Redemption means to free someone from bondage. It often involves the paying of a ransom, a price that makes redemption possible. The Israelites were redeemed from Egypt. We were redeemed from the power of sin and the curse of the Law (Gal. 3:13) through Jesus (Rom. 3:24; Col. 1:14). We were bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:20; 7:23).

• lutroo = Emphasis on freedom
• peripoiep = Emphasis on being God’s possession
• agoradzo = Emphasis on the place of slavery
• exagoradzo = Emphasis on permanence of freedom
• One animal sacrifice per man, Genesis 3
• One sacrifice per family, Exodus 12:3-14
• One sacrifice per nation—Tabernacle in wilderness—Day of atonement
• One sacrifice per world, John 1:29, Heb 10:1-14

Originally, the payment of a price to secure the release of a prisoner of war. The word came to be used also of the release of a slave, and sometimes of a person under sentence of death (Exod. 21:28-30). Redemption always means the payment of a price to secure release. People who sin become slaves of sin (John 8:34); they cannot free themselves from that slavery. Christ’s death on the cross was the payment of a ransom price (Mark 10:45) by which sinners are set free. Now that they are redeemed they must live as free people (1 Cor. 6:19-20; Gal. 5:1).

The Shaw Pocket Bible Handbook, Walter A. Elwell, Editor, (Harold Shaw Publ., Wheaton , IL; 1984), p. 354