Concept

Redemption

Intro

Redemption is a market word. To redeem something is to buy it back, to pay a price and take ownership. The New Testament says that is exactly what happened to Christians: "you are not your own, for you were bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Two questions follow, and the Bible answers both plainly. What was the price? Not money. "You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold... but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:18-19). Who paid it? Jesus. He called his own death "a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45), and the book of Revelation sings to him, "you were slain, and ransomed people for God by your blood" (Revelation 5:9).

There is one verse that puts the whole matter under pressure and, rightly read, opens it up: "the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood" (Acts 20:28). God has no blood; God the Father did not become incarnate and bleed. So how can Scripture say God bought the church with his own blood? The answer is the heart of Christian redemption: the one who shed the blood is God the Son, who took on a real human nature in order to have blood to shed. In the Old Testament it is always YHWH who redeems his people; in the New Testament that redeeming God has come in person, in the Son, and paid the price himself.

This page lays out the vocabulary of purchase, the price of blood, who the Redeemer is (and why "God purchased with his own blood" points to Christ's deity without making him the Father), what we are redeemed from and to, and the disputed text about whether Christ "bought" even false teachers (2 Peter 2:1).

In full

Redemption (Greek apolytrōsis, lytrōsis; the verbs agorazō, exagorazō, lytroō) is the soteriological metaphor of purchase and release: a captive is set free by the payment of a ransom price. It stands alongside, and interlocks with, the other great Atonement metaphors, sacrifice (expiation of sin), justification (the law-court), reconciliation (restored relationship), and victory (Christus Victor). Its distinctive note is ownership transferred by price: the redeemed are freed from a former master (sin, the curse of the law, the futile life, death) and become the possession of the Redeemer, "a people for his own possession" (Titus 2:14).

The price is uniform across the corpus: the blood, that is, the sacrificial death, of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:18-19; Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14; Hebrews 9:12; Revelation 5:9). The Redeemer is Christ, and Acts 20:28 ("God... purchased with his own blood") both identifies the purchaser as God and locates the blood in the incarnate Son, a datum best read through the communication of attributes (what is true of either nature is said of the one person) and through the biblical pattern of divine-identity Christology: the acts the Old Testament reserves to YHWH, including redemption, the New Testament attributes to Jesus, because the Son shares the one divine identity of YHWH while remaining personally distinct from the Father. This is the doctrine's anti-Oneness and anti-Arian edge at once: Jesus is fully God (against Arianism) and is not the Father (against Oneness modalism).

The vocabulary of purchase

The redemption word-group carries the picture of the marketplace and the slave-market:

agorazō, "to buy" (from agora, the marketplace). "You were bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20; 1 Corinthians 7:23); "you were slain and bought people for God by your blood" (Revelation 5:9).
exagorazō, "to buy out", to purchase and remove from the market. "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us" (Galatians 3:13).
lytron / lytroō / apolytrōsis, the ransom-price and its paying. "The Son of Man came... to give his life a ransom (lytron) for many" (Mark 10:45); "in him we have redemption (apolytrōsis) through his blood" (Ephesians 1:7).

Behind all of this stands the Old Testament, where redemption is a family and covenant word. The gōʾēl, the kinsman-redeemer, is the near relative who pays to buy back a relative's forfeited land, freedom, or life (Ruth 4; Leviticus 25). YHWH is Israel's gōʾēl: "I am YHWH... I will redeem you with an outstretched arm" (Exodus 6:6), redeeming the nation out of Egypt. Christ is the true Kinsman-Redeemer: he takes on our flesh and blood (Hebrews 2:14) precisely so that, as our near kinsman, he can pay the price for us.

The price: the blood of Christ

The redemption texts are unanimous that the coin is not metal but blood:

1 Peter 1:18-19, "not with perishable things like silver or gold... but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ."
Ephesians 1:7 / Colossians 1:14, "in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses."
Hebrews 9:12, "he entered once for all into the holy places... by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption."
Revelation 5:9, "you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and tongue."

"Blood" here is shorthand for a sacrificial death, life poured out (Leviticus 17:11). Redemption is therefore not a transaction detached from the cross; it is the cross, read under the metaphor of price and ownership. This is why the doctrine interlocks with Penal Substitutionary Atonement: the price is paid to the justice of God, satisfying the debt the sinner owed (see "To whom is the price paid?" below).

Who is the Redeemer? The Acts 20:28 crux

Acts 20:28 is the hinge: "the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood." Three facts sit in one clause: the purchaser is God; the currency is blood; and God, as God, has no blood. The resolution is Christological.

The communicatio idiomatum. Because the divine Son took a complete human nature, the one person of Christ can be described by what is true of either nature. The blood belongs to his humanity; the person whose blood it is, is God. So it is proper to say "God purchased with his own blood," meaning: the person who bled is God the Son. See Communicatio Idiomatum and Hypostatic Union. (This is the same logic by which Scripture can say "they crucified the Lord of glory," 1 Corinthians 2:8.)

Divine-identity Christology. The deeper pattern is that redemption is a divine act. In the Old Testament, the Redeemer is always YHWH: "Is he not your Father, who bought you? He made you and established you" (Deuteronomy 32:6, the verb qānâ, to acquire, create, possess); "YHWH your Redeemer" is a refrain in Isaiah (Isaiah 43:1; 44:24; 48:17). The New Testament then attributes this very work of redemption to Jesus, and does so by mapping YHWH-texts onto him:

Isaiah 45:23, "to me every knee shall bow" (YHWH speaking), is applied to Jesus in Philippians 2:10-11.
Joel 2:32, "everyone who calls on the name of YHWH shall be saved," is applied to Jesus in Romans 10:13.

