The word redemption has a profound meaning in the Christian community. It means “to buy back,” or to deliver by paying a price.”
The apostle Paul makes it known: “I am of the flesh, sold under sin” (Romans 7:14). Here, man is viewed as a slave and under the sentence of death. The Scripture says. “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). And also, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Being “sold under sin” required a redeemer “to buy back the slave” and prevent further sale.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the Redeemer whose redemptive work on the Cross, has removed born-believers from the salve market of sin and set them free. As our Redeemer, Christ had to restore that which He did not take away.
Before sin and death entered the world, man had peace with God. However, “As by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners” (Romans 5:19). It was therefore necessary for God to restore the fellowship between God and man before the “fall.”
Jesus paid the ultimate price with His own blood for man’s redemption. Peter says, “You were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver and gold . . . But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18,19 KJV). Our Redeemer was the Lamb of God without blemish and without spot.
Job made one of the most sublime messianic passages recorded in the Scriptures, in spite of his suffering and loss. A statement that gives us a window into his faith, trust, and hope in his living Redeemer, and His personal appearance on the earth.
Job declared, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me” (Job 19:25-27). Job had such great confidence that in a coming day he would see his Redeemer.
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb,
Redeemed thru His infinite mercy,
His child, and forever, I am.
—Fanny J Crosby (1820-1915).
Like Job, in a coming day, we too will see our living Redeemer in glorious hope and anticipation. Isaiah 33:17 gives us this assurance, “Your eyes shall behold the king in his beauty; they will see a land that stretches afar.” And also, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:2,3).
Sin brought death and destruction to mankind. The result was “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). And there is none righteous, not even one. All our righteousness are like “filthy rags’ in God’s sight.
It was therefore necessary for God to devise a plan that would provide the way for man to be reconciled to Himself. The only way was through the only Redeemer, God’s only Son, Jesus Christ who would restore the fellowship man once had with His God and which was disrupted because of the sin question.
The prophet Isaiah draws our attention to the vicarious sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ who was “pierced and crushed,” not for any sin of His own: but for our sins, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
“But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Christians can rejoice in the fact that we have a great Redeemer and a wonderful Savior who has mightily conquered sin, death, hell, and the grave to bring about eternal salvation and prepare us for heaven.
Being pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities was what our Redeemer endured and absolutely essential to establish peace and healing between God and rebellious man.
Like Job in the Scriptures, can you say for certain “I know that my Redeemer lives?” You can have this wonderful assurance by trusting Jesus Christ and you personal Savior and be bound for heaven. Here’s how. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth on confesses and issued” (Romans 10:9,10).
The word justified means to be “declared righteous by God.”