The Redeemer is the One who pays the price to buy back what has been lost, enslaved, or forfeited. In the Old Testament, the gōʾēl (kinsman-redeemer) was the nearest male relative obligated to redeem a family member from debt-slavery, marry a deceased brother's widow, or reclaim lost ancestral land. The book of Ruth presents Boaz as a type of this redeemer. God himself is called the Redeemer of Israel (Isaiah 41:14; 44:6), and Job's famous declaration — "I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25) — points forward to Christ. Jesus fulfills the role of the ultimate kinsman-redeemer: becoming our kinsman through the Incarnation, and paying the redemption price — his own blood — to purchase us back from slavery to sin and death.
REDEEMER, n. 1. One who redeems or ransoms. 2. The Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, who, by his obedience and sacrifice, has redeemed the human race from the bondage of sin and the penalties of God's broken law. It is the peculiar title of the Lord Jesus Christ: "As for me, I know that my Redeemer liveth" (Job 19:25). He is Redeemer both as kinsman, having taken on human nature, and as price-payer, having given his life as a ransom for many.
The word "redeemer" has been diluted in modern usage to mean anyone who rescues or restores — a political leader who "redeems" the nation, a coach who "redeems" a losing season. While metaphorical uses are understandable, they obscure the precise theological meaning: redemption requires a price paid and a genuine bondage broken. The redeemer metaphor also collides with modern sensibilities that deny the reality of human slavery to sin — if we are not actually enslaved, we need no redeemer, only a life coach. The loss of the Redeemer title corresponds directly to the loss of the doctrine of human sinfulness.
• Job 19:25 — "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth."
• Isaiah 41:14 — "Fear not, you worm Jacob...I am the one who helps you, declares the LORD; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel."
• Galatians 3:13 — "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us."
• Ruth 4:14 — "Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without a redeemer..." (Boaz as type)
• Revelation 5:9 — "...for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe..."
H1350 gāʾal / gōʾēl — to redeem, to act as kinsman-redeemer; to buy back; used of Boaz in Ruth and of God as Israel's Redeemer in Isaiah.
G3086 lutrōtēs — liberator, redeemer, one who frees by paying a ransom; used in Acts 7:35 of Moses as a type of Christ.
G59 agorazō — to buy, to purchase; used in Revelation 5:9 and 1 Corinthians 6:20 of Christ purchasing believers.
• "Job said it from a dung heap, stripped of everything — 'I know that my Redeemer lives.' That is the most defiant act of faith in all of Scripture."
• "The Redeemer had to be our kinsman — he had to share our nature — before he could pay our price. The Incarnation was not optional."
• "Every kinsman-redeemer in the Old Testament was a shadow pointing forward to the One who would buy back not just land or freedom, but souls."