The conclusion is not that Jesus is the Father, but that Jesus shares the one divine identity of YHWH as the Son. When the OT says YHWH redeems his people, and the NT says Jesus redeemed us with his blood, the two are not in tension: the redeeming YHWH has acted in the person of the Son. This both secures Christ's full deity and preserves the distinction of persons.

Why this is not Oneness. Oneness Pentecostalism reads "God purchased with his own blood" and "the Father who bought you" (Deuteronomy 32:6) as proof that Jesus simply is the Father incarnate. The Trinitarian reply is that the New Testament relentlessly distinguishes the Son from the Father even while affirming the full deity of both: the Son is sent by the Father (John 6:38), prays to the Father (John 17:1), and submits his will to the Father's ("not my will, but yours be done," Luke 22:42), which are unintelligible if the Son is the very same person as the Father. Redemption by "God's own blood" requires that Jesus be YHWH; it does not require, and the wider NT forbids, that Jesus be the Father. See Oneness Pentecostalism and Trinity.

What we are redeemed from, and to

Redemption is release from a bondage and into a belonging:

From the curse of the law, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us" (Galatians 3:13).
From the futile way of life inherited from the fathers (1 Peter 1:18-19).
From all lawlessness, "who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession" (Titus 2:14).
From sin and its guilt, redemption "the forgiveness of our trespasses" (Ephesians 1:7).
To God, and to Christ's ownership, "you were bought with a price; so glorify God in your body" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20); "bought people for God" (Revelation 5:9). The redeemed are no longer their own; they belong to the Redeemer.

To whom is the price paid?

A ransom is paid to someone. Early "ransom-to-Satan" theories held the price was paid to the devil, who held humanity captive; this was rightly criticized (Gregory of Nazianzus, Anselm) because it grants Satan rights God never conceded. The mainstream understanding is that the ransom is paid to God, satisfying the demands of his own justice against sin: the debt is owed to God's holiness, and God, in the Son, pays it himself. Redemption thus terminates on God, not the devil, and coheres with Penal Substitutionary Atonement and the broader Atonement Theory Spread. The metaphor should not be pressed into a wooden commercial exchange; "price" names the costliness and the substitution, not a literal sum handed to a captor.

The 2 Peter 2:1 crux: did Christ buy the false teachers?

2 Peter 2:1 describes false teachers "even denying the Master (despotēs) who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction." If Christ "bought" people who then perish, does that undercut particular redemption? The interpretations divide, and the codex presents them fairly:

Universal-provision / unlimited-atonement reading. Christ's redemption is genuinely offered to all; these teachers were bought in the sense that the atonement's provision extended to them, and they are doubly culpable for denying the Master who provided it. (Arminian and many non-Reformed readers.)
Phenomenological / "professed" reading. They were "bought" in the judgment of the church, professing Christians who appeared redeemed but were apostate, so "bought" describes their outward standing, not an effected redemption. (Some Reformed readers.)
Covenant-Master / Deuteronomy-32 allusion reading. Despotēs ("Master, Sovereign") echoes Deuteronomy 32:6 LXX, "the Father who bought you," where "bought" is national-covenant deliverance and creation, not saving redemption. On this view the "buying" is God's sovereign claim over people within the covenant community whom he delivered as a people, and the false teachers deny that Sovereign. (Reformed particular-redemption readers, e.g. Gary Long, Simon Kistemaker.)

Note that despotēs is used elsewhere of both the Father (Luke 2:29; Acts 4:24) and of Christ (Jude 4), so the title alone does not fix the referent; the redemption theology of the wider New Testament does. The passage is a genuine crux in the extent-of-the-atonement debate, and it does not, on any reading, teach that the Father and the Son are the same person.

Common questions this page answers

Q: Who bought us, and what was the price?

Jesus Christ bought us, and the price was his own blood, that is, his sacrificial death. "You were bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 6:19-20); "you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold, but with precious blood... the blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:18-19). Jesus called his death "a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45), and Revelation sings that he "ransomed people for God" by his blood (Revelation 5:9).

Q: How can Acts 20:28 say God bought the church "with his own blood" when God has no blood?

Because the one who shed the blood is God the Son, who took a real human nature and therefore had blood to shed. By the communication of attributes, what is true of Christ's humanity (he bled) can be predicated of the one divine person (God purchased). So "God purchased with his own blood" means the person who bled is God, the incarnate Son, not that the divine nature bled or that the Father became incarnate. See Communicatio Idiomatum.

Q: Does "God purchased with his own blood" (or Deuteronomy 32:6, "the Father who bought you") mean Jesus is the Father?

No. In the Old Testament it is always YHWH who redeems his people, and the New Testament attributes that same redeeming work to Jesus (applying YHWH-texts like Isaiah 45:23 and Joel 2:32 to him in Philippians 2:10-11 and Romans 10:13). This shows Jesus shares the one divine identity of YHWH as the Son, not that he is the Father. The New Testament consistently distinguishes the Son from the Father (the Son is sent by, prays to, and submits to the Father) while affirming both are fully God. See Trinity and Oneness Pentecostalism.

Q: Did Christ buy even the false teachers in 2 Peter 2:1?

That is a genuine crux in the debate over the extent of the atonement. Some read it as universal provision (Christ's redemption was offered even to them, deepening their guilt when they deny him); some as a phenomenological "professed" redemption (they appeared bought but were apostate); and some as an echo of Deuteronomy 32:6 where "bought" means covenant deliverance of a people, not saving redemption. The Greek despotēs ("Master") is used of both the Father and Christ, so the title alone does not settle it. On every reading, the verse does not teach that the Father and the Son are the same person.