Jesus, the Kinsman-Redeemer: The Close Relative Who Paid Your Ransom

Introduction

"...any who is a close relative to him of his family may redeem him." Stéphane Burgos dwells on these few words from Leviticus 25:49. In this message preached at the Assemblée de Dieu de Toulouse Ouest, he presents the kinsman-redeemer (the goel), the redeeming close relative of the law of Moses, as a "magnificent picture of Jesus Christ."

The preacher recently spoke about justification, then sanctification. He builds on 1 Corinthians 1:30, where Jesus Christ was made for us "wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption," to address redemption this time. Three sub-themes of one larger theme: the work of Jesus Christ.

He walks through the shadows of redemption in the Old Testament, then shows that Jesus is the only Redeemer, the one who sets you free, who paid your ransom and who crushed the serpent's head. He ends with an appeal to those who reject Jesus or are thinking of walking away from him.

Outline of the message

1. The kinsman-redeemer, the close relative who buys back

• Goel is a Hebrew word tied to buying back and to redemption. In Israel, a Jew who had become poor could sell himself as a servant to a wealthy foreigner, who became his owner.
• But God had provided "a law of grace": a close relative of the slave could pay the price of his freedom. That close relative was the goel, "the one who buys back," the redeemer.
• The English word redemption comes from Latin. In 1 Corinthians 1:30, the Greek uses apolutrosis: a redemption by a price paid. Buying back and redemption, "it is the same thing."
• The preacher pauses on the "re" in "buy back": "If there is a buying back, it is because there was first a buying." To be bought back, you must first have been sold.
• Redemption according to God is deliverance by means of a price paid: "Without a ransom, there is no redemption."

2. The shadows of redemption in the Old Testament

• "In the Bible, God teaches through shadows." He begins with people and events that announce the work of redemption to come in Jesus.
• Job probably lived before the law of Moses, the Levitical sacrifices, the law of the kinsman-redeemer and the prophecies of the cross. Yet he declares: "I know that my Redeemer lives" (Job 19:25). For the preacher, Job was also a prophet.
• Abraham and Lot: when Lot, his nephew, is carried off captive after a war, Abraham gathers his best men, pursues the kings and sets him free. A man unable to rescue himself is freed because someone else fights in his place, and that liberator is his close relative. Abraham refuses the spoils offered by the king of Sodom and keeps only the captives.
• The exodus from Egypt: God had told Abraham that his descendants would be strangers and enslaved for 400 years. Israel receives the revelation of the lamb's blood on the doorposts and the lintel, a revelation the Egyptians do not receive.
• A remarkable difference: the Israelites had to apply the blood themselves. Jesus, for his part, shed his own blood on the wood, once for all. "He no longer asks us to apply the blood to the door ourselves, but simply asks us to believe."
• Ruth and Boaz: Ruth the Moabite, from a people foreign to the covenant, comes back with Naomi, poor and widowed. God's providence leads her to the field of Boaz, a close relative of Naomi. The nearer relative steps aside, Boaz exercises his right of redemption and marries her, and she becomes David's great-grandmother.
• "Pray to the God of your destiny. He alone knows where you must go. He alone knows whom you must meet."

