Christ Our Ransom

In 1 Timothy chapter 2, Paul says that Jesus gave Himself as a ransom for all. The ransom is paid here not to a criminal, but to the one who is owed the price for redemption, the one who is the offended party, the injured party in the whole process of sin.

A ransom is paid to free a captive, someone who has no ability to free themselves. We learn in the Bible that Jesus did that for us. But historically, there has been some confusion as to whom Jesus paid. Was it the devil, or was it God? Today on Renewing Your Mind, Dr. R.C.

Sproul investigates the great transaction that secured our freedom. I'm sure that there were times in Jesus' life, particularly toward the close of His earthly ministry, when touching His human nature, He just had to be super frustrated. When He made His last trip from Galilee down to Jerusalem, He had an extended tour, as it were, of speaking along the way. He constantly focused attention on His coming hour and prepared His disciples for the fact that He was going to Jerusalem to die.

And somehow, it just didn't get across to them. They fought Him every step of the way. And we read in Mark's Gospel in the tenth chapter, after Jesus tells them again, He says in verse 32, they were on their way up to Jerusalem with Jesus leading the way, and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. And again, this is again He does it, He takes the twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to Him. We are going up to Jerusalem, He said, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and teachers of the law. They will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles, who will mock Him and spit on Him, flog Him and kill Him. Now, five minutes later, the disciples start arguing over who's going to be the greatest in the kingdom of God.

Can I sit at your right hand, or can I sit at your left hand? Here is Christ preparing to enter into His grand passion, and His closest friends are already arguing about the inheritance. And it was in this context that Jesus says something that is very significant for our understanding of the atonement. He said, you know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.

Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.

Now here, when Jesus, in His frustration, is trying to communicate to His disciples what His own ministry is all about, when Jesus must state succinctly and poignantly and graphically so that once and for all these dull-witted disciples of His will understand what He's about to do, He says it how. I came not to be served, but to serve and to give my life as a ransom for many. The word that is translated ransom here in Mark's gospel is rarely translated by this term, but the concept of the ransom is the root concept in the New Testament behind the broad term that we call redemption. In biblical categories, a redeemer is one who provides a ransom. The word is lutron that is translated here ransom. And some of you who know your Greek, do you know any Greek?

When you learn Greek in college or in seminary, they start off with the first book, you know, Book 1, Volume 1, and usually in the very first vocabulary list, the first verb that you learn in Greek in most Greek textbooks is the verb luro, which means to loose. The basic verb form is to loose, to set free, to unbind, and the concept of the ransom here is built upon this root of loosing something, setting something free that is held in captivity. Now, in the ancient world, the idea of the ransom functioned very similar to what the idea of the ransom is in our own language. Whenever we think of ransom, we think of kidnapping, huh, where somebody steals a person and then demands payment for the free release of the hostage or of the person who is kidnapped. They expect a monetary payment.

Now, that's the way it functioned in antiquity. Also, it functioned for a price that was paid to release a slave from bondage. A slave could be ransomed, or hostages held in military conflicts could be purchased and set free by a ransom. Now, the question is who sets the price tag for the ransom?

It is not established by some board of trade that comes in and figures out the going market rate. The price tag for the ransom is set initially by the slaveholder, the hostage holder, or the one who is controlling the kidnapped child. He determines the ransom price, and then it's up to the person who is trying to free the hostage, the slave, or the kidnapped person to answer the question whether he attaches enough value to pay the ransom to set the person to set the person free. Now, that's important because in church history, there have been all kinds of theories about the atonement. Part of the reason for that is that if you study the cross and study the atonement in biblical terms, you will see that the atonement in terms of biblical language and biblical imagery is a multifaceted event.

They're all different kinds of activities taking place, converging in this one pregnant moment of redemptive history. And so one of the images that is used in the New Testament to describe this multifaceted event is this image of ransom, a ransom that is paid to redeem a captive. That is what redemption is all about, being set free. Israel is redeemed. God is the redeemer when He delivers His people from bondage in Egypt. The Exodus is a story about redemption. One of the theories that has competed for acceptance throughout church history, the so-called ransom theory of the atonement, is that in the transaction of the cross, Jesus pays a ransom to Satan because Satan has fallen man bound.

He has him under bondage. He has us in chains, as it were, and he is like the kidnapper who snatches us away from our Father's house, and Christ comes and pays the ransom to set us free. In passing, let me add that another element that is clearly present in the Bible about the atonement is what has been called the Christus Victor element, which calls attention to the aspect of Christ's work by which He achieves a cosmic victory over powers and principalities, that He comes to destroy the work of the devil, that He comes to conquer Satan and his power over us. If you see me casting out demons by the finger of God, then you know what?

