Quotes About Redemption

Dost thou desire that thine own heart should not suffer, redeem thou the sufferer from the bonds of misery.

No one had ever told them they were worth saving, and they were taught to believe they were forever lost to a world of thievery, prostitution and murder. But it wasn't true. They were capable of more. She could tell from the way some of them helped each other, the way others sat down at once to begin sewing, the way Ann took aside one of the little boys and patiently showed him how to pick a pocket—

It is like a two-edged sword. It cuts into you. It causes you great pain, but if you can take the truth, it will cure you and save you from what otherwise be certain death.

I don't think anybody ever got more out of going to prison than I did.

the truth can be quickly received, or received at all, only by the sinner who knows and admits that he is guilty of having sinned much.

I had sunk to the very bottom of the American white man's society when—soon now, in prison—I found Allah and the religion of Islam and it completely transformed my life.

As testimony to the power of redemption and the force of human personality, the autobiography of Malcolm X is a revelation.

Surely it is our animal nature that recognizes the divinity of the natural world in all its mystery and beauty, despite the distressing habits and limited perception that afflict our species. So perhaps our hope of redemption lies in the fact that we are animals, not that we are people. -Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Certain Poor Shepherds

But Easter means that the powers of this world do not have the last word.

Why did it happen? Why did Jesus' life end this way? For centuries, Christians have seen Jesus' death as the very purpose of his life. It was salvific; that is, it had saving significance and makes our salvation possible.

I am convinced that salvation in the biblical tradition has to do primarily with this life.

But "redemption" in the Bible and in Paul is not about the forgiveness of sins. Rather, it is a metaphor of liberation from bondage—from life in Egypt, from a life of slavery. "The redemption that is in Christ Jesus" would be better translated "the liberation that is in Christ Jesus." We are liberated through him.

Jim Crace's Quarantine [1997] and Norman Mailer's The Gospel According to the Son [1997].

But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest. Maybe none of this is about control. Maybe it isn't really about who can own whom, who can do what to whom and get away with it, even as far as death. Maybe it isn't about who can sit and who has to kneel or stand or lie down, legs spread open. Maybe it's about who can do what to whom and be forgiven for it. Never tell me it amounts to the same thing.

I forgave her, of course. I always did; I had to, because there were only the two of us. The two of us on our thorn-encircled island, waiting for rescue; and, on the mainland, everyone else.

In Heaven, there are no debts - all have been paid, one way or another - but in Hell there's nothing but debts, and a great deal of payment is exacted, though you can't ever get all paid up. You have to pay, and pay, and keep on paying. So Hell is like an infernal maxed-out credit card that multiplies the charges endlessly.

But remember that forgiveness too is a power.

I bet it's your mouldy socks," said Jimmy. "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten these little socks.

The doctors, the dentists, the lawyers, the accountants: in the new world of Gilead, as in the old, their sins are frequently forgiven them.

It's possible to go so far in, so far down and back, they could never get you out.

Once they tried to save something, others or their own souls.

What was the guilty thing?" says Anne-Marie. "What's Prospero done that's so terrible?" "Indeed, what?" Felix asks rhetorically. More of the cast have gathered around. "He doesn't tell us. It's one more puzzle in the play. But The Tempest is a play about a man producing a play—one that's come out of his own head, his 'fancies'—so maybe the fault for which he needs to be pardoned is the play itself.

Remember: the neurons that fire together wire together, so you can reroute and redeem your thinking patterns.

Supposed I don't want to redeem myself? Why should I fight to uphold the system that cast me out? I shall take pleasure in seeing it smashed.