3. Jesus, the only Redeemer: the shadow fades

• All these stories "are only shadows." When the light of truth appears, the shadow fades. The old covenant became the shadow and Christ became the reality.
• "Let no one bring you back under the law." No need for another sacrifice, for religiosity, ceremonies or regulations: "In Jesus, there is only one word: believe, believe, and only believe."
• You do not need to go to Jerusalem to be baptized: you can be baptized "in the Garonne" or in a swimming pool. No need for oil from Jerusalem: "Go into your room, close the door, pray, and the Holy Spirit will anoint you."
• "No object, no place, no ceremony, no regulation can save us." Only the blood of Jesus saves. The Israelites saw the blood on the lintels; we believe in blood that was shed 2,000 years ago without having seen it: "That is true faith."
• The work of Jesus is perfect. That is why he could declare on the cross: "It is finished" (John 19:30).
• For the preacher, Jesus is the perfect kinsman-redeemer, because no relative is closer to you: he is your creator (nothing was made without the Word), your father (you were born again in him), your brother (you are an heir and a joint heir with Christ) and your husband (the Church is his bride). "There is nothing between you and Jesus."
• Jesus is also the perfect Boaz. Boaz welcomed a Moabite; Jesus welcomed all of us, who came out of sin and the Adamic nature, "despite our origins, despite our past, despite our mistakes." Ruth lay down at the feet of Boaz; we lay down at the foot of the cross. Ruth gave birth to the line of David; the Church gives birth to disciples.

4. The Redeemer who sets you free from sin, the law and Satan

• From sin: before, you practiced evil freely. When you receive Jesus, "everything changes," and you are corrected from within. God does not only forgive sins, he also strikes the power of sin.
• From the law: the preacher admits he once thought otherwise, but "the law is good," because it comes from God. The problem is the sinful nature: giving a perfect law to a corrupt nature leads to sin.
• Jesus, the only man able to fulfill the whole law (Matthew 5:17), does not keep that perfect righteousness for himself: he shares it with us. That is justification. Sanctification, which comes after, consists in demonstrating the righteousness we have received.
• From Satan: according to Stéphane Burgos, Satan is not a pagan but an apostate, who knew and served God before abandoning him. He often attacks God's servants and worshippers, and tries to reproduce his own fall by pushing people to turn away from God.
• The difference is the promise. God gives the serpent no promise, but announces that the woman's offspring will crush his head (Genesis 3:15). An offspring is a family, and "if there is a family, there will be a close relative."
• Satan has no father, no mother, no brother: he will never have redemption. He sinned willingly, whereas we were born into the consequences of Adam's sin. That is why God, in his great love, prepared a redemption for us.

5. The Redeemer who paid your ransom

• "You are not set free just like that": a price was paid. According to 1 Peter 1:18-19, we were redeemed from the empty way of life inherited from our fathers, not with silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.
• "Many Christians still live like prisoners." The door of their cell is open, but they think it is closed because they have not checked. The debt is already paid: all deliverance is first of all a matter of faith.
• Naomi had told Ruth that Boaz "will not rest, until he has finished the thing" (Ruth 3:18). We often think God will deliver us in 10, 15 or 30 years. "God is in a hurry to set you free. Jesus is in such a hurry to set you free that he has already set you free."
• No one could pay your ransom. The price was set neither by the devil nor by people, but by God: a perfect man and perfect blood. Neither your family nor an angel could pay it. Only Jesus Christ of Nazareth did.
• By becoming flesh (John 1:14), Jesus entered our family and legally became our close relative. He claims us: "I take this man, I take this woman, because he belongs to me. I paid for him."
• Leviticus adds that anyone who has the means will redeem himself. After paying our ransom, Jesus freed himself from his own prison: on the third day he rose again, and he is alive today.

6. The Redeemer who crushed the serpent's head

• According to Hebrews 9:11-12, Christ entered the Most Holy Place once for all, not made with hands, with his own blood, "having obtained eternal redemption."
• Bought back, but from whom? For a long time, Christians thought we had been bought back from Satan. Yet at the exodus from Egypt, no blood was put on the door of Pharaoh's palace: only the doors of the Israelites received it.
• "Jesus never shed his blood before Satan." He presented it to the Father, as satisfaction of his justice. The blood of Christ is infinitely holy and cannot be offered to the devil, and Satan is too weak to deal with God.
• Satan has no law of his own. He relied on God's word to Adam: "in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die" (Genesis 2:17). Since Jesus satisfied God's justice, Satan automatically lost his power over those who are in Christ.
• "Do not negotiate with Satan, but get right with God and with God alone."
• The serpent bit the offspring: that is the cross. But the offspring crushed his head. "When Satan wants to attack you, remind yourself that you are facing someone whose head has been crushed." When he threatens you, rejoice: you belong to God's family.

