Redemption of Man

To redeem is to buy back, from the Latin redimere, literally again-buy. In the ancient Greek, it is apolytrōsis meaning to ransom in full.

Titus 11:14

For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

Luke 21:28

And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.

While our modern view of redemption is that Christ died for our sins, for the wages of sin are death -- the ancient view went far deeper. In the fall of man, there were multiple rebellions where man turned away from God, his creator. Redemption is the act of God that buys us back, bringing us back under God, fulfilling what we were created to fulfill -- that is, to glorify God.

Redemption effectively undoes the three cosmological rebellions against God:

1. exile from Eden, introducing death to creation
2. sin, starting with Cain and then leading to the flood, God taking HisSpirit away from man, limiting our lives to no more than a hundred and twenty years
3. Babel, scattering us across the earth and confusing our language such that we no longer speak the divine language

Importantly, each of these moments resulted in a change in cosmology, that is, the very nature of reality and the order of creation shifted. It is thus a mistake when we imagine our modern cosmology applied to earlier eras -- in truth the very fabric of reality was different.

The most extreme example was life without death. But even in the days after Noah and prior to Babel, all men spoke the same language and "nothing was impossible" to man. There was no "language learning" nor even such a concept. There was no miscommunication. Language conveyed unambiguous meaning to all. Additionally, this was prior to the new covenant and as such God's moral law was not yet written into the hearts of man. We cannot imagine what life was like in this era, as our entire conscious mind is based on a different cosmology. We can only infer from ancient text (canonical and apocryphal) what this was like -- e.g., to be placed beneath the gods (spirits), to be subject to demons, playthings of devils. For better or worse, our modern age is increasingly providing a taste of exactly this ungodly state.

The redemption of man is thus an extreme cosmological shift, a paradigm shift in consciousness, restoring man into a state last seen in Eden. For others this is hell, which is God's mercy for the unrepentant.

John 12:31

Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

In other words, all are bought back, and while this is good news for those who bear their cross so that the old man may die, this exact redemption (buying back) is a lake of fire for those that refuse to let the old man die. This means there is no more rebellion, that time as we know it is over, and we return to our created state -- glorified, or thrown into the lake of fire. Importantly, this was understood as the exact same phenomena -- to the repentant it is divine glory, beholding the face of God, to the unrepentant it is fire, it is weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Hell is thus not the lake of fire. The fire is the divine light of God; the uncreated energy of God. Hell is outer darkness away from God, a mercy to those who refuse God's grace, for to be in the presence of God would be unbearable pain to those holding onto sin.