Redemption

Leviticus 25  •  3 min. read  •  grade level: 9
 
We see in Leviticus 25 (the great scripture on the subject of redemption) that redemption is God’s principle. Here we see that on the sale of either the person or the lands of an Israelite, if he had no kinsman to redeem him or his estate, God would redeem both every fiftieth year every man should return to his family and his possession.
Because this was so, neither the land nor the people were to be sold forever, but to be sold subject to redemption as we say in our laws, sold by way of mortgage, not sold forever, but subject to redemption. But what does this imply? The paying of a price, a full price, for the thing or person sold. The purchaser of an Israelite or of his possession was to have the full money weighed out to him, ere he could be required to restore the man or his land to his kinsman.
The Scripture shows, in like manner, that our glorious kinsman (the God of heaven and earth manifest in flesh) has, by Himself, paid the full price of our redemption—paid the debt that lay upon us and our inheritance. In the balances of the throne of God (where righteousness was seated), the price was paid and weighed with nicest hand, that no wrong might be done to anyone through man having sold himself and all he had by his sin.
Scripture calls Jesus a redeemer in the sense of Leviticus 25. He visited and redeemed His people. The price that He paid was His blood, or Himself—“He gave Himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time” (1 Tim. 2:6). “By His own blood... having obtained eternal redemption for us” (Heb. 9:12).
And the scales of the throne of God tested the weight of this price before it was paid. The weight of the blood of bulls and goats had been tried, but they found all such blood to be light and insufficient. But when the blood of God’s own Lamb God’s divine Son was put into that balance, which was thus held by the hand of Him who sat on the throne who judges right the balance stood. The will of God, the great Creditor, was satisfied, and by the satisfying of that will, we are sanctified (Heb. 10); by the payment of that price our person and lands are repurchased by our glorious Redeemer or kinsman.
The doctrine of repurchase, or redemption, appears to me to be the dearest thought in the mind of God, for as Leviticus 25 blessedly shows us, it is His own principle. And why is it so dear to Him? Because it glorifies His love, that is, Himself, above everything. Because it shows such a way of self-sacrifice in God, that though this ransom price of redemption demanded the Son [of His love], the Isaac from the bosom, yet that Isaac was delivered.
The heart gets comfort from knowing that God’s love was gratifying itself in the work of our redemption. The conscience gets ease from knowing that God’s righteousness has been honored and secured—the demand of His throne fully answered.
As the price of redemption, blood was, from the beginning of the world to the death of Jesus, used as that which alone could meet sin.
J. G. Bellett (from Showers Upon the Grass)