Ecclesia Global Missions

Isaiah 59:20

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20 “A Redeemer (Messiah) will come to Zion,

And to those in Jacob (Israel) who turn from transgression (sin),” declares the Lord.

Job 19:25

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25 “For I know that my Redeemer and Vindicator lives,

And at the last He will take His stand upon the earth.

As we continue on in our series focusing on Who Jesus is, this week our focus will begin with Jesus as Redeemer. 

What exactly is a redeemer? This may be a word that we have read so often that we think we know, may even understand to some degree, or only have some idea of what it means.

According to Strong’s Concordance: 

gâʼal, gaw-al’; to redeem (according to the Oriental law of kinship), i.e. to be the next of kin (and as such to buy back a relative’s property, marry his widow, etc.):—× in any wise, × at all, avenger, deliver, (do, perform the part of near, next) kinsfolk(-man), purchase, ransom, redeem(-er), revenger

And according to

Webster’s Dictionary 1828: Redeem is: 

• to obtain or purchase.
• To purchase back; to ransom; to liberate or rescue from captivity or bondage, or from any obligation or liability to suffer or to be forfeited, by paying an equivalent; 
• To repurchase what has been sold; to regain possession of a thing alienated, by repaying the value of it to the possessor.
• To rescue; to recover; to deliver from.
• To compensate; to make amends for.
• To free by making atonement.
• To pay the penalty of.
• To save.
• To perform what has been promised; to make good by performance. 
• In theology, to rescue and deliver from the bondage of sin and the penalties of God’s violated law, by obedience and suffering in the place of the sinner, or by doing and suffering that which is accepted in lieu of the sinner’s obedience.
•  In commerce, to purchase or pay the value in specie, of any promissory note, bill or other evidence of debt, given by the state, by a company or corporation, or by an individual.

With this general knowledge, when we look at the book of Leviticus, we can see where God had family taking care of family. They would redeem and pay the penalty, the debt, or the price that a family member owed.

Leviticus 25:25

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25 ‘If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell some of his property, then his nearest relative is to come and buy back (redeem) what his relative has sold.

Leviticus 25:50

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Then he [or his redeemer] shall calculate with his purchaser from the year when he sold himself to the purchaser to the Year of Jubilee, and the [original] price of his sale shall be adjusted according to the number of years. The time he was with his owner shall be considered as that of a hired man.

This was part of their culture. Our culture, well, at least where I live, seems to be very different today. As I mentioned, we may understand Jesus as our Redeemer to some degree, but not like the people of this time did. They lived it, they knew it, and it was a part of life for them. 

The book of Ruth has an example of what it was to redeem and be a redeemer in these times. 

Boaz was Ruth’s and Naomi’s redeemer.

Ruth 3:9, 12

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9 So he said, “Who are you?” And she answered, “I am Ruth your maid. Spread the hem of your garment over me, for you are a close relative and redeemer.”…

12 It is true that I am your close relative and redeemer; however, there is a relative closer [to you] than I.

In the ESV, the title for Ruth 4 is Boaz redeems Ruth:

Ruth 4:1, 3-6, 10

English Standard Version

Now Boaz had gone up to the gate and sat down there. And behold, the redeemer, of whom Boaz had spoken, came by. So Boaz said, “Turn aside, friend; sit down here.” And he turned aside and sat down … 3 Then he said to the redeemer, “Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land that belonged to our relative Elimelech. 4 So I thought I would tell you of it and say, ‘Buy it in the presence of those sitting here and in the presence of the elders of my people.’ If you will redeem it, redeem it. But if you will not, tell me, that I may know, for there is no one besides you to redeem it, and I come after you.” And he said, “I will redeem it.” 5 Then Boaz said, “The day you buy the field from the hand of Naomi, you also acquire Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead, in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance.” 6 Then the redeemer said, “I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I impair my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it.”…10 Also Ruth the Moabite, the widow of Mahlon, I have bought to be my wife, to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance, that the name of the dead may not be cut off from among his brothers and from the gate of his native place. You are witnesses this day.”

Boaz purchased the land and “purchased” or redeemed Ruth; he paid a price for her and for his relatives. He saved Ruth, and in the process, saved Naomi as well. When he took Ruth to be his wife, he provided for and took care of both Naomi and Ruth. 

