REDEEMER, REDEMPTION.Redemption means in strictness deliverance by payment of a price or ransom, hence, metaphorically, at any great cost or sacrifice; but in the OT, outside the Law (especially in Deut., Psalms, Isaiah), is often used also of deliverance simply, as from oppression, violence, sickness, captivity, deathredemption by power. The typical redemption in the OT was the deliverance of Israel from Egypt (cf. Isa_51:9-11).
Two words, with their derivatives, are used in the OT to express the idea. The one, gâal (from which gââl, redeemer), is used technically of redemption of ant inheritance, of tithes, and the like: in a wider sense it is a favourite term in the later Psalms and Deutero-Isaiah. The other, pâdhâh, is frequent in Deut. and in the earlier Psalms. The gôel is the kinsman who has the right to redeem; the term is used also of the avenger of blood (Num_35:12 etc.); elsewhere, as in Job_19:25, Psa_19:14 etc., but especially in Deutero-Isaiah, it denotes Jehovah as the vindicator, deliverer, and avenger of His people (cf. Isa_40:14; Isa_43:14 etc.). The NT, likewise, employs two wordsone agorazô, to buy or purchase (1Co_6:20; 1Co_7:23, 2Pe_2:1, Rev_5:9; Rev_14:3-4; St. Paul uses a compound form in Gal_3:13; Gal_4:5); the other, and more usual, lutroumai (from lutron, a ransom), and its derivatives. The special Pauline word for redemption is apolutrôsis (Rom_3:24; Rom_8:23, 1Co_1:30, Eph_1:7 etc.). In Rom_11:26 Deliverer is used for the OT Redeemer (Isa_59:20).
In pious circles in Israel the coming Messianic salvation was viewed as a redemption (Luk_2:38), in which, possibly, political deliverance was Included, but in which the main blessings were spiritualknowledge of salvation, remission of sins, holiness, guidance, peace (Luk_1:74-79). In Christs own teaching the political aspect altogether disappears, and the salvation He brings in is something wholly spiritual. He connects it with His Person, and in certain well-known passages with His death (Joh_3:14-16; Joh_6:51-56, Mat_20:28 || and Mat_26:26-28 || etc.). In the Apostolic teaching (Acts, Paul, Peter, Heb., Rev.) Christs work is distinctively a redemption. Redemption, moreover, is not used here simply in the general sense of deliverance, but with definite emphasis on the idea of purchase (Act_20:28, 1Co_6:20, Eph_1:7, 1Ti_2:9, 1Pe_1:18-19, Rev_5:9 etc.). This glances back to Christs own saying that He came to give his life a ransom (lutron; cf. antilutron in 1Ti_2:6) for many (Mat_20:28). Further, ransom, price, purchase, redeem, are not to be taken simply figuratively, in the sense that Christ has procured salvation for us at the cost of great suffering, even of death, to Himself. This is true; but the consensus of Apostolic teaching gives a much more definite interpretation to the language; one in accordance with Christs own intimation. His death was an explatory sacrifice by which those who avail themselves of it are literally redeemed from the wrath of God that rested on them, and from all other effects of sin. It is St. Paul who works out this idea most systematically (cf. Rom_3:23-26, 2Co_5:18-21, Gal_3:10-13; Gal_4:4-5, Tit_3:14, etc.), though all the NT writers share it. The immediate effect of Christs redeeming death is to free from guilt and annul condemnation (Rom_8:1; Rom_8:33-34), but it carries in its train deliverance from sin in every form (from sins dominion, from the tyranny of Satan, from an evil world, from all iniquity, Rom_6:1-23, Gal_1:4, Tit_2:14, Heb_2:14 etc.); ultimately from death itself (Rom_8:23). It not merely redeems from evil, but puts in possession of the highest possible goodeternal life (Rom_6:23, Eph_1:3 etc.). It is a redemption in every way complete. See, further, artt. Atonement, Propitiation, Reconciliation, Salvation.
James Orr.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909