Redemption is the effective power of salvation resulting from our faith toward God. Justification is a legal decree of acquittal from guilt and penalty. Redemption is the actual transaction resulting in our deliverance from sin.  

Our English word “redemption” comes from the Latin redimere, to buy again or redeem. The prefix “re-” means “again”; the root “emere” means “to buy, take, or acquire a possession.”  

Webster lists four meanings which apply to the theological use of the verb “to redeem”:  

(1) to buy back or repurchase; to regain title by purchase;  

(2) to liberate from slavery or captivity by paying a price;  

(3) to release from alien claims or clear from debt;  

(4) to repossess upon fulfillment of an obligation.  

Redemption, whether by purchase or by power, requires the personal intervention of a Redeemer.  

Redemption is the payment of a set price or ransom to secure the release of one in debt, bondage, or slavery. 

When man sold himself into the slavery of sin, he lost not only his covenant inheritance, but his personal freedom. He was unable to redeem himself but needed someone from outside to come and pay the price of his release. Christ gave himself as our ransom.  

For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).  

Redemption is the basis for justification. 

Only because the blood of Jesus Christ fully satisfies the demands of God’s justice, is He free to declare us righteous. When we look at this satisfaction from a priestly standpoint, as accepted sacrifice or expiation or propitiation, we are dealing with the idea of atonement. But when we look at this same satisfaction in terms of a payment price to repurchase a lost possession, we are dealing with the idea of redemption. In either case, the blood of Jesus Christ met all demands.  

Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God (Romans 3:24, 25).  

Redemption is the personal intervention of the nearest of kin to restore persons or property to those with a rightful interest in them. 

God never intended for His people to continue as slaves under foreign dominion, or to lose their family inheritance through poverty and indebtedness. He made provision for regaining personal possessions and maintaining family honor. Christ became man and our elder brother in order to be our nearest of kin.  

But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (Galatians 4:4, 5).  

Redemption is the exercise of power to effect deliverance. 

When those who hold God’s people do so unlawfully, God may not pay a price to redeem them. Instead, He may exercise His Almighty power and bring them out of bondage and captivity by His outstretched hand. The exodus from Egypt is a beautiful picture of our deliverance from the power of darkness.  

Thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore (Exodus 14:30).