Can we see how Jesus does this for us? How, when we are slaves to sin, slaves to the enemy, as Leviticus mentions, Jesus redeems us. He paid the price for us to be free from slavery. Do you see Jesus doing this for you? Do you see Him saving you in this way and being your redeemer? Or is it something you take for granted or understand only casually or externally? Is it something that you have known and forgotten?

Jeremiah 50:34

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“Their Redeemer is strong; the Lord of hosts is His name. He will most certainly plead their case and defend their cause So that He may bring rest to their land, But turmoil to the inhabitants of Babylon.

As Boaz is just a man, Jesus is the Son of the Most High. How much more does He plead our cases, how much more does the price He paid for us do for us? Not only for us but in us as well.

1 Corinthians 7:23

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23 You were bought with a price [a precious price paid by Christ]; do not become slaves to men [but to Christ].

Think about the relief and the lightness that Ruth and Naomi may have felt, think about the reprieve, the rejoicing, the happiness that followed when Boaz said he would be their redeemer. Being able to breathe and feel some comfort in their situation. 

Do you feel this way, thinking about Jesus as your Redeemer? Do you feel relief and hope? Do you feel like you are able just to breathe and not feel stressed about things that are going on? Do you feel joy, and are you able to rejoice in the price that Jesus paid for you, for your sins? Or is there a sense of immunity to what Jesus did? Not feeling, realizing, or understanding the grand scope of who He is? Maybe a wall or something is keeping you from understanding Him, or realizing what He has done?

Do you relate what Jesus has done and this part of Who He is with what God did with the Israelites? God redeemed them from Egypt; He brought them out of the darkness of Egypt and brought them into His fold and His protection. 

Yet that was for a set of people, Israel.

Deuteronomy 7:8

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But because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath which He swore to your fathers, the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed (bought) you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 15:15

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And you shall remember and thoughtfully consider that you were [once] a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore, I am commanding you these things today.

Jesus is for the whole world!

John 3:16-17

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16 “For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, that He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish, but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send the Son into the world to judge and condemn the world [that is, to initiate the final judgment of the world], but that the world might be saved through Him.

As He buys us back, as He pays the eternal price for our sins, we are reconciled to God. 

He bought us from the house of slavery. He bought us from the enemy. 

Now remember Israel had to sacrifice an animal yearly or more often, depending on their sin and more. The animal was the atoning sacrifice, it was the propitiation for their sins, and it paid the price, so to speak, for the person, or persons, offering up the animal.

Leviticus 5:7-8

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7 ‘But if he cannot afford a lamb, then he shall bring two turtledoves or two young pigeons as his guilt offering for his sin to the Lord, one as a sin offering and the other as a burnt offering. 8 He shall bring them to the priest, who shall offer first the one for the sin offering,

Leviticus 5:17-19

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17 “Now if anyone sins and does any of the things which the Lord has forbidden, though he was not aware of it, still he is guilty and shall bear his punishment. 18 He is then to bring to the priest a ram without blemish from the flock, according to your valuation, for a guilt offering. In this way the priest shall make atonement for him regarding the error which he committed unintentionally and did not know it, and he shall be forgiven. 19 It is a guilt offering; he was certainly guilty before the Lord.”

But that was a temporary act. Jesus is eternal! Hebrews 9 discusses this in detail:

Hebrews 9:10-14

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10 For they [the gifts, sacrifices, and ceremonies] deal only with [clean and unclean] food and drink and various ritual washings, [mere] external regulations for the body imposed [to help the worshipers] until the time of reformation [that is, the time of the new order when Christ will establish the reality of what these things foreshadow—a better covenant].

11 But when Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things to come [that is, true spiritual worship], He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not a part of this [material] creation. 12 He went once for all into the Holy Place [the Holy of Holies of heaven, into the presence of God], and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, having obtained and secured eternal redemption [that is, the salvation of all who personally believe in Him as Savior]. 13 For if the sprinkling of [ceremonially] defiled persons with the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a [burnt] heifer is sufficient for the cleansing of the body, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal [Holy] Spirit willingly offered Himself unblemished [that is, without moral or spiritual imperfection as a sacrifice] to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works and lifeless observances to serve the ever living God?

Notice how this describes past events as external rituals and ceremonies. These were things that were done on the outside. 

Notice too how Jesus works on our insides, more on that later…

God brings us wisdom and knowledge about Jesus.

John 6:44

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44 No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him [giving him the desire to come to Me]; and I will raise him up [from the dead] on the last day.

