Redemption Meaning: Rescue, Repair and Buying Back

Redemption meaning in its main senses

To define redemption well, sort its uses into four groups, from church to checkout counter:

1. Religious rescue: being saved from sin, guilt or its results. This is the oldest English sense.
2. Making up for a wrong: a person earns back respect after a failure, a crime or a bad decision. People call this a story of redemption.
3. Exchange for value: trading a coupon, voucher, points or a pawn ticket for goods or cash.
4. Paying off or buying back: in finance, an investor gets money back when a bond reaches its end date or when fund units are sold back to the fund.

The common thread is recovery. Something lost, owed or held is returned, usually because a price has been paid by someone.

What does redemption mean in the Bible?

Scripture builds the idea out of ordinary family law. A relative could buy back family land that had been sold, or pay to free a family member who had fallen into debt and servitude. The story of the people of Israel leaving Egypt is also described as an act of redemption by God, who frees them from slavery.

Christian readers of the New Testament see redemption as freedom from sin made possible through the death of Jesus, often described as a ransom paid on behalf of others. Different churches explain how this works in different ways, and it is closely tied to ideas of grace and forgiveness. Judaism also uses the idea of redemption for a hoped for future time of repair for the whole world. Sacred vocabulary of many traditions is gathered on the religious words hub, while the page on salvation takes the idea further.

Examples of redemption in sentences

• After missing the penalty in the semi final, the striker found redemption with the winning goal in the final.
• The novel follows a dishonest lawyer on a slow road to redemption.
• Redemption of the reward points is only possible through the app before the end of the month.
• Many hymns sung on Sunday morning speak of redemption and mercy.
• The bonds have a redemption date ten years after they were issued.

Redeem, redemptive and other forms

The verb is redeem. You can redeem a voucher, redeem yourself, or say that one good scene redeems a dull film. Something that can be exchanged is redeemable, and a quality that makes up for faults is a redeeming feature: "The flat is tiny, but its one redeeming feature is the view."

Redemptive describes something that brings redemption, such as redemptive suffering or a redemptive ending. Phrases built on the noun are a chance at redemption, seek redemption, beyond redemption (so bad it cannot be saved) and a redemption arc in stories, where a villain gradually turns good.

From buying back slaves to cashing coupons

Redemption reached English around the middle of the 1300s, by way of Old French redemcion and Latin redemptio, which meant a buying back or ransoming. That word comes from redimere, built from red-, back, and emere, to buy. The first English use was religious: deliverance from sin.

The general sense of releasing something by payment, and the business sense, show up from the late 1400s. So the coupon at the supermarket and the theological term are cousins: both are about paying a price to get something back.

Redemption, salvation and atonement compared

A quick way to tell them apart: atonement is what is done to repair the wrong, forgiveness is what the injured side gives, and redemption is the result, the person or thing restored.

Redemption in money matters

Banks and fund houses use the word in a narrow, technical way. A bond redemption is when the issuer repays the face value to the holder, either on the maturity date or earlier if the bond allows it. A mutual fund redemption is when an investor sells units back to the fund and receives cash. Some funds charge an exit load or fee for early redemption, and in India and the US the rules on timing and tax differ by product.