Theme · theological
Redemption
Redemption begins with the Exodus — God purchasing a slave nation out of Egypt with mighty acts and the blood of a lamb. The kinsman-redeemer figure in Ruth shows redemption operating at the family level: one who has the right, the resources, and the willingness to buy back what was lost. Isaiah's Servant Songs promise a redeemer who will pay with his own suffering. Paul proclaims that in Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Revelation closes the arc with the redeemed from every nation standing before the throne.
Related doctrines
Passages expressing this theme
- 1Cor 1:18 — For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
- 1Cor 1:30 — But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
- 1Cor 5:5 — To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
- 1Cor 6:20 — For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
- 1Cor 10:1 — Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea;
- 1Cor 10:4 — And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.
- 1Cor 11:32 — But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.
- 1Cor 15:2 — By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
- 1John 2:2 — And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
- 1John 3:8 — He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.
- 1John 4:9 — In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
- 1John 4:14 — And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.
- 1Pet 1:18 — Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;
- 1Pet 1:20 — Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
- 1Pet 3:20 — Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
- 1Thess 1:10 — And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.
- 1Tim 1:15 — This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
- 1Tim 2:6 — Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
- 2Cor 2:15 — For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish:
- 2Cor 4:10 — Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.
- 2Cor 9:15 — Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.
- 2Pet 1:4 — Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
- 2Pet 2:20 — For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them
- 2Sam 7:23 — And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself, and to make him a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for thy lan
- 2Sam 14:14 — For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from hi
The Church Fathers on Redemption
"Redeem me," means, make me free through the precious blood of your first advent by which the world was delivered when it was being held subject to sins. "And have mercy on me," that is to say, in his world, where you pardon those who pray to you faithfully.
Who redeems your life from destruction. "You were bought," he says, "with a price: do not become the servants of men." What is a greater price than for the Creator to pour out his own blood for the creature?
And this is a sign of His power, that He gave Himself—and not so as to deliver from one iniquity but not from another, but "from all iniquity." Let us then honor our redemption. To cleanse by the font of divine baptism and by the fulfillment of His divine and purifying commandments. "Peculiar" (περιούσιος), that…
In this redemption, the blood of Christ was given, as it were, as a price for us, by accepting which the devil was not enriched, but bound: that we might be loosened from his bonds, and that he might not with himself involve in the meshes of sins, and so deliver to the destruction of the second and eternal death,…
Christ came and "bought us back" when we were serving that lord to whom we sold ourselves by sinning. So he appears to have recovered as his own those whom he created. He has redeemed a people who chose to belong to another, who sought another lord for themselves by sinning.
Christ did what he did in order to strengthen believers, for no one can redeem something which did not originally belong to him. Therefore, whether it is because we have been redeemed, or because we have been sanctified (i.e., purged from the works of the flesh and the filthiness of idols), or because we have been…