When God redeems a man, he is exercising his complete, sovereign freedom to liberate a human being. Redemption involves some intervening or substitutionary action which effects a release from an undesirable condition (6299). Jesus’ death on the cross effected the release of every person from the bondage of sin and death. No other person ever has or ever will die for the sins of another. God chose to liberate man from his sin nature and offers redemption from sin to anyone who desires it.

Rechab and Baanah thought they were doing David a favor when they killed Saul’s son Ish-bosheth and brought his head to David as evidence (2 Samuel 4:8). What they didn’t understand was that Ish-bosheth was not a threat to David. David was not distressed about Ish-bosheth’s appointment as king of Israel. David declared to Rechab and Baanah that the LORD had redeemed his soul from all adversity. What David meant was that Ish-bosheth’s sin  no longer had any effect on David’s life because David had been redeemed from all sin, not just his own.

The sins that usually hurts us the most are sins that are committed against us. When God redeems a man from sin, he does not just release him from the effect of his sins, but the sins of everyone else also. When I was 14, I was raped and it had an extremely negative effect on my life. I suffered a great deal of adversity as a result of someone else’s sin. It wasn’t until I realized that Jesus died for that person’s sin against me that I was freed from the effect of that sin on my life.

David described Ish-bosheth as a righteous man (2 Samuel 4:11). The word David used for righteous, tsaddîyq (tsad – deek´) means just. It is said that a Christian is justified by the death of Jesus on the cross; it is just as if the person had never committed a sin. If a sin has never been committed, then there can be no effect from it. What David was doing was crediting Ish-bosheth’s sin to Jesus and claiming redemption from that sin. It was not going to have any effect on him and therefore, Ish-bosheth’s murder was unnecessary.

Every sin can be credited to Jesus’ account. Jesus died for every sin that had been or ever will be committed when he shed his blood on the cross. The only thing we have to do is give him the credit.