Seun finished his final examinations at the polytechnic in June, and by August every one of his classmates had collected their statement of result. His name was missing from the list. The bursary had placed a hold on his file. There was an outstanding balance on his school fees from the second year, the year his father died, and until the balance was cleared the school would release nothing: no result, no clearance letter, no name forwarded for national service.
So he did what he could. Every few weeks he took the bus to the bursary with an envelope of cash, most of it from his mother’s pepper stall at the market, and paid a little more. Each time the clerk would stamp a small receipt and tell him how much remained. Each time it seemed hardly to have moved. A kind man at church laid a hand on his shoulder one Sunday and said, “Don’t worry. God can raise somebody to help you.” Seun said Amen. He also went home and calculated that at the present rate he would be clear in about four years.
Then one Wednesday evening his phone rang. It was his late father’s younger brother, calling from Abuja. He had heard the story from Seun’s mother. “I have paid it,” he said. “All of it. Directly into the school account. Go and collect your things.”
Seun thanked him. He thanked him several times. Then he did something that he laughs about now. The next morning he took the bus to the bursary with that week’s envelope from his mother, fifteen thousand naira folded inside, just in case.
The clerk typed his matriculation number into the computer, turned the screen round, and pointed. The outstanding balance read zero. Beside his name, in green, was a single word: CLEARED. Seun stood at the counter holding the envelope for so long that the clerk finally asked him if there was something else he needed. He did not know how to answer. For two years he had lived inside a debt. He had been told often that help was possible. Nobody had prepared him for the news that it was finished.
PunchlineThere is a world of difference between hearing that someone might help you and seeing the word cleared beside your name. Many believers live with the first message when the gospel has given them the second.
The language of the marketplace
The New Testament has a rich vocabulary for what Christ has done, and redemption is one of its most concrete words. It comes from the world of buying, selling and release. When the first Christians heard it, they did not think of a vague religious feeling. They thought of slave markets, debts, prisoners and payments.
Three Greek word families stand behind our English word. The first is agorazo, from agora, the marketplace. It simply means to buy. Paul uses it when he tells the Corinthians, “ye are bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20). The heavenly worshippers in Revelation use it when they sing to the Lamb, “thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood” (Revelation 5:9). Redemption, in this sense, means that you have been purchased. You have a new owner.
The second is exagorazo, the same word with a prefix meaning out of. It describes buying something out of the market altogether, so that it is no longer for sale. Paul uses it in Galatians: Christ came “To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Galatians 4:5). The idea is of a purchase that removes the slave from the auction block permanently.
The third family is lytroo and its relatives, built on the word lytron, a ransom. This was the price paid to release a prisoner of war or to set a slave free. Jesus used it of His own death when He said that the Son of man came “to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Peter uses it when he reminds believers what their release cost:
Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
Notice what Peter says believers know. “Ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things.” He does not invite them to hope that redemption may one day be arranged. He reminds them of a transaction already completed, and of the currency in which it was paid. Silver and gold could not buy a human soul out of the futile way of life handed down from its ancestors. Only the blood of the Lamb could do that. And it did.
Every one of these words describes an act with a definite result. You do not partly buy a slave. A ransom is either paid or it is not. When the New Testament reaches for the language of the marketplace, it is telling us that something changed hands at the cross.
The kinsman who had the right to redeem
The Old Testament had prepared Israel to understand this long before Calvary. The Hebrew word is ga’al, to redeem, and the person who did it was called the go’el, the kinsman-redeemer. The Law of Moses made provision for a family member who had fallen into poverty. If an Israelite had to sell his land, a near relative could buy it back so that it stayed in the family. If he had sold himself into service, a relative could pay his price and set him free: “Either his uncle, or his uncle’s son, may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him” (Leviticus 25:49).
The most beautiful picture of the go’el is in the book of Ruth. Naomi had left Bethlehem in a famine with a husband and two sons. She came back years later with nothing but a Moabite daughter-in-law. “I went out full, and the LORD hath brought me home again empty” (Ruth 1:21). Her husband’s land had been lost or mortgaged. There was no heir to carry the family name. Two widows, one of them a foreigner, were living on what Ruth could glean from the edges of other people’s fields.
Then Ruth happened to glean in the field of Boaz, and Naomi’s face changed when she heard the name. “The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen” (Ruth 2:20). Hope came into the house that day. But it was still only hope. Boaz could redeem. Whether he would was another matter, and there was a closer relative who had the first right.