The kingdom of God has come upon you. So I don't want to minimize in any way the fact that the New Testament does have a very strong victory motif wherein Christ conquers the demonic forces, the forces of Satan that threaten us. And we see that antithesis and that titanic struggle that goes on from the very beginning moments of Jesus' ministry where the Spirit leads Him into the wilderness to be tempted of Satan. And even when He withstands that temptation, we read almost as a postscript at the end that Satan departed from Him for a season, that he went into retreat, but that retreat of Satan was not a permanent retreat.

It was what we would call strategic withdrawal so that he could find a better place to launch another assault against Christ. But the conflict goes through the ministry of Jesus, and the Bible says that in His death, Christ conquers Satan. So what I'm saying is this, that yes, there is clearly that element of the struggle between Christ and principalities and powers of satanic style. But that does not mean that the ransom of which Christ speaks is paid to Satan.

Think of it for a moment. If Christ paid a ransom to Satan to deliver you from Satan's clutches, who would the victor be? Yes, what every kidnapper wants is not permanent possession of the child. He wants what the child can get from him through extortion and through the exploitation of establishing a premium ransom. And if he can get the distraught parents to pay the ransom, he wins. If the ransom is paid to Satan, Satan laughs all the way to the bank, and there is no Christus victor. It must be Satanus victor. But when the Bible speaks of ransom, the ransom is paid here not to a criminal but to the one who is owed the price for redemption, the one who is the offended party, the injured party in the whole process of sin. And who is that?

It's the Father. Jesus as a servant offers Himself in payment to the Father for us. So again we see in this concept of redemption and concept of ransom, just out of casual interest, and whenever I prepare lectures on any of these subjects, I don't just read what classical orthodox theologians say on these points.

I always like to see what the most radical, higher critical professors are saying about it. And I was surprised to see that this person who carries no brief for biblical orthodoxy make the statement, we cannot get away from the fact that in the biblical concept of ransom we are dealing with two indisputable elements, one, substitution, two, satisfaction. And I thought, my goodness, the very two items that liberal theology considers anathema to biblical Christianity, substitution and satisfaction, is here set forth in such strong language, like it's indisputable, can't get away from the fact. Now he may go on to say, but so much for the biblical interpretation of the event. But the fact is that the New Testament writers understood Jesus' ministry on the cross in terms of a ransom which demands an understanding of substitution and satisfaction.

A price is paid by someone other than for whom the price is being paid, okay, so that some demand is being satisfied by a substitute. It's no wonder to me that Karl Barth waxed eloquent and at times became vehement over this point, indulging again in some hyperbole by saying that the single most important Greek word in all of the New Testament is a tiny little word, huper, which is translated by three English words, which are in behalf of. I lay down my life for my sheep, in behalf of my sheep. I give my life in behalf of the many. This is the recurring, resounding refrain of Jesus' own self-understanding.

Now that's crucial. It's one thing for a painter to paint a painting, and then we go up to him and scratch our heads and say, what did that guy mean by that? And I say, well, I don't know, what do you think? And you say, well, I think he means this, and we sit down and speculate as to what the significance of the man's art represents. And then I give my opinion, and you give your opinion, and we all sit around and speculate on it.

The best way to settle the controversy is to do what? Ask the artist, what did you mean by this? And some of them, you know, existential and say, hey, I paint it, you interpret it, I meant whatever you want me to mean, that kind of thing. Fortunately, Jesus wasn't an existentialist. And when Jesus explains His agenda, when He is talking in the first person and communicating to His hearers, what He is about at the center of His teaching is this, I'm doing this not for myself, but for you, to redeem, to ransom, to save. When we talk technically about the atonement, there are two words, propitiation and expiation. In a term like redemption, at least you see that at the S&H Green Stamps store. But where in the world do we talk about expiation and propitiation? Those are strange words indeed.

Well, let's look at them. Expiation, one prefix, ex, and propitiation. The word expiation obviously means something out of or from, right?

We know what the prefix ex means. Now, the word expiation means to remove something, to take something away. And in biblical terms, it has to do with taking away guilt, removing guilt by way of paying a ransom or offering an atonement and to pay the penalty for something. So the act of expiation removes the problem by paying for it, either by paying a penalty, paying a ransom, making a sacrifice in order to satisfy some demand. Propitiation has to do with the object of the expiation. A way to remember it is the prefix. Ex usually means away from or out of.

Pro usually means for. Now, propitiation has to do with that which brings about a change in God's attitude where we are restored into fellowship and to the favor with God. There is a sense in which we can talk here of God's being appeased. You know how the word appeasement functions in military and political conflicts. You know, the so-called politics of appeasement that if you have a rambunctious world conqueror on the loose rattling the sword rather than risk the wrath of his blitzkrieg, you try to assuage his wrath and appease him by giving him something that will satisfy him so that he won't come into your country and mow you down.

That's a kind of ungodly manifestation of appeasement. But if I am angry, or if I am violated, and you satisfy my anger, appease me, then you are restored to favor, and the problem is removed. Now, sometimes the same Greek word is translated both by expiation or propitiation.

