On this subject I cannot help thinking that there is sometimes a good deal of confusion. People speak of it as if it were the same as ransom, propitiation, or atonement, whereas there is surely a great distinction between them. There cannot be a doubt that the two are very closely connected: but redemption in Scripture means much more than atonement, and always, or at all events generally, includes the idea of deliverance, or recovery. The word itself means to purchase back or to recover by purchase; which clearly implies both the payment of the price and the recovery of the purchased possession. If a man were a prisoner in a foreign land, and a ransom were demanded for his release, there would be two distinct acts necessary to his restoration; first the ransom must be paid, and next the dungeon must be thrown open, and the captive brought out as a freeman to his home. Now the first of these acts, viz., the payment of the ransom, represents atonement, the ransom price for the satisfaction of the law; but redemption includes the actual deliverance as well. It is the payment of the ransom, and also the actual liberation of the captive. When the four living ones, and twenty-four elders said (Rev. v. 9), ‘Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood,’ they did not mean merely that He had shed His blood for them in atonement, but that He had actually gathered them out as a ransomed people, and brought them from their former captivity to their present joy; for they said, ‘Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.’ Thus in the Old Testament the idea of deliverance is far more prominent than that of atonement. When it was written the doctrine of atonement was not fully revealed, but was wrapped in types and prophecies. But God’s power in delivering was full in view, and it became the prominent object in the thoughts of the writers. Let us turn to a few passages in illustration. In Exod. vi. 6, we find God saying, ‘I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched-out arm, and with great judgments.’ In Deut. vii. 8, Moses said, ‘The Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.’ In Jer. xv. 21, when predicting the future restoration of Israel, the Lord says by the prophet, ‘I will deliver them out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem them out of the hand of the terrible.’ In all these passages it is perfectly clear that ‘to redeem’ means ‘to deliver;’ and that when God said, ‘I will redeem them,’ He meant that He would set them free. And this is very clearly illustrated by the remarkable prophecy of Isa. lix. 20, when compared with the quotation of it, Rom. xi. 26. In the