Jehovah Go’el

REDEEMER

Our Redeemer—the LORD of hosts is his name— is the Holy One of Israel. Isaiah 47:4

Redeemer, in the original Hebrew, go’el, implies kinship and carries a duty for the next of kin to pay the redemption price to restore a lost inheritance.

To redeem something simply means to buy it back and is a process that has been going for centuries. An item of value would be exchanged for cash and you would be given a time-frame in which you could redeem the item back. When my grandfather was a young man, he got to know the local pawnbroker very well. When he became a Christian, he saved up and bought himself a suit for going to church. He wore that suit every Sunday for years but it cost him a small fortune. Unfortunately, his dear mother loved her gin and every Monday she took his suit to the pawnbroker, and every Saturday granda would take his pay and redeem the suit back.

Redemption always comes at a price – the cost of a suit for my granda, the cost of a piece of land for Boaz, the cost of His Son for God the Father.

The redemption plan of God was the ultimate sacrifice of love to restore, for each one of us, our lost inheritance. Jesus paid the price that was demanded for every soul and yet many live in ignorance of the Redeemer. Still, He calls out:

I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you. Isaiah 44:22.

Job heard the call and, regardless of his circumstances, could say with confidence, “I know that my Redeemer lives…He has redeemed my soul from going down into the pit, and my life shall look upon the light.” That light is available for everyone to follow and the Lord ‘leads in steadfast love the people whom He has redeemed’ (Exodus 15:13).

The Lord tells us in Isaiah 43 – “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” What a wonderful truth, and what a privilege for us that the Kings of Kings should call us His own.