The article “
Halloween, High Street, and Holy Witnesses” by Donald Casadonte here on CAF explains how the Jews and Christians in the first century would have understood the terms redemption and salvation based on how debtor’s prisons operated.
***When a first-century person could not pay his debt, he was often thrown into prison until the debt was paid. To further humiliate him, the debtor was forbidden to pay the debt himself, even if he came into some money while in prison. A relative had to come and pay the amount owed. This paying of the bill was called redemption. Now, look, before Christ came, we were all in a sort of debtor’s prison because of the sin of Adam. We could not pay the debt ourselves. A relative had to come and pay it for us. This may be one reason why Christ became man, became our relative by blood, so to speak.
In any case, once the debt was redeemed, the relative was then given the right to walk back to the prison cell, open it, and escort the debtor out of the prison. This second process-the application of the ‘right-to-leave’ that the relative had purchased for the debtor and the debtor’s willingness to be so publicly humiliated in being led out of the prison-is what a first-century person would have understood by the term salvation.
"Catholics believe that the world was redeemed by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, but the second part of the process, the salvation part, depends partially on us. You see, even when Christ walks into the prison and takes us by the hand to save us-Christians almost universally call this initial step “baptism”-we still have to walk with him out of the cell. And we can let go of his hand at any time before we get to the door, if we are sufficiently cantankerous or too ashamed to be recognized as his kin. We certainly can lose (technically, give up) our salvation, as any good first-century Jew or Gentile would have realized***
How debtor’s prison’s operated in the citation above is really the meat of the apologetic in the article. Still, it is worth reading the whole article because he was approached with the standard line you were approached with - “Would you know where you are going if you died tonight?”
It’s worth researching how debtor’s prison’s operated to better understand some of these passages. I’ve come across drips and drabs here and there but no single good source to explain it.
Basically, you can be redeemed by anyone, but if you don’t recognize them or don’t want to go with them, you don’t have to. You can stay in your cell until someone else redeems you. That’s how many slaves and servants were purchased - redeemed out of debtor’s prisons by a rich man in exchange for becoming a servant for a period of time or a slave. The debtor aparently had the right of refusal, and could wait for a better redemption. Once the debtor walked through the door of the prison with his redeemer into daylight however, it was done.
That’s the literal sense of many scriptures - how a first century Jew would have understood Christ’s words about being thrown into prison until you have paid the last penny and many of the texts in the epistles about redemption and salvation.
-Tim-
