivered from the slavery of sin but from the wrath of God which the next doctrine of penal substitution defends.
[1] Leon Morris in The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross wrote “The noun kopher means a ransom price, and upon every occasion on which it is used, it can be shown that there is the thought of a payment to be made. In its biblical usage it refers to the sum paid to redeem a forfeited life” (Leon Morris, The Preaching of the Cross [Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.1955], Location 340, Kindle Edition). Morris adds: “The first occurrence of the noun is typical. It tells us of the man whose ox has gored another man, and whose life is forfeited in accordance with the ruling: ‘the ox shall be stoned, and his owner also shall be put to death.’ He is permitted to redeem his life by paying a kōpher, a sum of money ‘laid on him’ (Ex. 21: 28ff). We see the essential meaning also in the account of the institution of the half shekel tax at the census: ‘When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel, according to those that are numbered of them, then shall they give every man a kōpher for his soul unto the Lord’ (Ex. 30:12)” (ibid., Location 354). Morris shows how the LXX used the lutron words to translate kopher and “show us that redemption consistently signifies deliverance by payment of a price” (Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956], 17-19).
[2] Charles Ryrie, Basic Theology (Colorado Springs: Chariot Victor, 1997), 292.
[3] Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1956), Location 949, Kindle Edition.
[4] Ibid., Location 949.
[5] Ibid., Location 954.
[6] Ibid., Location 966.
[7] Ibid., Location 966.