Salvation or Redemption

by Bertrand L. Comparet

For a long time the churches have been preaching the gospel of salvation and forgetting, or even denying there is anything else in the Bible. It is time for you who are interested in this message to consider fully a more important gospel, the gospel of redemption, for this one affects you. Without at least salvation a person has nothing, for he would have no life beyond this present one. On the other hand, just what does he get by salvation? In the Old Testament, four Hebrew words have been translated salvation. The root meaning of all four words is simply safety, deliverance from danger or destruction. In the New Testament, two Greek words are also translated salvation and these also have the same root meaning. By salvation one gains life, he is delivered from death, but there is nothing stated to indicate on what level or standard that life will be. That question must be settled by something more than just being saved and undoubtedly, the matter of rewards for a meritorious life enters into it.

I want to teach you about the greatest hope and opportunity set before you, redemption, which is a very different thing for which different words with different meanings are used. To redeem is to buy back something you formerly possessed. If I had enough money, I could buy everything in Los Angeles, but no matter how much money I had, I couldn’t redeem anything in Los Angeles because nothing there was formerly mine. Why is it so important to know about getting back something that was formerly ours? Because Yahshua has told us that when the events which we now see happening in the world begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh. Let’s find out about that.

Yahweh set up the rules for it in the Book of Leviticus. If a man became poor and had to sell or mortgage his homestead, he did not loose it forever. He or his kinsmen could redeem it or Yahweh would redeem it for him in the jubilee. Leviticus 25:25-28 records, “If thy brother be waxen poor and hath sold away some of his possessions and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then he shall redeem what his brother hath sold. And if the man hath none to redeem it and himself be able to redeem it, then let him count the years of the sale thereof and restore the overplus unto the man to whom he sold it, that he may return it into his possessions. But if he shall not be able to restore it to him, then that which is sold shall remain in the hand of him who bought it until the year of jubilee and in the jubilee it shall go out and he shall return it unto his possessions.”

Four Hebrew words, chiefly the word gaw-al, are used for redeem or redemption. They have the meaning to set free, by repaying or avenging. Two of them also mean separation and the word chiefly used gaw-al also means the next of kin, the person who has the right to redeem. Where the owner has lost his possession by sale or foreclosure and in his poverty cannot redeem his own property, it can be redeemed for him, but only by one who himself has the right of inheritance as next of kin. For example, when the prophet Jeremiah was in prison in Jerusalem, his nephew asked him to redeem some land. Jeremiah chapter 32 tells the story. Where there were many kinsmen, only the nearest kinsman had the right to redeem, but if he could not or would not, then the right passed to the next in line. In Ruth chapters 3 & 4 this is illustrated. Boaz could not redeem Naomi’s land until he first asked a nearer kinsman, who refused, leaving Boaz the right of redemption.

So it is with the redemption of our lost glory, we cannot do it and no man can do it for us. Psalm 49:7 records, “None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to Yahweh a ransom for him.” Our nearest kinsman is our God Yahweh, as Creator and God, he is our Father.

It is recorded in Jeremiah 31:9 what Yahweh told Jeremiah. “I am a Father to Israel, and Ephriam is My firstborn.” As Yahshua, he is our brother as Hebrews 2:10-12 points out. Being both our Father and our Brother, He is truly our next of kin, the one with both the right and the ability to redeem. Since He made His laws right in the first place, He honors them in His own actions.

Redemption is only for those that were Yahweh’s in the first place, His people Israel. As Isaiah 63:19 reminds us, “We are thine: Thou never barest rule over them. They were never called by Thy name.” Accordingly, in Isaiah chapters 43 & 44 Yahweh declares, “But now saith Yahweh that created thee, O Jacob and He that formed thee O Israel, fear not for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by My name, thou art Mine. I have formed thee, thou art My servant O Israel and thou shalt not be forgotten of Me. I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions and as a cloud thy sins; return unto me, for I have redeemed thee.” Yahshua came to redeem us and Luke 1:68 “Blessed be Yahweh, God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed His people.” The price of redemption was paid at Calvary, but redemption is not complete, for removing the intruders and restoring the possession to us is a long process, still going on. In Isaiah 63:4 Yahweh has said, “For the day of vengeance is in Mine heart and the year of My redeemed is come.” This is the year to which we look forward to with hope, seeing the signs that it is very near. points this out.

What have we lost which we need to have redeemed? All the rights, power and glory that Adam originally had as a son of Yahweh. We are told that he was made in the image of Yahweh. But are you now in the image of Yahweh? Is Yahweh imperfect, subject to sickness, old age and death, incapable of doing good things or resisting evil? You are in that condition, so you have lost the image of Yahweh and this must be redeemed for you.

Adam was promised dominion over all the earth, yet we have lost dominion over all but our own homelands. Some of our people in East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic nations and a part of Finland, have lost even their home rule. However, the restoration of the image of Yahweh is promised to us. For example in Hosea 13:14, I Corinthians 15:48-49, Philippians 3:20-21 and Romans 8:13-39, restoration of our dominion over all the world is promised to us.

How were these things lost? Our ancestor Adam, sold or traded them to Satan for the knowledge, or experience, of both good and evil. Yahweh had commanded him to participate only in good, never evil. Hence Paul says in Romans 7:14, “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.”

We are now making desperate efforts to escape that most horrible and degrading form of slavery, communism. Yet for several thousand years we have been constantly under a form of slavery, in our fallen condition. The words used in the original languages to express the basic ideas of redemption are carefully chosen. Remember, in the Hebrew, the root meanings were to recover that which had been forfeited, which was to be accomplished by the next of kin, by purchase or by avenging. In the Greek, from which our New Testament is translated, three words were used. Agorazo, meaning to buy in the (slave) market; exagorazo, meaning to buy out of the market, never to be sold again, and lutroo, meaning to set free by paying a price.

All these words and meanings apply. Through Adam, we had sold or forfeited our dominion and our image of Yahweh and we had passed into slavery to the world of Satan. Being exposed in the slave market, we were bought out of that market and set free by the payment of a terrible price, paid by Yahshua for us. Our next of kin is recovering for us that which we had forfeited, both by paying a price and by avenging. The price is already paid, but Satan has not yielded up the things redeemed. As Paul says in Romans 8:22-23, “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 first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” The usurper must be thrown out by the terrible might of Yahweh at the return of Yahshua, “For the day of vengeance is in Mine heart and the year of My redeemed is come.”

This includes salvation of course, but it is so much more. It is redemption, restoration of all our power and glory as the sons of Yahweh. For this we should earnestly join in that last prayer in the Book of Revelation, “EVEN SO, COME YAHSHUA.”

Critical note by Clifton A. Emahsier: I can only add to this, that in the matter of “redemption”, we have no choice: we are either “next of kin” or we are not. Therefore, we cannot decide to be redeemed, nor can we decide not to be redeemed! As Hebrews 12:8 says: we are either “sons” or we are “bastards”. Today the larger part of the world’s population fall in the latter category!