It is through the grace of God, that we receive revelation of Jesus Christ, that we come to learn of Him as our Redeemer, that we are then able to see Him and take Him to be our Lord and Savior, the One Who has come to earth in the flesh, walked as man, died and rose on the 3rd day to sit at the right hand of God the Father. It is through the grace of God that we receive revelation about sin and the need for repentance, that we receive His wisdom about Jesus, understand sin, and understand exactly how Jesus is our Redeemer.

Ephesians 1:7

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In Him we have redemption [that is, our deliverance and salvation] through His blood, [which paid the penalty for our sin and resulted in] the forgiveness and complete pardon of our sin, in accordance with the riches of His grace

Acts 4:12

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12 And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among people by which we must be saved [for God has provided the world no alternative for salvation].”

Romans 10:10

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10 For with the heart a person believes [in Christ as Savior] resulting in his justification [that is, being made righteous—being freed of the guilt of sin and made acceptable to God]; and with the mouth he acknowledges and confesses [his faith openly], resulting in and confirming [his] salvation.

Even with all of this information, what else has Jesus redeemed us from? 

Well, as I stated earlier, He bought us back. That means not only did He buy us back, but He also brought us back to God. Buying something back means it was previously owned by someone or something. God created us. He created us in our mother’s wombs, He numbered the hairs on our heads, and the days of our lives were written in His book before we even had one yet; we began as His!

Then at some point, sin got in the way. We walked according to our flesh; in short we were sinners.

Romans 5:8-10

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8 But God clearly shows and proves His own love for us, by the fact that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Therefore, since we have now been justified [declared free of the guilt of sin] by His blood, [how much more certain is it that] we will be saved from the wrath of God through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, it is much more certain, having been reconciled, that we will be saved [from the consequences of sin] by His life [that is, we will be saved because Christ lives today].

Jesus not only paid the price for our sins so that we could have eternal life, but He also reconciled us to God. He made us righteous and holy and set us apart for God. 

These are not things that we could do on our own. 

We actually deserve the wrath of God; we deserve to be deserted, forgotten, and left with the enemy. Instead, with the work that is done within our hearts, we learn what is righteous, and we learn how to walk in righteousness. Though we cannot do it alone, it is not our own actions that make us righteous; we realize that it is through Jesus Christ that we are righteous, it is through Him that we learn how to walk in God’s ways, to walk according to His precepts, His expectations for us, His laws, and yes, His will.

Matthew 5:20

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20 “For I say to you that unless your righteousness (uprightness, moral essence) is more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

2 Corinthians 5:21

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21 He made Christ who knew no sin to [judicially] be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we would become the righteousness of God [that is, we would be made acceptable to Him and placed in a right relationship with Him by His gracious lovingkindness].

1 John 2:29

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29 If you know that He is absolutely righteous, you know [for certain] that everyone who practices righteousness [doing what is right and conforming to God’s will] has been born of Him.

Through the redemption of Jesus Christ, through His righteousness, we have access to God the Father. As God is holy, only holiness can be in His presence. When we are born again, after confessing Jesus as our Lord, we are washed clean, not just on the outside, but also on the inside. God has a way of changing our perspective on things. Of changing our perspective of sin, of what it means to be sanctified, holy, and set apart for Him, it can be a change that occurs rapidly, or it can be a change that takes time. No one person changes completely without learning lessons. This means it normally does and can take time, which is why it is often called a Christian walk, as one learns to walk in right standing. The point of all of this is that the Lord works on our hearts in the process of redeeming us, in the process of “buying us back”, of purchasing with His blood, our very lives.

Titus 3:5

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5 He saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we have done, but because of His own compassion and mercy, by the cleansing of the new birth (spiritual transformation, regeneration) and renewing by the Holy Spirit,

Just as Boaz covered Ruth with his garment in the scriptures that I shared earlier, Jesus covers us. Not only with His blood, by covering our sins and washing us clean, but by mediating on our behalf. Part of His redemption is that He becomes our Mediator:

Hebrews 9:15

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15 For this reason He is the Mediator and Negotiator of a new covenant [that is, an entirely new agreement uniting God and man], so that those who have been called [by God] may receive [the fulfillment of] the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has taken place [as the payment] which redeems them from the sins committed under the obsolete first covenant.

