Everything's Coming Up Irish: A Blessing

Ellen of The Happy Wonderer has posted an Irish blessing for a new home. Here are a couple of definitions to help you as you read the blessing:

• kith: friends and acquaintances
• kin: relatives, either by blood or marriage

There are only a few days of March left, so if you have an idea for an Irish themed post, it’s now or never. Once you’ve posted your bit o’ Irish, send me the link and I’ll link to your post before the end of the month.

Redemption: What Does It Mean?

What do you think of when you hear the word redemption? Mostly, I’d say, we think of it as a religious word, although sometimes someone might speak of redeeming a coupon or a bond, but even that is no longer such a common way to speak. My mother may have redeemed her coupons and bonds; I use my coupons and cash in my bonds. Used in the religious sense, my dictionary gives redemption as a synonym for salvation; yet while those words may be general synonyms, used biblically, they’re not exact synonyms. Redemption is salvation, for sure, but it’s salvation—or deliverance—in a particular way.

Christians who lived when the New Testament was written would have understood the more precise meaning of the redemption words, since for them, these were not necessarily religious words, but words that were part of their everyday language and experience. For the Greeks, the redemption words were used, first of all, for the buying back of prisoners of war by paying a ransom for them, but they were also used for other ways of freeing people. When a slave was set free, for instance, the redemption words could be used even when no money was exchanged.

The early Christian writers, with their Jewish backgrounds, would have been acquainted with the way the idea of redemption was used in the Old Testament, so it’s probably a safe bet to say that the Old Testament usage of the words coloured the meaning they gave to the word more than the specific Greek cultural usage. When they read the Septuagint, they would find the Greek redemption words used to translate certain Hebrew words whenever the idea of releasing something by the payment of a price was present.

This idea of payment might not be obvious every time the redemption words are used in the Old Testament, because sometimes the words are used metaphorically. For instance, God is said to have redeemed the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt. Now I’ve read the story, and nowhere do I see that Pharoah received money or any other benefit from God in exchange for the Israelites’ freedom. It wasn’t really a business transaction, was it?

Yet, as Leon Morris points out, there are some intriguing phrases that often accompany the idea of God’s redemption of the Israelites that shows that while this might not be a redemption exchange, it still carried the idea of payment. God is said to redeem his people “with an outstretched arm” (Exodus 6:6) and “with your arm” (Psalm 77:15). It is God’s might or power that’s in mind here, and God exerts his power on behalf of his people.

…[B]ecause he loves his people he puts forth his power. He saves them at cost. It is this that gives the use of the redemption terminology its point…. The term may be used metaphorically but the metaphor retains its point. The idea of price-paying is not out of mind.¹

You might say that God expended his power to free the Israelites from slavery, just as long as you don’t understand this to mean that God had less power after their redemption than before.

Against the backdrop of the Old Testament, early Christian writers and readers would have understood that redemption and all the associated words had to do with being released by the payment of a price. It wasn’t simply deliverance in general, but deliverance that came about at cost to the one redeeming.

Now that we’ve done a little defining of the biblical term redemption in this post, the plan is to move on in the next to consider from what it is that redemption delivers, and how it is that people are redeemed.

¹The Atonement: It’s Meaning and Significance, Leon Morris, page 114.

Sunday's Hymn: Irish Hymn Writers

Last week I posted a hymn translated by Cecil Alexander, so this week I’ve decided to post one she wrote herself. Since it’s not long until Easter, I chose one that’s an Easter hymn.

He is Risen

Said the angel, “He is risen!”
Tell it out with joyful voice:
He has burst His three days’ prison;
Let the whole wide earth rejoice:
Death is conquered, we are free,
Christ has won the victory.

Come, ye sad and fearful hearted,
With glad smile and radiant brow!
Death’s long shadows have departed;
All our woes are over now,
Due to passion that He bore—
Sin and pain can vex no more.

Come, with high and holy hymning,
Chant our Lord’s triumphant day;
Not one darksome cloud is dimming
Yonder glorious morning ray,
Breaking over the purple east:
Brighter far our Easter feast.

He is risen, He is risen!
He has opened Heaven’s gate:
We are free from sin’s dark prison,
Risen to a holier state;
And a brighter Easter beam
On our longing eyes shall stream.

The tune by Joachim Neander might be familiar to you. You can hear it here.

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Other hymns, worship songs, etc. posted today:

• We Sing the Praise of Him Who Died at Magic Statistics. This is another hymn from Irish hymn writer Thomas Kelly, whose biographical sketch you’ll find if you follow the hymn link. It was also, Scott tells us, the hymn used as the processional at Christ Church Cathedral in Whitehorse this morning.
• Bringing in the Sheaves at IMD 2.0.
• The Spirit of Jesus, from the Valley of Vision at Thirsty Theologian
• It Is Well With My Soul at joythruChrist. (We sang this hymn at church this morning, so this list contains two hymns sung at Whitehorse churches today.)
• Pour Out Thy Spirit From On High at John Dekker’s Journal
• Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove at The Happy Wonderer
• A Mighty Fortress Is Our God at Seasonings of the Heart
  

Have you posted a hymn for Sunday and I missed it? Let me know by leaving a link in the comments or by emailing me at the address in the sidebar, and I’ll add your post to the list.