So Boaz went to the city gate, sat down with ten elders, and called the nearer kinsman over. He laid out the matter: Naomi’s field was for sale, and whoever bought it must also take Ruth as his wife and raise up a name for the dead. The nearer kinsman wanted the field but not the obligation. “I cannot redeem it for myself, lest I mar mine own inheritance” (Ruth 4:6). He drew off his shoe and handed his right to Boaz. And Boaz spoke to the whole gathering:
And Boaz said unto the elders, and unto all the people, Ye are witnesses this day, that I have bought all that was Elimelech’s, and all that was Chilion’s and Mahlon’s, of the hand of Naomi. Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place: ye are witnesses this day.
“Ye are witnesses this day.” Everyone at the gate heard it. The purchase was public, legal and complete. That evening Naomi did not need to wonder whether Boaz might still be persuaded. The field was bought. Ruth was his wife. The name of the dead would not be cut off.
Three things were required of a kinsman-redeemer. He had to be a relative. He had to be able to pay. And he had to be willing. The nearer kinsman had the relationship and probably the money, but not the willingness. Boaz had all three.
Now look at Christ. To be our kinsman, the eternal Son took our flesh: “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same” (Hebrews 2:14). He became our relative in the incarnation. He alone was able to pay, because only a sinless life could be given for sinners. And He was willing. Nobody forced Him to the cross. The nearer kinsman feared that redeeming Ruth would mar his own inheritance. Jesus knew that redeeming us would cost Him everything, and He came anyway.
NuggetChrist is the Kinsman who had the right, the price and the willingness to redeem you. At the cross He did not offer to pay. He paid.
Bought out from under the curse
Paul’s letter to the Galatians was written to believers who were being persuaded that faith in Christ needed to be supplemented by the works of the law. Paul’s answer goes to the heart of what Christ actually accomplished. He reminds them that the law pronounced a curse on everyone who failed to keep it completely: “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them” (Galatians 3:10). Nobody had escaped that sentence. Then he writes:
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
“Christ hath redeemed us.” The verb is exagorazo, bought out of the market. And Paul describes how the purchase was made. Christ was “made a curse for us.” The Law of Moses had said that a man hanged on a tree was under God’s curse (Deuteronomy 21:23). When Jesus was nailed to Roman timber outside Jerusalem, He stood in the place of cursed humanity and took the sentence that belonged to us. The curse was not waved away or reduced. It was carried, fully, by the Son of God.
Look at the result in verse 14. The blessing of Abraham comes on the Gentiles. The promise of the Spirit is received through faith. Redemption was not an end in itself. It removed the barrier so that blessing could flow.
Some teaching in our day treats Galatians 3:13 as a starting point for long lists of things a believer must still break: family curses, village curses, curses spoken by a jealous neighbour, curses attached to a name or a birthplace. I understand why the question matters to people. Many have grown up in settings where these fears are very real, and where every misfortune is explained by someone’s spiritual attack. But we need to read what Paul actually says. The worst curse that could ever rest on a human being is the curse of God’s righteous law against sin. Christ has borne that one. If the greater has been carried away, the lesser has lost its legal ground.
That does not mean evil spiritual forces have stopped working in the world, or that believers never face opposition. It means that you do not face it as a cursed person trying to qualify for release. You face it as someone already redeemed, standing on a finished transaction. A believer can certainly pray about troubling patterns in a family, and seek wise counsel where there is genuine oppression. But he should never be told that Christ’s redemption awaits his own fasting, payments or ceremonies to become effective.
Bought with a price
Redemption is a word about ownership as well as freedom. When Paul writes to the Corinthians, he applies it to a very practical problem. Some of them were treating their bodies as though what they did with them had no spiritual significance. They were visiting temple prostitutes and justifying it with slogans about freedom. Paul’s response is not to bring them back under the law. He reminds them who owns them:
What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
“Ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price.” The past tense is deliberate. The purchase has already happened. And the conclusion follows from it: “therefore glorify God in your body.”
This is how grace produces holiness. Paul does not say, “Glorify God in your body so that He might buy you.” He says, “You have been bought, therefore glorify God.” The accomplished redemption becomes the reason for a changed life. A believer who knows he has been purchased at the cost of Christ’s blood will not treat his body as cheap. He will not hand it over to whatever appetite is loudest. It belongs to Someone who paid dearly for it.
The same truth protects us from another kind of slavery. Paul writes in the next chapter, “Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men” (1 Corinthians 7:23). Some believers are owned in practice by other people’s opinions, by a demanding employer who treats them as property, or by a religious leader who controls their decisions. Redemption gives you a different Master. You still honour authority. You still work hard and serve gladly. But no human being has the right to own you the way Christ owns you, and no system of approval has the right to set your price.
