Our Redeemer From Everlasting

In Isaiah 63:16, Isaiah refers to God as our Father, our Redeemer from Everlasting. In the Old Testament, the meaning of redemption, meant that you were paid for with a price, usually by a kinsman, and delivered in this way from bondage. Bondage is a type of slavery. In the New Testament, the idea of being delivered from bondage, meant being delivered from the bondage of sin. We are called slaves to sin.

Our Father

Isaiah didn't know about Jesus, but the Holy Spirit revealed to Isaiah many things about the Messiah. As Jesus called God, "Our Father", so Isaiah refers to God in the same way. God is our loving, caring Father who sometimes, because He cares for us so deeply, disciplines us. God is our Redeemer in the sense that it is His will from "the foundations of the world" that His Son would be sent to save us and give us life everlasting. Jesus is the Lamb that was slain (Revelation 13:8). God's Son paid the ultimate price to redeem us from our sin.

Kinship Redeemer

The people of Israel would have understood that if God was their redeemer, then it made sense that He was their Father. In Leviticus 25: 48-51, we are told that a kinsman could pay the price of redemption for a family member to get them out of bondage. This imagery continues in the New Testament. There, Jesus calls God our Father and His. There, we are referred to as "brothers in Christ". We are said to be "adopted into His family." Philippians 4:19 says Christ has redeemed us because we are His. Obviously, this is the language of kinship.

I Have Blotted Out Your Sin

In Jeremiah 3:19, Jeremiah tells us,

"‘You shall call Me, “My Father,” And not turn away from Me.’

Jeremiah is speaking of a future time when God's kingdom is restored, and Israel will see God fully and completely as their Father, just as Jesus saw Him. In Zechariah 1:3, the prophet tells Israel to turn to Him and if they do, He will turn to them. In Isaiah 44:22, God tells Israel, "to return to Me, for I have redeemed you." God says their transgressions, their sins, have been swept away like a thick cloud.

McClaren's Exposition explains Isaiah 44:22 this way,

" God does not say, ‘Come back and I will forgive’; He does not say, ‘Return and I will blot out’; but He says, ‘Return, for I have blotted out.’ Though accomplished, the forgiveness has to be appropriated by individual faith. The sins of the world have been borne, and borne away, by the Lamb of God..."

Turn From Sin

God is truly our Redeemer from Everlasting. In Ephesians 1:4, Paul tells us that God chose us in Christ "before the foundation of the world" to be holy and without blame before Him. In the Old Testament, God spoke to His people, Israel. They are His chosen people. If they turned from their sins then He would turn to them. Today, have we strayed from our faith in God and obedience to Him? Have we sinned against Him? It is not too late to turn from our sin. It isn't too late to repent. If we do, God is there, ready to receive us. He is ready to turn to us.

Redeemed With Blood

Instead of being redeemed with money, we have been redeemed with the "precious blood of Christ" (1 Peter 1:17) This is a cost beyond our ability to comprehend. The God of the Universe sent His Son as a human being to live and die among us, to be raised to life to enable us to be redeemed and allow us to live with Him in Heaven. His death was for every man according to Hebrews 2:9. He was ransomed for all says 1 Timothy 2:5.