He intercedes on our behalf, not just when we accept Him, but continually. We also then come under His covenant, a new covenant, one that He mentions on Passover before He was crucified. We are not under the Law of Moses as the people of His time were. We are under the new covenant of Jesus Christ:

Matthew 26:26-28

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The Lord’s Supper Instituted

26 Now as they were eating Jesus took bread, and after blessing it, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” 27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; 28 for this is My blood of the [new and better] covenant, which [ratifies the agreement and] is being poured out for many [as a ]substitutionary atonement] for the forgiveness of sins.

Every time we take communion, we are reminded of the new covenant that we have in Jesus. We are reminded that He is our amazing, compassionate, miraculous, tremendous Redeemer!

Those prophecies were fulfilled over and over again through Jesus. 

Jeremiah 31:31-34

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31 “Behold, the days are coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel (the Northern Kingdom) and with the house of Judah (the Southern Kingdom), 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” says the Lord. 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” says the Lord, “I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they will be My people. 34 And each man will no longer teach his neighbor and his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me [through personal experience], from the least of them to the greatest,” says the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness, and I will no longer remember their sin.”

Because of the redemption offered through Jesus, our sins are forgiven, as Jeremiah states, they are no longer remembered by God. Remember when I mentioned the work that was being done within us and in our hearts about Jesus, to know Him, to hear of Him, to receive wisdom about Him? We have that here as well, as God has put His new covenant, His law, in us, and written it on our hearts.

Ask God to help you to seek Jesus as your Redeemer, ask Him to help you understand it better and in greater detail so that you can revere Jesus, honor Him, and praise Him. How can we praise Him for this if we don’t understand it? There is so much more to Jesus being our Redeemer than what I have shared today. As with everything we have discussed these last few months, we do have to make a choice. We have to choose to see Jesus, to meditate on Him, to want to learn more about Him, and to feel awe and amazement when we think about Him. Not only for what He did for us and continues to do for us, which is pretty remarkable in itself, but to feel awe and amazement when we realize Who He is, when we recognize all that He is, how great He is, how loving and selfless He is. 

Ask the Lord to teach you to walk in right-standing with Him, and ask for help with the process, because we really cannot do it on our own. 

Understand what it means for Jesus to “buy you back” so that you can be holy and set apart for God. Are there things that are not holy? Are there things that you continue to do, to say, to seek that do not line up with God? These are all things to think about, to pray about, to seek the Lord to work on your heart about. If you are feeling indifferent, if you are feeling frozen or paralyzed towards Jesus, seek God! Cry out to Him. He knows what you are feeling and what you are going through anyway! Is there something that has been going on in your life that could be blocking you, could be keeping you from Him, or stress? Worries? Anxieties? Fear? Doubt? Anger? Disappointment? Frustrations? Past experiences? 

Could the words you say, the thoughts you keep, or the entertainment you participate in be keeping you from God? Keeping you from seeing Jesus as everything we are discussing Him to be? Light of the World, Redeemer, Justice Bringer?

We would love to pray with you if you feel you would like prayer. Let’s come together in agreement! 

As we continue this series on the character of Jesus, let’s prepare our hearts for the season we are in! Let’s prepare our minds and our thoughts, and open ourselves to receive that wonderful, glorious gift of Jesus Christ!

Lord Jesus, help us to walk as you walked, help us to learn from you and use you as our example,

Isaiah 33:15-17

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He who walks righteously and speaks with integrity,

Who rejects gain from fraud and from oppression,

Who shakes his hand free from the taking of bribes,

Who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed

And shuts his eyes to avoid looking upon evil;

16 He will dwell on the heights,

His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks,

His bread will be given him;

His water will be permanent.

17 Your eyes will see the King in His beauty;

They will see a far-distant land.

And we thank You, our Redeemer, for paying the price for our sins, for reconciling us to God, for setting us apart as Yours!

Isaiah 48:17

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17 This is what the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel says,

“I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit (benefit),

Who leads you in the way that you should go.

Psalm 19:14

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14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart

Be acceptable and pleasing in Your sight,

O Lord, my [firm, immovable] rock and my Redeemer.

Habakkuk 3:18-19

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18 Yet I will [choose to] rejoice in the Lord;

I will [choose to] shout in exultation in the [victorious] God of my salvation!

19 The Lord God is my strength [my source of courage, my invincible army];

He has made my feet [steady and sure] like hinds’ feet

And makes me walk [forward with spiritual confidence] on my high places [of challenge and responsibility].