There is freedom in this. When you know whose you are, you do not have to keep auctioning yourself to whoever offers the most attention or security. The bidding is over. You have been bought.
Eternal redemption obtained
The letter to the Hebrews brings the language of redemption into the sanctuary. Its first readers knew the Day of Atonement well. Once a year the high priest passed through the veil into the most holy place carrying the blood of a goat and a bull. He sprinkled it on the mercy seat for his own sins and for the sins of the people. Then he came out, and the whole process waited for the next year. The very repetition announced that the work was never complete. Hebrews says it plainly: “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4).
Then the writer turns to Christ:
But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us .
“Having obtained eternal redemption for us.” Every word in that phrase matters.
Obtained. The Greek participle describes a completed action. Christ did not enter heaven to begin negotiating our release. He entered having already secured it. The redemption was found, won and possessed when He went in.
Once. The high priest of Israel entered every year. Christ entered once. There is no annual return of the debt, no anniversary when the price must be paid again.
Eternal. This redemption does not wear out. It does not expire at the end of the financial year or lapse when you have a bad month. It belongs to the age to come and carries its permanence into your present life.
PunchlineFor us. He did it on our behalf. We were not in the sanctuary helping Him carry the blood. We were the people for whom it was carried.
Put that beside Paul’s statement to the Ephesians: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7). We have it. Present tense. He says the same to the Colossians, giving thanks to the Father, “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood” (Colossians 1:13-14). Delivered and translated are both completed actions. Redemption is something believers possess now, because Christ obtained it then.
Why “potential” redemption is a heavy burden
There is a way of thinking about the cross that sounds humble but leaves people exhausted. It says that Jesus made redemption possible, and that we now make it actual by the strength of our faith, the intensity of our prayer or the consistency of our obedience. On this view, the cross is like a cheque that has been written but will only clear when the believer has done enough to activate it.
It is easy to see how people drift into this. They are rightly taught that faith is necessary. Scripture is clear that redemption must be received: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12). The gospel does not save everyone automatically, whether they believe or not. Faith matters.
But faith receives. It does not manufacture. When Seun’s uncle paid the fees, Seun still had to go to the bursary and collect his result. Collecting it was necessary. But nobody in their right mind would say that his trip on the bus paid the fees. His going simply received what had been done. In the same way, faith is the hand that takes hold of an accomplished redemption. It does not complete a payment Christ left unfinished.
When we forget this, three things go wrong.
First, assurance becomes impossible. If my redemption depends on my faith reaching a certain level, how will I ever know that I have believed enough? Every weak day becomes a reason to doubt whether the cheque has cleared.
Second, the focus shifts from Christ to ourselves. Instead of looking at the Redeemer, we keep looking at our own grip. We examine our feelings, measure our prayer life, and count our victories, as though the price were somehow in our hands.
Third, people become vulnerable to anyone who offers to sell them the missing piece. This is a real danger in parts of the church. Believers are told that their redemption needs a special offering, a particular anointing oil, a seven-day programme or a payment to a man of God before it will work in their lives. Some of these practices are sincere and simply confused. Some are deliberate exploitation. In either case, the message underneath is that Christ’s blood was not quite enough. Peter has already answered that: you were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold. If silver and gold could not purchase your redemption at the beginning, they cannot top it up now.
Giving is a joyful part of Christian life, and supporting faithful ministry is right. Fasting and prayer have their honoured place. But none of them is a payment toward your redemption. That account is closed.
The redemption still to come
Now we must be careful, because the New Testament also speaks of redemption as something we are waiting for. If we ignore this, we will end up making promises that Scripture does not make, and we will leave suffering believers confused.
Paul writes in Romans 8:
For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they , but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit , the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it .
“Waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” Paul is writing to people who already have the Spirit, who already cry “Abba, Father,” who are already justified and free from condemnation. And he says that they groan. Their bodies still age. They still get sick. They still die. The redemption of the body lies ahead.
Ephesians says the same. The Holy Spirit is “the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession” (Ephesians 1:14). An earnest was a deposit, a first instalment that guaranteed the full payment would follow. And Paul warns, “grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30). There is a day coming. Jesus Himself told His disciples that when the signs of the end began, they should “look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).
Does this mean redemption is only potential after all? Not at all. The price has been paid in full. The ownership has changed hands. The future redemption of the body is not a second payment. It is the full delivery of what was purchased at the cross. When Boaz bought the field, it was legally his that day, though he still had to bring in the harvest. When God redeemed your life, He purchased the whole of you, spirit, soul and body, and He will not leave any part of His property in the grip of death.
This truth guards us on two sides.
