Redemption

Definition and Meaning

Redemption (Korean songnyang, 贖良) originally meant paying a price to release a slave and grant that person free status. In Christian theology, it refers to the teaching that Jesus Christ paid the price by his death on the cross. By that price, people were set free from sin, from death, and from the curse of the law.

The term gusok (救贖) is also used in the same sense. When the emphasis falls on the price having been paid on behalf of others, the term daesok (代贖, "substitutionary ransom") is used. Together with atonement and salvation, redemption is one of the central terms of soteriology.

Biblical and Historical Background

In the Old Testament, redemption is tied to economic and family institutions. Under one such provision, a near relative could pay a price to recover land that had been sold because of poverty or to buy back a kinsman who had become a slave. This relative is called the kinsman-redeemer; a representative example is the account of Boaz redeeming the inheritance of Naomi's family (Ruth 4:4-10). God's leading Israel out of Egypt in the Exodus is also described as redemption (Exodus 6:6).

In the New Testament, Jesus says that he came "to give his life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). Paul writes that "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law" (Galatians 3:13).

In church history, various explanations have arisen concerning to whom the price was paid and in what sense.

• Ransom theory: Some early Church Fathers held that the price was paid to Satan.
• Satisfaction theory: In the eleventh century, Anselm explained it as compensation for the injury done to God's honor.
• Penal substitution: The Reformers emphasized that Christ bore, in the place of sinners, the punishment they deserved.

Practice in the Korean Church

Passages such as Romans 3:24 and Ephesians 1:7, which the Korean Revised Version rendered as gusok, are rendered as songnyang in the New Korean Revised Version. As a result, songnyang is the term most commonly encountered in the biblical text today. In hymns, sermons, and theological terminology, however, terms such as gusok and gusoksa ("redemptive history") remain in use alongside it.

Denominational traditions differ in emphasis regarding those for whom redemption was accomplished.

• Reformed theology of the Presbyterian churches: Following the tradition of the Canons of Dort and the Westminster Confession of Faith, it teaches "limited atonement" (or "particular atonement"), the doctrine that Christ's redemption takes effect with certainty for the elect.
• Methodist, Holiness, Full Gospel, and similar churches: Influenced by Wesleyan theology or Arminianism, they hold that redemption was accomplished for all people and becomes effective when received by faith.

Both sides agree that redemption is given not by human merit but by the grace of God.