In Luke 5: 27-32 - Jesus, who is eating with tax collectors and sinners, is questioned by the Pharisees and teachers of the law about why he is eating with these people. Jesus answers, "it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
Who are sinners? Everyone In Romans 3:10 it says, "As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one;"
What does redemption mean? Where have you heard the word redemption before? Redemption as in redeeming tickets is trading one thing to get another. In Biblical times, redemption was often associated with slavery. Leviticus 25: 47-49 First let's review what the book of Leviticus is about and who wrote it. The theme of Leviticus is "laws and how to present sacrifices" and Moses is believed to have written this book. So in this specific chapter we read about the Sabbath Year and the rules for that. The Sabbath year occurs every seven years and the land is given a rest on that year. Slaves and temporary residents gather the produce that had grown that year. In the verses that we are looking at the Jubilee, which occurs every 50 years, is occurring and during the Jubilee, those who acquired other peoples lands were required to return the land to the original owners. Also, Israelite slaves were also released and allowed to return to their families. So in these verses we see that for a person to pay off a debt that is owed, they or someone else is sold into slavery. And to be redeemed from this slavery, they had to wait for the Jubilee year to come around.
Romans 7: 14-20 -describes how sin living in us causes us to do what we do not want to do, that we want to do good but we can't because of that sinful nature. So what does it mean to be a slave to sin? It means we keep doing it, and we can't break free from it on our own. Even the law does not keep us from doing wrong. Romans 8: 1-8 - gives us the answer. How can we be freed from slavery to sin? We're freed by Christ who was our sin offering. Romans 8: 3 says, "for what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering...." When we live connected to Christ, living by focusing on God, trusting in his grace, trusting in God's spirit living in you-- this frees us from the grip of sin.
So the meaning of redemption- the state of being redeemed; deliverance from sin through the life, death and resurrection of Christ.
