“I know that my Redeemer lives…How my heart yearns within me!”

When he saw the little sailboat in the store window, his eyes sparkled in amazement.  “That’s my boat!” he thought.  “Dad!  Dad!” he called to his father.  He quickly rushed to his son’s side.  “Dad, look! That’s the boat you made for my birthday last year, the one that I lost on the river!”  “How do you know?” inquired the father.  “It has that scratch on the left side, where I scraped it on the tree when I fell down.  Remember?” said the son.  Of course, the father did remember.  He had spent untold hours building the boat from scratch and was disappointed in the lingering flaw.  But now he suddenly found himself inside the toy store, dragged in by his little boy.

“That boat in the window, that’s my boat!” the son stressed to the store manager.  “What do you mean?” asked the manager.  “This is my dad,” the boy continued, “and he built it for me for my birthday last year.  And it’s mine!”  “Well,” said the manager, “it is a fine boat, and your father did an excellent job making it.  But the boat now belongs to me.  Of course, it is for sale, if you’re interested.”  “For sale?” asked the father.  “How much?”  “$50.00,” came the reply.  “Hmmm…$50.000…” the father mused.  But then he looked down in his little boy’s eyes, which were becoming moist.  “Done!” declared the father.  “Yesssss!!” shouted the boy.  And that day the father took home the happiest son on the planet.

Such is the expanded version illustrating what redeemer means in Isaiah 44:6 in my first book, Storyteller’s Bible Study.  While several Hebrew words are translated into the English redeem, and include various aspects of being bought back – including ransom, release and freedom – only one word is consistently translated redeemer, and that is gâ’al.  This word carries the idea that only a next-of-kin can be the one to avenge, restore, purchase or redeem.  It can’t be just any person; it must be a close relative.  It is a family matter.

So what family member, what close relative, could redeem us from our sin?  Notice the unmistakable family connection in Hebrews 2:10-11: “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God…should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.  Both the one who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family.  So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.”  Sons…family…brothers.  We can clearly infer that God and Jesus are our close relatives.  We can support this by reasoning thus:  Before the Cross, God was ashamed to call us brothers; after the Cross he was not.  So God in Jesus was only potential relative to qualify to redeem us.

The best illustration of such a redeemer comes from the book of Ruth.  She had married Mahlon, son of Elimelech and Naomi and brother to Kilion.  This Jewish family had moved from Bethlehem to Moab as a result of a famine, where Mahlon met and married Ruth.  But in time all the family’s men died in Moab.  Naomi and Ruth returned to Israel with no provider or protector.  Jewish laws provided opportunities to redeem relatives facing life without a head of household.  Enter Boaz, the kinsman redeemer – the gâ’al – who decides to redeem the property of Elimelech and marry Ruth, restoring to her hope, prosperity and multiple blessings, one of them being in the royal family line of Christ.

It is also noteworthy that the New Testament nowhere identifies Jesus as our redeemer.  Yes, he is our redemption (1 Cor. 1:30-31), but he alone is not our “redeemer.”  This title appears only in the Old Testament.  Why is that?  Obviously because Jesus did not redeem us single-handedly.  The Father and the Spirit were also involved.  In the Old Testament “redeemer” is always attributed to “the LORD,” a designation representing all three divine persons of the Godhead.  But Jesus certainly was the payment, the ransom, when he died by himself on the cross.

Redemption is defined in 1 Cor. 6:20 and 7:23 – “You were bought at a price.”  The Triune God was totally involved in securing your deliverance.  The implications are also stated: “Therefore honor God with your body,” and “do not become the slaves to men,” respectively.  Job was a slave only to God.  He yearned to see his Redeemer God “with [his] own eyes” (19:27).  Is your heart yearning within you to see him?  Like Job, are your thoughts, words and deeds redemptive for others around you?