Bible Lexicons

ἀπολύτρωσις, ἀπολυτρώσεως, ἡ (from ἀπολυτρόω signifying a. to redeem one by paying the price, cf. λύτρον: Plutarch, Pomp. 24; the Sept. Exodus 21:8; Zephaniah 3:1;

b. to let one go free on receiving the price: Plato, legg. 11, p. 919a.; Polybius 22, 21, 8; (cf.) Diodorus 13, 24), "a releasing effected by payment of ransom; redemption, deliverance, liberation procured by the payment of a ransom";

1. properly: πόλεων αἰχμαλώτων, Plutarch, Pomp. 24 (the only passage in secular writings where the word has as yet been noted; (add, Josephus, Antiquities 12, 2, 3; Diodorus fragment l. xxxvii. 5, 3, p. 149, 6 Dindorf; Philo, quod omn. prob. book § 17)).

2. everywhere in the N. T. metaphorically, viz. deliverance effected through the death of Christ from the retributive wrath of a holy God and the merited penalty of sin: Romans 3:24; Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14 (cf. ἐξαγοράζω, ἀγοράζω, λυτρόω, etc. (and Trench, § lxxvii.)); ἀπολύτρωσιν τῶν ... παραβάσεων deliverance from the penalty of transgressions, effected through their expiation, Hebrews 9:15 (cf. Delitzsch at the passage and Fritzsche on Romans, vol. ii., p. 178); ἡμέρα ἀπολυτρώσεως, the last day, when consummate liberation is experienced from the sin still lingering even in the regenerate, and from all the ills and troubles of this life, Ephesians 4:30; in the same sense the word is apparently to be taken in 1 Corinthians 1:30 (where Christ himself is said to be redemption, i. e. the author of redemption, the one without whom we could have none), and is to be taken in the phrase ἀπολύτρωσιν τῆς περιποιήσεως, Ephesians 1:14, the redemption which will come to his possession, or to the men who are God's own through Christ (cf. Meyer at the passage); τοῦ σώματος, deliverance of the body from frailty and mortality, Romans 8:23 (Winer's Grammar, 187 (176)); deliverance from the hatred and persecutions of enemies by the return of Christ from heaven, Luke 21:28, cf. Luke 18:7f; deliverance or release from torture, Hebrews 11:35.