Hymns about Redemption

Redemption is the gracious act by which God delivers sinners from the dominion of sin and death and brings them into the liberty of His children. The Scriptures present redemption as costly, effectual, and wholly of grace. Israel remembered redemption from Egypt; the church remembers a greater deliverance wrought through the Blood of Christ. Hymns of redemption rehearse this gospel: that we are bought with a price, justified freely, and called to walk in newness of life.

Theologically, redemption joins the themes of atonement, substitution, and reconciliation. At the Cross, Christ bore our sins in His own body, satisfying divine justice and revealing divine love. Hymn writers have long set this mystery in meter and melody so that congregations may confess with one voice what the apostles preached. The best of these songs avoid speculation and cling to revealed truth: Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and He rose again for our justification.

In worship, redemption hymns serve proclamation and response. They declare what God has done before they ask what we shall do. They fit well with sermons on the passion, with the Lord's Supper, and with times when the church would renew her gratitude. In private prayer they turn anxiety into thanksgiving, for the redeemed know they are not their own. Links to Jesus Christ, Salvation, and Redeemer help the seeker trace the Person, the gift, and the name by which that gift is known.

To meditate on redemption is to stand on holy ground. Let these hymns teach the heart to say with Scripture that we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.