Does any one know what Redeem means?

[dcdurel]

I was never clearly taught what it means when the Church says
God became man to redeem us.

Was anyone else clearly taught what this means?

 

[Nathan_Wagar]

Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“He died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures”

601 The Scriptures had foretold this divine plan of salvation through the putting to death of “the righteous one, my Servant” as a mystery of universal redemption, that is, as the ransom that would free men from the slavery of sin.397 Citing a confession of faith that he himself had “received”, St. Paul professes that "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures."398 In particular Jesus’ redemptive death fulfills Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering Servant.399 Indeed Jesus himself explained the meaning of his life and death in the light of God’s suffering Servant.400 After his Resurrection he gave this interpretation of the Scriptures to the disciples at Emmaus, and then to the apostles.401

“For our sake God made him to be sin”

602 Consequently, St. Peter can formulate the apostolic faith in the divine plan of salvation in this way: "You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers. . . with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake."402 Man’s sins, following on original sin, are punishable by death.403 By sending his own Son in the form of a slave, in the form of a fallen humanity, on account of sin, God "made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."404

603 Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned.405 But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"406 Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all”, so that we might be “reconciled to God by the death of his Son”.407

God takes the initiative of universal redeeming love

604 By giving up his own Son for our sins, God manifests that his plan for us is one of benevolent love, prior to any merit on our part: "In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins."408 God "shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."409

605 At the end of the parable of the lost sheep Jesus recalled that God’s love excludes no one: "So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish."410 He affirms that he came “to give his life as a ransom for many”; this last term is not restrictive, but contrasts the whole of humanity with the unique person of the redeemer who hands himself over to save us.411 The Church, following the apostles, teaches that Christ died for all men without exception: "There is not, never has been, and never will be a single human being for whom Christ did not suffer."412

 

[MarkThompson]

I was never clearly taught what it means when the Church says
God became man to redeem us.

Was anyone else clearly taught what this means?

The shorter answer is that “to redeem” in this context means to pay the price of our sins for us, since we lack the capacity to fully satisfy our debts ourselves. “Redeem” in English still reflects this basic sense, “to pay off a debt,” in technical senses like “to redeem a mortgage” or “redeem your rewards points” (where it is actually the merchant who does the redeeming of a debt he owes to you). The Hebrew and Greek words in the Bible which are generally translated with “redeem” mean, roughly, to pay a ransom-price.

So there is obviously a connection with the Hebrew Captivity, where Israel was held in slavery in Egypt, and you’ll hear that Christ died “to ransom us from the slavery of sin,” in other words that by God’s becoming flesh and and humbling himself on the cross, which is a “payment” of infinite value that he gave on our behalf, he more than satisfied the debt of Adam’s, and our own, sin, which holds us in slavery to death as Genesis explains.

 

[GraceDK]

I was never clearly taught what it means when the Church says
God became man to redeem us.

Was anyone else clearly taught what this means?

Redeem, as far as I understand, means: paying for the release of something or someone… “buying free”. Thats what Jesus did when He paid the penalty for your sins,
and for the sins of everyone since the time of Eve. He gave Himself over to punishment for every time a man has ever broken the moral law, so He was standing in your place, paying a penalty that you could never pay, because He is the only one who is Good and Sinless.

 

[Tomster]

I was never clearly taught what it means when the Church says
God became man to redeem us.

Was anyone else clearly taught what this means?

We will attain our last end and happiness as sons of God in being made conformable to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29), Jesus Christ our Lord, in whose hands the Father has given all things (John 3:35). Whether the Son of God would have been incarnate if sin had not entered the world by the fall of our first parents, is a matter of theological speculation. But the fact of sin is certain, and it is equally certain that no created being could atone for the insult thus offered to the infinite majesty of God. If divine justice required a satisfaction equal to the offense, it was necessary for it to be offered by a divine Person. From the first moment of Adam’s sin a Redeemer was promised, whose office and dignity became more and more clear throughout the ages waiting his coming. See Matthew 1:21, Isaiah 53:4, Acts 4:12 and Colossians 1:14.

 

[dcdurel]

Thank you for your answers.

Many seem to equate redemption with atonement. I don’t think that is the same.

The best definition was from the Catechism which said:
601 The Scriptures had foretold this divine plan of salvation through the putting to death of “the righteous one, my Servant” as a mystery of universal redemption, that is, as the ransom that would free men from the slavery of sin

This is my understanding. Because of Adam’s sin, we our will was weakened and our intellect was darkened and we were left with a strong desire to sin, a desire to do what is evil, to turn away from love of God and love of others and instead love the goods of this world. This desire to sin, also called consupiscence is so strong, we are almost left without a free will. We become slaves to sin, or prisoners to sin.
A ransom is something of value give to free prisoners of war. By his suffering and death Jesus became the ransom given to free us from being prisoners to sin, so that we now have a more complete free will, depending on how much we seek His grace through the sacraments and prayer. That is why the Church says without the sacraments and prayer we cannot keep the commandments the way we should. We become slaves of sin without God’s grace

The word redeem means to buy back. Thus when we redeem a coupon, the store and ultimately the issuer of the coupon buys it back.
Before Adam’s sin we had a free will and we were not subject to concupiscence.
We did not have the intense desire to sin. We were free, and children of God. When Adam sinned man was no longer a child of God. He no longer had an entirely free will, but became slaves of sin and under the power of the devil.
When Jesus redeemed us, He bought us back from being servants of sin and under to power of the devil to the new state as children of God and free from the desire to sin, from concupiscence. This first happens when we receive the grace of salvation (grace of freedom from sin) at baptism. But it is not complete. Much concupiscence remains. It is through the other sacraments, esp. the Eucharist and prayer that Jesus takes away more of our slavery to sin, that we can now be free to love God and others the way we should, thus attain happiness. Thus we have been redeemed, or bought back from slavery to freedom, from under to power of the devil to freedom as sons of God.

 

[Windfish]

I was never clearly taught what it means when the Church says
God became man to redeem us.

Was anyone else clearly taught what this means?

As someone who had this question recently, let me help you out:

God created us with preternatural gifts that allowed us to live the supernatural life with Him. We have to have these gifts for us to be fit for life with God. Well, we lost those gifts, and their absence in our present nature is called Original Sin, after the act of disobedience committed by our first parents. Well, by becoming man, God redeemed for us these gifts so that we could live with Him. He did this in many ways.

That any help?