I Will Redeem You: What it Means to be Bought by God

For the past two articles, we’ve been exploring the four cups of wine around which the Jewish Passover meal is built. We have discovered that each cup is tied to a promise God made to Israel as He prepared to deliver them from Egypt. Those promises are found in Exodus 6, where the Lord declared what He was about to do for His people:

“I will bring you out… I will deliver you… I will redeem you… and I will take you as My people.”

Along the way, we have been exploring the connection between the Passover celebration and the Christian believer’s own exodus story—for we, too, have been delivered out of slavery. In our case, it is the slavery of sin.

When we considered the first cup—the Cup of Sanctification—we learned that our salvation was part of God’s intentional plan from the very beginning. The second cup—the Cup of Deliverance—accompanies the retelling of the Exodus story itself. There we saw how our testimony connects us with the larger story of what God is doing in the world, and how sharing that story can become an invitation for others to experience their own deliverance.

Now we arrive at the third cup of wine.

The third cup is known as the Cup of Redemption, and it corresponds to the third promise God spoke in Exodus:

“I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.”

By the time this cup is lifted during the Passover meal, the story of the Exodus has already been told, and the meal itself has been eaten. This cup celebrates the moment when God not only delivered Israel from slavery but redeemed them—purchasing their freedom and bringing them out of bondage.

In previous articles, I mentioned that Jesus instituted Communion, the Lord’s Supper, during a Passover celebration. When Jesus celebrated Passover with His disciples on the night before His crucifixion, the Gospel of Luke tells us that He took “the cup after they had eaten” and said:

“This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.”
(Luke 22:20)

That small phrase—“after they had eaten”—points to a specific moment in the order of the Passover celebration. It is the third cup that is lifted after the meal.

In other words, when Jesus instituted Communion, He did so while holding the Cup of Redemption. And in that moment, He gave the cup a deeper meaning, revealing that a new and greater redemption was about to be accomplished through His own blood.

The Lesser Known Detail: God Purchased the Firstborn

To understand the meaning of redemption more fully, we need to notice a detail in the Exodus story that many readers overlook.

On the night the Israelites left Egypt, the events of the Passover had already accomplished something extraordinary. The blood of the lamb placed on the doorposts spared the firstborn sons of Israel when judgment passed through the land. All the firstborn sons in Egypt died, but those in the camp of Israel remained alive.

But shortly after the Exodus, God made a declaration that reframed what had happened that night. In Exodus 13:2, the Lord told Moses:

“Sanctify to Me every firstborn, the first offspring of every womb among the sons of Israel, both of man and beast; it belongs to Me.”

“It belongs to Me.”

This statement reveals that the blood of the lamb had not merely protected the firstborn from death—it meant God now considered them to belong to Him. God spared them, but in being spared, He also claimed them. In effect, God was saying that He had purchased the firstborn sons of Israel.

This led to a requirement for every family in Israel. Each household was instructed to redeem its firstborn son. Symbolically, they had to buy back their sons from God.

Redemption is a church word. And like many church terms, we sometimes use it without fully understanding what it means. But this event sheds remarkable light on the idea. Deliverance removed Israel from slavery in Egypt. But redemption meant that the lives spared through the blood of the lamb were now set apart for God Himself—and had to be bought back.

Redemption Codified: The Price of Silver

In time, this principle of redeeming the firstborn became a formal ritual with a set price.

In the book of Numbers, we read:

“Every firstborn of mankind among your sons you shall redeem… you shall redeem them, from a month old you shall redeem them, according to your valuation, five shekels in silver.”
— Numbers 18:15–16 (NASB)

From that point forward, every Israelite family would pay five shekels of silver to buy back a firstborn son. It’s important to recognize that the payment did not create the redemption; it merely acknowledged it. The silver simply recognized that the child's life had first belonged to God. Every time a family redeemed their firstborn son with silver, they were reminded of that truth.

Peter’s Explanation of True Redemption

This background helps illuminate a powerful statement made by the apostle Peter in the New Testament. Writing to believers scattered across the Roman world, Peter described their salvation in these words:

“Knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.”
— 1 Peter 1:18–19 (NASB)

Peter’s wording is striking. He says believers were not redeemed with silver or gold.

For Jewish readers, the mention of silver would have immediately recalled the redemption payments described in the Law—such as the silver used to redeem the firstborn. But Peter does not stop with silver. He adds gold as well.

Gold would have resonated with Gentile readers living in the Roman world, where money was often used to purchase a slave’s freedom. In their experience, redemption was a financial transaction: a price was paid, and a slave was set free.

By mentioning both silver and gold, Peter reaches across both cultural worlds. Whether Jew or Gentile, the message is clear: the redemption accomplished through Christ was not purchased with the currencies of this world. It was secured with something infinitely more valuable than our economy—the precious blood of Christ, the true Passover Lamb.

Conclusion: The Meaning of the Third Cup for Believers

For centuries, the Cup of Redemption reminded Israel that God had purchased their freedom from Egypt. But when Jesus lifted that same cup, He declared that a greater redemption was about to take place—one that would not be paid with silver or gold, but with His own blood.

And that truth carries an implication many believers overlook.

If redemption involves purchase, then redemption also establishes ownership.

That was true for Israel. When God redeemed them from Egypt, they no longer belonged to Pharaoh. They belonged to the Lord. The redemption of the firstborn served as a constant reminder that the lives spared through the blood of the lamb ultimately belonged to Him.

The same principle applies to us. Our freedom from sin was not merely granted—it was purchased. Which means our lives are no longer our own.

The apostle Paul expresses the same truth plainly: “You have been bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20).

This is the practical meaning of the third cup. Redemption does not simply set us free from something. Redemption means we belong to Someone. When Christ redeemed us, He claimed us as His own.

That reality changes how we understand Communion. Each time we take the cup, we are not only remembering the sacrifice of Christ—we are acknowledging the One to whom we now belong. Our freedom came at a price, and that the life we now live is a life that the blood of the Lamb has purchased.