By Marv Rosenthal
No Stamps Necessary
It happened during the era of S&H redemption stamps. S&H stamps, which ran their course between the 1930s and 1970s, were stamps customers received from cashiers at supermarkets, gas stations, and other retail locations. They would then collect them in books and redeem them for merchandise from local Green Stamps stores or the S&H Idea Book catalog.
I was walking in the downtown area of a large city when a church bulletin board caught my eye. Its message has been etched upon my mind ever since. It simply proclaimed: “Redemption Center: no stamps necessary.”
“Redemption” is one of the most important words in humanity’s vocabulary because it describes the most potentially important transaction in life. Christians frequently talk about redemption and pray about it. But what is redemption? What is redemption in the eyes of God?
A Closer Look
Let’s go back to the church sign I mentioned; it read: “Redemption center: no stamps necessary.” The sign was technically right because men and women who experience redemption do so freely, or without cause (Romans 3:23).
In other words, men and women make no contribution to their own redemption. Not only are stamps or payment unnecessary, but the truth is that any attempt at payment would negate the transaction of redemption.
If, however, some read the sign, “Redemption center: no stamps necessary,” and perceived that redemption could be secured without any payment whatsoever, that would be equally erroneous. Redemption requires payment, and the price was paid in full by the Son of God.
By definition, redemption is the act of deity in which Jesus Christ pays the whole demand of the law for sinful humanity; the Father receives men and women as children and heirs; and the Holy Spirit delivers men and women from the bondage of indwelling sin unto true freedom.
It is precisely because Jesus paid the whole demand of the law for sinful humanity who was, in turn, enslaved by that law, that Jesus can proclaim, “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:36).
The entire glorious truth of redemption is summed up in the Bible by the use of three words. Each of these words means redemption, but each has a particular shade of emphasis or meaning.
Ransom
The first word we we’ll look at is agorazo. This word places the emphasis of redemption on “the ransom price to be paid.” The apostle John puts it this way:
“And they sang a new song, saying: ‘You are worthy to
take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain,
and have redeemed [agorazo, to pay by ransom] us to God
by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).
In other words, the ransom price was the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Next, consider Peter’s condemnation of false teachers in the latter days:
But there were also false prophets among the people,
even as there will be false teachers among you, who will
secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord
who bought [again, the word is agorazo, to pay by ransom]
them, and bring on themselves swift destruction (2 Peter 2:1).
Peter is saying that in the latter days false prophets will deny acceptability of Christ’s blood in purchasing our redemption.
The apostle Paul adds his voice to that of John and Peter when he writes to the church at Corinth: “For you were bought [agorazo, to pay by ransom] at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Corinthians 6:20).
Paul’s logic is simple. Jesus, through His blood, has paid the price for our redemption. It is only logical, therefore, that we glorify God in our body and spirit which legally belong to the One who has redeemed us.
Removal
Next is the word exagorazo. The emphasis of this word is on the removal of the redeemed from the slave market of sin and the jurisdiction of the Mosaic Law.
Galatians is Paul’s great epistle on Christian liberty. It is the believer’s emancipation proclamation. It is the all-time refutation of those who would put the Christian back under a law system or to illogically develop a system of grace plus law.
Paul’s “battle-trumpet” call is that “Christ has redeemed [exagorazo, to remove] us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’)” (Galatians 3:13). Paul’s point is that Christ, through His death, has removed us out from under the curse of the law.
To underscore the importance of our removal out from under the curse of the law, Paul ties it directly to the purpose for Christ’s incarnation: “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem [exagorazo, to remove out from under] those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5).
For emphasis, let’s reverse the order of Paul’s statement. To be adopted into the family of God, humanity had to be removed out from under the curse of the law (which keeps humanity from God); and for this to be accomplished, Jesus had to become a man.
Release
The third word is lutron, its emphasis on releasing the one redeemed so that he may choose whom he will serve.
Matthew gives an excellent illustration of this word. The disciples were jockeying over places of honor in the kingdom, and Matthew records the Lord’s response: “And whoever desires to be first among you, let him be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom [lutron, to set free] for many” (Matthew 20:27-28).
The Lord appeals for servitude. The example He uses is that He willingly gave His life that humanity might be released, or set free. Now, out of gratitude and love, the recipient of release has the potential to choose to serve the One who released him.
The most familiar use of this word comes from Peter: “… knowing that you were not redeemed [lutron, to set free] with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19).
The price for our being set free was not the corruptible things of this world, but the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
A Comprehensive Picture of Redemption
The three New Testament words for redemption taken together give a composite picture of this glorious doctrine.
The imagery behind these words is that of a slave market – a common and dreadful scene in New Testament times. Agorazo speaks of the purchase price paid to ransom the slave. Exagorazo speaks of the removal of the slave from the sphere of the slave market. Lutron speaks of the slave’s release.
God is so wondrously gracious. He pays the price of our redemption; He removes us from the enslavement of this world system; and then He sets us free. If we serve Him, it is because we choose to, never because He forces us to serve.
Wisdom, gratitude, and love argue for willing servitude. Countless millions through the centuries with unanimous voice have proclaimed, “His yoke is easy, and His burden is light” (see Matthew 11:30).
During seminary student days, I remember going to listen to a well-known evangelist who had come to town. He was speaking on the redemptive work of Christ. To illustrate a point, he told of a woman whose husband had died.
The diseased man had been a physician, and one day his wife went through his ledger. To her surprise, she found that many of his patients had unpaid bills of longstanding. She hired a lawyer to collect the unpaid bills. As the lawyer looked through the ledger, he found these words written under each unpaid bill: “Debt canceled – could not pay.”
The lawyer told his client that she could not collect the debts because her husband had canceled them because his patients were incapable of paying them. It was at this point that the evangelist made his application. He said, “This is what Jesus did for us in redemption. He canceled the debt because we could not pay.”
If you are in Christ, your debt has been canceled because you could not pay it. Jesus paid it for you in full at “the place of the skull” (Matthew 27:33). There He was pierced; there He shed His blood; there He who knew no sin was made sin for us; and there He met once and for all the demands of the Mosaic Law.
Amazingly, the price was not too high for the Father’s love or the Son’s obedience, and with an infinite sacrifice of eternal worth, He legally ransomed us from sin’s penalty. Jesus removed us from sin’s presence. He experientially released us from sin’s power so that we need never be enslaved again.
This reminds me of a wonderfully rich saying: “I asked, ‘How much to you love me, Lord?’ and He said, ‘This much,’ and lifted up His arms and died.”
Oh the glorious wonder of God’s redemption for us!
Marv Rosenthal, founder and President of Zion’s Hope, was an acclaimed international Bible teacher for more almost 6 decades.
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