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)

102. The current belief of Christians is that the Lord as far as His Human is concerned not only was, but is, the Son of Mary, but this is a delusion. It is true that He was the Son of Mary, but not that He still is, since by His redeeming actions He put off the human He had from His mother and put on the Human from His Father. That is why the Lord's Human is Divine, and in Him God is man and man God. It can also be seen that He put off the human from His mother and put on the Human from his Father, that is, the Divine Human, by noticing that He never called Mary His mother, as is evident from the following passages:

Jesus' mother said to Him, They have no wine. Jesus said to her, What have I to do with you, woman? My hour has not yet come, John 2:3-4.

and elsewhere:

Jesus from the cross saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing next to her. He says to His mother, Woman, behold your son; then He says to the disciple, Behold your mother, John 19:26-27.

and on one occasion He did not acknowledge her:

People reported to Jesus, saying, Your mother and your brothers are standing outside and want to see you. In answer Jesus said, My mother and my brothers are those who hear the Word of God and do it, Luke 8:20-21; Matthew 12:46-50; Mark 3:31-35.

So the Lord did not call her mother, but woman, and He gave her to be a mother to John. In other passages she is called His mother, but never by the Lord himself.

[2] This is also proved by the fact that He did not acknowledge Himself to be the Son of David, for we read in the Gospels:

Jesus asked the Pharisees, saying, What is your opinion of the Christ? Whose son is he? They say to Him, David's. He said to them, How then does David call him in spirit his Lord, saying, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies the footstool for your feet? If then David calls Him Lord, how is He his son? And no one could say a word in reply to Him, Matthew 22:41-46; Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44; Psalms 110:1.

[3] Here I shall add something new.

I was once allowed to speak with Mary the mother of Jesus. She happened to be passing, and appeared in heaven above my head, dressed in white garments that looked like silk. Then she paused for a moment to say that she had been the Lord's mother, and He was born to her, but became God putting off everything human He had from her, and she therefore worships Him as her God, and she did not want anyone to acknowledge Him as her Son, because all the Divine is in Him.

The truth now shines out from these statements, that Jehovah is thus man in first things as in last, as it is written:

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, He who is, who was and who is to come, the Almighty, Revelation 1:8, 11.

John, on seeing the Son of Man in the midst of the seven lampstands, fell at His feet as if dead. But He laid His right hand upon him, saying, I am the first and the last, Revelation 1:13, 17; 21:6.

Behold, I come quickly, to give to each according to his deeds. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, Revelation 22:12-13.

Also in Isaiah:

Thus spoke Jehovah, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, Jehovah Zebaoth, I am the first and the last, Isaiah 44:6; 48:12.