LS-11-The Ransom

The Ransom The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.--Mark 10:45. The word ransom will hardly suggest to us the same ideas as it did to those who heard our Lord, for we are not familiar with the institution to which it refers. To us, perhaps, it calls up the picture of a wealthy banker in America, captured by gangsters, and held for ransom, or a hapless traveller in Manchuria in the hands of bandits who demand huge sums for his release. To the disciples, however, the payment of ransoms was a familiar custom, and the Mosaic law contained definite regulations concerning them. If a man had parted from his inheritance, and wished to secure it again, the money he paid for it was called a ransom. Men a man in bondage to a stranger was bought out of slavery, the price paid to purchase his freedom was his ransom. A very peculiar institution in the law of Moses concerned "atonement money" which every man over twenty had to pay at the time of the census, to avert Divine judgment--the money was a ransom for his life. There were many provisions, strange to us, by which the life of one creature might be redeemed by the sacrifice of another. "A ransom, when given for persons, rescued them from slavery or from death; it cancelled the claims which deprived them of freedom, or the crime by which they had forfeited life." Our Lord was speaking in metaphor, and we need not press the figure in all its aspects. The word has become a stumbling block when this has been done. To whom was the ransom paid? Some of the old fathers said, To the devil. Others, who saw how revolting that thought was, said, It was paid to God Himself. But that is equally impossible. It was God who provided the ransom, to purchase us to Himself. Some have said, It was paid by Divine mercy to Divine justice, as though God were divided against Himself.

No! no! Let us centre our thought on this, that our Lord is a Redeemer, and His life the ransom price. Let us meditate upon the subject in this single relation, and its meaning will become clear. He is our deliverer. He saves us from the guilt of sin. He delivers us from those moral and spiritual evils which would otherwise destroy us. He restores us to the life of God from which sin had severed us, and in that life we find freedom and security. Mystery no doubt it is, but the fact is realised in the experience of uncounted hosts of men and women who have been redeemed from sin in Christ, and blessed with every spiritual blessing. Praise be to Him who gave His life a ransom for many, and redeemed us to God.