“When God redeems us, He releases us from the guilt and power of sin, and restores us to our full humanity, so that we can once again carry out the tasks for which we were created. Because of Christ's redemption on the cross, our work takes on a new aspect as well- it becomes a means of sharing in His redemptive purposes. In cultivating creation, we not only recover our original purpose, but also bring a redemptive force to reverse the evil and corruption introduced by the fall.”

“First of all, there is a difference between redemption and restoration. What you're talking about is restoration, putting things back as they were before. That is not what redemption is. Christ is the Redeemer because he paid the price for our sins, Joshua. In his sacrifice he took the pain of our sins upon him, he took the effects of our transgressions upon himself.”

“They can laugh, but they can't deny us. They can curse and kill us, but they can't destroy us. This land is ours because we come out of it, we bled in it, our tears watered it, we fertilized it with our dead. So the more of us they destroy, the more it becomes filled with the spirit of our redemption.”

“The purpose of redemption is Possession, and the purpose of Possession is likeness to Him who is Redeemer and Owner, is Holiness. [. . .]Redemption is too often looked at from its negative side as deliverance from: its real glory is the positive element of being redeemed unto Himself. [. . .]‘Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep m covenant, ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: ye shall be unto me an holy nation.’—Exodus 14:4-6The link between Redemption and Holiness is Obedience. [ . . .]God’s Holiness is His fatherliness; our holiness is childlikeness. [. . .]If we are truly to live as redeemed ones, we need not only to look at the work Christ did to accomplish our redemption, but to accept and realize fully how complete, how sure, how absolute the liberty is wherewith He hath made us free. It is only as we ‘stand fast in our liberty in Christ Jesus,’ that we can have our fruit unto sanctification.”

“Christ, in short, asks us to give everything, all our false redemption in the lifeboat, all our false ideas about who God is, all our trust in something other than God to redeem us. In so doing, we die to our broken natures in exchange for His perfect nature, and find unification with Him that will allow God to see us as one.”

“Redemption is not just about being saved *from* the consequences of sin, it is also about being saved *to* something- to resume the task for which we were originally created. And what was that task? In Genesis, God gives what we might call the first job description: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it." "Be fruitful and multiply", means to develop the social world: build families, churches, cities, governments, laws.The second phrase, "subdue the earth" means to harness the natural world: plant crops, build bridges, design computers, compose music. This passage is sometimes called the "cultural mandate" because it tells us that our original purpose was to create cultures and build civilizations- nothing less.”