Do you see the slight difference here in the terms? The expiation is the act that is done that results in the change of God's disposition toward us. Expiation is what Christ does on the cross. The result of Christ's work of expiation is that God is propitiated. And the bottom line result is that we are then reconciled. This would be the distinction between the ransom that is paid and the attitude of the one who receives the ransom.

Is that clear? There is involved in expiation and propitiation an act of placation. There's a phrase in one of the older Reformed confessions in the Latin when it speaks of the atonement.

I think the Latin phrase goes, Ira placate Deo. That is that the work of Christ was done to placate the wrath of God. To placate the wrath of God. Now this idea of placating the wrath of God has done little to placate the wrath of modern theologians. Modern theologians have become very wrathful about the idea of placating the wrath of God.

I grant that we need to be very careful in how we understand the wrath of God and all of that. But let me remind you that the concept of placating the wrath of God has to do here not with a peripheral tangential point of theology but with the essence of salvation. What does the term salvation mean? I can give you an excedrin headache if you try to explain it quickly because the word salvation is used in about 70 different ways in the Bible. If somebody is rescued from certain defeat in battle, they experience salvation. If somebody survives a life threatening illness, that person experiences salvation. If somebody's plants are brought back from withering to robust health, they are saved. We talk that way in our own language.

We save money. A boxer is saved by the bell. When we say that he's saved by the bell, we don't mean by that that he's been transported into the eternal kingdom of God. We mean that he has been saved from losing the fight. So that any experience of deliverance from a clear and present danger, from some kind of calamity is defined biblically in terms of salvation. When we talk about salvation biblically, we have to say, from what ultimately are we saved? What is it that we are saved from?

If we look in Paul's letter to the Thessalonians in the very first chapter of 1 Thessalonians, it's around the tenth verse, it says in there that Christ has saved us from what? From the wrath which is to come. And again, you cannot understand the teaching and the preaching of Jesus of Nazareth apart from that because He constantly warned people about the fact that someday the whole world was coming into judgment.

And what is done in corners and in secret will be made manifest. He says every idle word will come into the judgment. His was a crisis theology. The Greek word crisis means judgment. And the crisis of which Jesus preached was the crisis of an impending judgment of the world. At which point God is going to pour out His wrath against the unredeemed and the ungodly, the impenitent, and that the only hope of escape from the wrath of God was how? To be covered by the atonement of Christ. And so the supreme achievement of the cross for me that Christ has made, Christ has placated the wrath of God, which would burn against me were I not covered by the sacrifice of Christ. So if somebody gives you static about placation or satisfying the wrath of God, run for your life because now you're talking about the gospel. We're talking about salvation in its essence.

That as one who is covered by the atonement, I have been redeemed from the clear and present danger and the supreme danger to which any person is exposed. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of a holy God who is wrathful. But there is no wrath for those whose sins have been paid.

No wrath left at all. That is what salvation is all about. Twentieth-century theologian John Murray said, Christ discharged the debt of sin. He bore our sins and purged them. Our debts are not canceled.

They are liquidated. For those who are in Christ, there is no better news than that. Dr. R.C. 's Sproul series The Cross of Christ is our focus this week here on Renewing Your Mind. In six messages, R.C.

shows us that all of us stand guilty before God and in need of a Savior and how the cross fulfills that need. I do hope you'll contact us today with a donation of any amount so that we can send you the digital download of the series plus the study guide. You'll be able to stream the messages right away, and we'll also send you a hardbound copy of R.C. 's book on this same topic. It's titled The Truth of the Cross. There are a couple of ways you can reach us to make your request.

One is by phone at 800-435-4343, or if you prefer to go online, our web address is renewingyourmind.org. As we approach the end of the year, I'd like to take just a moment to thank you for your generosity in 2021. Your gifts have made a profound difference in the lives of so many people, including Anna from Michigan. I started listening in November of 2018, and it's hard to describe how he has revealed himself to me, and it is such a blessing just being reminded of the truth that we will have suffering and that it is for God's glory. And one thing that has been going through my mind a lot is restore to me the joy of your salvation. And even when I am at a low point, I just remember the joy of the salvation that comes through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And I love listening to Renewing Your Mind. I really appreciate the work that you guys do. And I just thank you guys for following the Lord's calling in this way.

So thank you. So you see, your donations to this ministry are providing help and hope. As you plan your year-end giving, I hope you'll keep Ligonier Ministries in mind. You can go to ligonier.org slash donate to give your special year-end donation. And thank you for your generosity. Now today we learned that God the Father accepted the payment of Christ's death on the cross. But how has that payment applied to us? Tomorrow on Renewing Your Mind, Dr. Sproul will help us resolve the conflict between a holy God and fallen people like us. That's Thursday on Renewing Your Mind. Please join us.