Part of the Christian message is the concept of redemption. What does it mean, to say that the Lord redeemed people?

Here are the key concepts about redemption in New Christian thought, as excerpted from Swedenborg's works (written in the 1700s):

"Jehovah God came down and took upon Himself a human form, in order to redeem and save mankind.

Christian churches today believe that God the Creator of the universe fathered a Son from eternity, who came down and took upon Himself human form to redeem and save mankind. But this is an error and collapses of its own accord, so long as the mind concentrates on the oneness of God, and the reason looks upon as fiction or worse the idea that the one God fathered a Son from eternity, and also that God the Father together with the Son and the Holy Spirit, each of whom is severally God, is one God. This fiction is utterly exploded, like a meteorite in the atmosphere, when it is shown from the Word that it was Jehovah God Himself who came down and became man and also was the Redeemer." (True Christian Religion 82)

"In the process of taking on a human manifestation, God followed his own divine design.... Now, because God came down, and because he is the design..., there was no other way for him to become an actual human being than to be conceived, to be carried in the womb, to be born, to be brought up, and to acquire more and more knowledge so as to become intelligent and wise. Therefore in his human manifestation he was an infant like any infant, a child like any child, and so on with just one difference: he completed the process more quickly, more fully, and more perfectly than the rest of us do." (True Christian Religion 89)

"There is a belief that the Lord in his human manifestation not only was but still is the Son of Mary. This is a blunder, though, on the part of the Christian world. It is true that he was the Son of Mary; it is not true that he still is. As the Lord carried out the acts of redemption, he put off the human nature from his mother and put on a human nature from his Father. This is how it came about that the Lord's human nature is divine and that in him God is human and a human is God.' (True Christian Religion 102)

"Suffering on the cross was the final trial the Lord underwent as the greatest prophet. It was a means of glorifying his human nature, that is, of uniting that nature to his Father's divine nature. It was not redemption. There are two things for which the Lord came into the world and through which he saved people and angels: redemption, and the glorification of his human aspect. These two things are distinct from each other, but they become one in contributing to salvation.

In the preceding points we have shown what redemption was: battling the hells, gaining control over them, and then restructuring the heavens. Glorification, however, was the uniting of the Lord's human nature with the divine nature of his Father. This process occurred in successive stages and was completed by the suffering on the cross." (True Christian Religion 126)

"Redemption consisted in the conquest of the hells, the ordering of the heavens and the establishment of a new church, because without them no one could have been saved. This is their proper order: the hells had first to be conquered, before a new heaven of angels could be formed, and this had to be formed before a new church could be established on earth. For people in the world are so linked with the angels in heaven and the spirits in hell, that in the interiors of their minds they are identified with one party or the other." (True Christian Religion 115)

"Without that redemption no man could have been saved, nor could the angels have continued in a state of integrity. It shall be told first what redemption is. To redeem means to liberate from damnation, to deliver from eternal death, to rescue from hell, and to release from the hand of the devil the captive and the bound. This the Lord did by subjugating the hells and establishing a new heaven." (True Christian Religion 118)

101. (vii) THUS GOD BECAME MAN, AND MAN GOD, IN ONE PERSON.

It follows that Jehovah God became man and man became God in one person as the consequence of all the previous propositions in this chapter, and particularly these two: Jehovah the Creator of the universe came down and took upon Himself human form, in order to redeem and save mankind (see above 82-84); and the Lord by redeeming acts united Himself with the Father, and the Father reciprocally and mutually united Himself with the Lord (see above 97-100). That reciprocal union makes it obvious that God became man and man God in one person. The same consequence follows from the union of each resembling the union of soul and body; this is in agreement with the faith of the church to-day as stated in the Athanasian Creed (98 above). It is also in agreement with the faith of the Evangelical churches as stated in their leading book of orthodoxy known as the Formula of Concord. In this the doctrine is strongly supported both from Holy Scripture and from patristic literature, as well as by arguments, that Christ's human nature was raised to Divine majesty, omnipotence and omnipresence; also that in Christ man is God and God is man (see pp. 607, 765 of that book).

[2] Moreover it has been proved in the present chapter that Jehovah God in respect of His Human is called in the Word Jehovah, Jehovah God, Jehovah Zebaoth ¹ , as well as the God of Israel. Therefore Paul says that in Jesus Christ all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9); and John says that Jesus Christ the Son of God is the true God and everlasting life (1 John 5:20). The Son of God in its true sense means His Human (92ff above). Moreover Jehovah God calls both Himself and His Son Lord, for we read:

The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, Psalms 110:1.

and in Isaiah:

A child is born for us, a son is given to us, whose name is God, the everlasting Father, Isaiah 9:6-7.

Son also means the Lord in respect of His Human in the Psalms of David:

I will bring news of a decree, said Jehovah. You are my son, to-day have I begotten you. Kiss the son, so that he may not be angry and so that you do not perish on the way, Psalms 2:7, 12.

This does not mean a Son from eternity, but the Son born in the world, for it is a prophecy of the Lord's coming. This is why it is called a decree, news of which Jehovah gave to David. Earlier in that Psalm it says:

I have anointed my King over Zion, Psalms 2:6.

and later:

I will give him the nations for an inheritance, Psalms 2:8.

This proves that 'to-day' does not mean from eternity, but in time, for with Jehovah the future is present.

Footnotes:

126. (vi) THE PASSION ON THE CROSS WAS THE LAST TEMPTATION WHICH THE LORD UNDERWENT AS THE GREATEST PROPHET; THIS WAS THE MEANS BY WHICH HE GLORIFIED HIS HUMAN, THAT IS, UNITED IT WITH HIS FATHER'S DIVINE; SO THIS WAS NOT IN ITSELF THE REDEMPTION.

The Lord had two purposes in coming into the world, redemption and the glorification of His Human; and by these He saved both men and angels. These two purposes are quite distinct, but still they are combined in effecting salvation. The nature of redemption was shown in the preceding paragraphs to be a battle against the hells, their subjugation and afterwards the ordering of the heavens. Glorification, however, is the uniting of the Lord's Human with His Father's Divine. This took place by stages and was completed by His passion on the cross. For every person ought for his own part to approach God, and the more nearly he does so, the more closely does God on His side enter into him. It is similar to the building of a church: its construction by human hands must come first, and then afterwards it must be consecrated, and finally prayers must be said for God to be present and unite Himself with its congregation. The reason why the actual union was fully achieved by the passion on the cross is that it was the last temptation which the Lord underwent in the world; and temptations create a link. In temptation it looks as if a person is left to himself, but he is not, since God is then most closely present in his inmost, and secretly gives him support. When therefore anyone is victorious over temptation, he is most inwardly linked with God, and in this case the Lord was most inwardly united with God His Father.

[2] The Lord's being left to Himself, when He suffered on the cross, is evident from His cry then:

O God, why have you abandoned me? [Matthew 27:46]

as well as from these words of the Lord:

No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it back; this charge I received from my Father, John 10:18.

These passages then can prove that the Lord did not suffer in His Divine, but in His Human, and then a most inward and complete union took place. An illustration of this might be the fact that while a person is suffering physical pain, his soul feels nothing but is merely distressed. But when the victory is won, God takes away that distress, wiping it away as one does tears from the eyes.