7. Do not reject your close relative

• "When you refuse Jesus, you are not only refusing a religion. You are refusing your close relative." Under the kinsman-redeemer's right, one can step in only for someone of his own family.
• Satan may say: "This one is not of your family." God respects the framework he himself established, but he does not give up: he sends his Word and his Spirit to reveal a very simple secret, "just believe."
• As soon as the captive believes, he is set free and becomes a member of the family of the King of kings. That is why the devil hates the preachers and evangelists who tell captives: "Receive Jesus Christ as Savior and as Lord."
• The preacher tells the story of a slave woman thrown into prison for being found on a street forbidden to slaves. The next morning, the guards found a queen in the cell: "We can no longer treat her as a slave, because surely the king will come to claim her." God does the same: "This one belongs to me, that one belongs to me."
• To those who think of abandoning Jesus: it is driving your closest relative out of your life. Pharaoh pursued Israel with 600 chosen chariots and all the chariots of Egypt (Exodus 14:7). The preacher thinks he did not want to bring them back but to slaughter them: whoever goes back into the world ends up in a condition worse than the first.
• "If Jesus is in your heart, love him with all your heart. Follow him with all your heart." Learn to know him better and better, every day of your life.

Key takeaways

• The kinsman-redeemer was the close relative who could pay the price to free a brother sold as a slave. Jesus is that close relative for you.
• Job, Abraham, the Passover lamb, Ruth and Boaz are shadows. In Christ, the reality has come and there is only one word: believe.
• Jesus sets you free from sin, the law and Satan. The law is good, but he alone fulfilled it and shared his righteousness with you.
• Your ransom is paid by the precious blood of Christ, presented to the Father and never to Satan. The door of your prison is already open.
• To reject Jesus is to reject your close relative. As soon as you believe, you become a member of the King's family.

Personal application

1. Are you still living like a prisoner in a cell whose door Jesus has already opened? In which area do you need to believe that the debt is paid?
2. Are you still trying to add something to the blood of Jesus: a place, an object, a ceremony, a regulation?
3. When Satan threatens you, do you remember that his head has been crushed and that you belong to God's family?
4. Like Ruth, do you pray to the God of your destiny to lead you where you must go?
5. If you are tempted to drift away from Jesus, what would help you get to know him better and better this week?

Verses cited

• Leviticus 25:47-49
• 1 Corinthians 1:30
• Job 19:25
• Genesis 14
• Genesis 15:13
• Exodus 12
• Ruth 2-4
• John 19:30
• Romans 8:17
• Matthew 5:17
• Genesis 3:15
• 1 Peter 1:18-19
• Ruth 3:18
• John 1:14
• Hebrews 9:11-12
• Genesis 2:17
• Exodus 14:7
• 2 Peter 2:20

Frequently asked questions

What does the word goel mean in the Bible?

Goel is a Hebrew word tied to buying back and redemption. In Leviticus 25:47-49, it is the close relative who could pay the price to free an Israelite who had become poor and been sold as a slave to a foreigner. Stéphane Burgos sees in it a picture of Jesus Christ, our close relative who paid the price of our deliverance.

Why is Jesus called our kinsman-redeemer?

Under the law of the kinsman-redeemer, only a close relative could buy back. By becoming flesh, Jesus entered our family. For Stéphane Burgos, no relative is closer than he is: he is your creator, your father, your brother and your husband. He therefore has the right to redeem you.

To whom did Jesus present his blood to redeem us?

According to Hebrews 9:11-12, Christ entered the heavenly Most Holy Place with his own blood. Stéphane Burgos insists: Jesus presented his blood to the Father to satisfy his justice, never to Satan. Just as at the exodus from Egypt, when no blood was put on the door of Pharaoh's palace, there was no transaction with the devil.