Definition (house-style)
Threefold redemption is a redemption model based on three distinct Greek verbs in the New Testament: agorazo (purchased on the market), exagorazo (purchased out of and away from the market), and lutroo (set free by payment of a price). Each verb describes a different facet of what Christ accomplished for the believer: transfer of ownership, liberation from the slave market, and full release as a free person.
The model emphasises that redemption is not a single forensic transaction but a layered process with successive stages. It is characteristic of a soteriology that recognises both objective-judicial and subjective-experiential dimensions of salvation.
Author variants
Warnock
Warnock builds his entire redemption theology on the distinction among the three Greek verbs:
“The word ‘redemption’ has a threefold significance in the New Testament. The simple meaning is that we have been ‘bought with a price.’ The Greek word is agorazo — ‘bought in the market place.’ A second word, prefixed by the preposition ex (exagorazo), means ‘bought out of and away from the market.’ The picture is: a slave is standing on the auction block in the market place. Another man puts down the redemption money out of compassion. He has bought the slave for himself […] and takes him away from the place of sale. […] But there is yet a third word for redemption: lutroo, meaning ‘to set free by payment of a price.‘”
[Warnock, The Hyssop that Springeth Out of the Wall, hyssop2.html]
Warnock connects each verb to a progressive stage of salvation: the first addresses the purchase act itself, the second the liberation from slavery, the third the full release as an autonomous person. He further adds a fourth dimension — voluntary eternal servitude (Ex. 21:2-6) — as the highest expression of redeemed life.
Noordzij
Noordzij does not employ the explicit terminology of agorazo/exagorazo/lutroo, but his soteriological model implies the same layered structure. The rebirth process moves through sullambano (receiving the Word as seed), anagennao (the development process), and tikto (the final birth). Salvation is for Noordzij likewise a multi-phase process, beginning with receiving the living Word and culminating in mature fruit.
[Noordzij, Het Woord Gods en de Schrift (The Word of God and Scripture), b2]