Redemption —John Owen

“That doctrine which will not by any means suit with nor be made conformable to the thing signified by it, and the expression, literal and deductive, whereby in Scripture it is held out unto us, but implies evident contradictions unto them, cannot possibly be sound and sincere, as is the milk of the word. But now such is this persuasion of universal redemption; it can never be suited nor fitted to the thing itself, or redemption, nor to those expressions whereby in the Scripture it is held out unto us. Universal redemption, and yet many to die in captivity, is a contradiction irreconcilable in itself.

To manifest this, let us consider some of the chiefest words and phrases whereby the matter concerning which we treat is delivered in the Scripture, such as are, redemption, reconciliation, satisfaction, merit, dying for us, bearing our sins, suretiship, — his being God, a common person, a Jesus, saving to the utmost, a sacrifice putting away sin, and the like; to which we may add the importance of some prepositions and other words used in the original about this business: and doubt not but we shall easily find that the general ransom, or rather universal redemption, will hardly suit to any of them; but it is too long for the bed, and must be cropped at the head or heels.

Begin we with the word redemption itself, which we will consider, name and thing. Redemption, which in the Scripture is λύτρωσις sometimes, but most frequently ἀπολύτρωσις, is the delivery of any one from captivity and misery by the intervention λύτρου, of a price or ransom. That this ransom, or price of our deliverance, was the blood of Christ is evident; he calls it λύτρον, Matt. xx. 28; and [it is called] ἀντίλυτρον, 1 Tim. ii. 6, — that is, the price of such a redemption, that which was received as a valuable consideration for our dismission. Now, that which is aimed at in the payment of this price is, the deliverance of those from the evil wherewith they were oppressed for whom the price is paid; it being in this spiritual redemption as it is in corporal and civil, only with the alteration of some circumstances, as the nature of the thing enforceth. This the Holy Spirit manifesteth by comparing the “blood of Christ” in this work of redemption with “silver and gold,” and such other things as are the intervening ransom in civil redemption, 1 Pet. i. 18, 19. The evil wherewith we were oppressed was the punishment which we had deserved; — that is, the satisfaction required when the debt is sin; which also we are, by the payment of this price, delivered from; so Gal. iii. 13: for we are “justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” Rom. iii. 24; “in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins,” Eph. i. 7; Col. i. 14. Free justification from the guilt, and pardon of sin, in the deliverance from the punishment due unto it, is the effect of the redemption procured by the payment of the price we before mentioned: as if a man should have his friend in bondage, and he should go and lay out his estate to pay the price of his freedom that is set upon his head by him that detains him, and so set him at liberty. Only, as was before intimated, this spiritual redemption hath some supereminent things in it, that are not to be found in other deliverances…

Redemption is the freeing of a man from misery by the intervention of a ransom, as appeareth. Now, when a ransom is paid for the liberty of a prisoner, is it not all the justice in the world that he should have and enjoy the liberty so purchased for him by a valuable consideration? If I should pay a thousand pounds for a man’s deliverance from bondage to him that detains him, who hath power to set him free, and is contented with the price I give, were it not injurious to me and the poor prisoner that his deliverance be not accomplished? Can it possibly be conceived that there should be a redemption of men, and those men not redeemed? that a price should be paid, and the purchase not consummated? Yet all this must be made true, and innumerable other absurdities, if universal redemption be asserted. A price is paid for all, yet few delivered; the redemption of all consummated, yet few of them redeemed; the judge satisfied, the jailer conquered, and yet the prisoner inthralled! Doubtless, “universal” and “redemption,” where the greatest part of men perish, are as irreconcilable as “Roman” and “Catholic.” If there be a universal redemption of all, then all men are redeemed. If they are redeemed, then are they delivered from all misery, virtually or actually, whereunto they were inthralled, and that by the intervention of a ransom. Why, then, are not all saved? In a word, the redemption wrought by Christ being the full deliverance of the persons redeemed from all misery, wherein they were inwrapped, by the price of his blood, it cannot possibly be conceived to be universal unless all be saved: so that the opinion of the Universalists is unsuitable to redemption.”

—John Owen, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