On one side, it protects us from a gospel that promises everything now. A believer with a chronic illness, a body worn by age or a grief that will not lift is not proof that redemption has failed. Paul groaned. So did the believers he wrote to. Groaning in a fallen world is not unbelief. Pray for healing, seek good medical care, and receive every mercy God gives along the way. But do not let anyone tell you that your sickness shows you have not understood the cross.
On the other side, it protects us from a gospel that promises nothing now. The body’s redemption is future, but the believer’s redemption is not. You belong to Christ today. Your sins are forgiven today. You have the Spirit as a deposit today. The groaning is real, but it is the groaning of the purchased, waiting for the full arrival of an inheritance already secured.
Job, in the depth of his suffering, said, “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth” (Job 19:25). He used the word go’el. Even before the cross, and in the middle of loss he could not explain, Job held on to a living Redeemer who would have the last word. We hold on to the same Redeemer, with the added certainty that He has already paid the price.
Living as someone who has been bought
What does all this look like on an ordinary Tuesday?
It means that when your conscience accuses you, you answer with the blood of Christ rather than with a promise to do better. You may need to repent, and you may need to make something right with another person. But you do not need to pay for your own release. The price has been paid, and you can come to God in honesty as someone He has redeemed.
It means that when an old master calls, you do not have to answer. A habit that once owned you may still shout loudly. A fear that ruled your childhood may still make your heart race. The feeling is real, but the ownership has changed. You may need patient help to retrain responses that were learned over many years, from a pastor, a mature friend or a trained counsellor. That help does not compete with redemption. It assists you in living out a freedom that already belongs to you. “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1).
It means that your body matters. You were bought, body included. How you eat, rest, work and use your sexuality all fall under the ownership of the One who purchased you. Holiness is the natural response of a redeemed person to the Redeemer.
And it means that you can say so. “Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy” (Psalm 107:2). The psalmist does not tell the redeemed to keep quiet until they feel more redeemed. He tells them to speak. Thanksgiving is the right language for people who have been set free by a price they could never have paid.
Paul’s description of Christ in his letter to Titus brings the whole picture together. He “gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2:14). A people for His own possession. That is who you are: His purchased people, being formed for good works by the grace that bought them.
Seun eventually put the envelope back in his pocket. The clerk printed his clearance letter, stamped it, signed it, and slid it across the counter. Two days later he collected his statement of result. Three months later he was in orientation camp for national service in another state, wearing the white uniform and doing early morning drills.
But he told me that for nearly a week after the fees were paid, he logged on to the school portal every night before bed to check that the balance still said zero. He knew it did. His uncle had told him. The clerk had shown him. He had the letter. But two years of debt had trained his heart to expect bad news, and it took a while for his feelings to catch up with the facts.
On the Sunday after he collected his result, he took the fifteen thousand naira back to his mother at the market. She looked at the envelope for a long moment and then pushed it back into his hand. “Use it for camp,” she said. “That debt is finished.”
Some of us are still logging on every night to check. We know what the Bible says. We have heard the gospel many times. But our hearts have been trained by years of religious debt to expect that something else will be required. Hear it again. Christ, your Kinsman, has paid it all. He entered once, having obtained eternal redemption for you. Your body will one day share fully in that redemption, and your life belongs to Him now. Put the envelope away. Go and collect what He has secured.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Have you tended to think of redemption as something Christ made possible, which you must now complete? Where has that idea shown up in your prayers or your service?
- What does the story of Boaz and the nearer kinsman teach you about the willingness of Christ to redeem you?
- Which “old master” still calls loudly in your life, and what would it mean to answer it as someone who has been bought?
- How does the future redemption of the body help you hold faith and suffering together, in yourself or in someone you love?
- In what practical way could you “glorify God in your body” this week because you have been bought with a price?
This Week
This week, read the book of Ruth in one sitting, then read Hebrews 9:11-14 and 1 Peter 1:18-19. Write down the words “having obtained eternal redemption for us” on a card and keep it where you pray. Each time you feel the urge to earn your way back to God after a failure, or to pay for something Christ has already paid for, read the card aloud, confess honestly whatever needs confessing, and then thank Him by name as your Redeemer.
A Prayer
Lord Jesus, my Kinsman and Redeemer, thank You that You took my flesh, carried my curse and paid my price with Your own precious blood. I confess that I have often lived as though my redemption were still waiting for my payment. Today I put the envelope away. I receive the eternal redemption You obtained for me. I am Yours, bought with a price, body, soul and spirit. Teach me to glorify You in my body, to refuse the calls of my old masters, and to wait with patient hope for the day when my body shares fully in Your victory. Let me say so, as one of Your redeemed. Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.