CHAPTER III

SAYINGS OF JESUS RELATIVE TO REDEMPTION

1. Comparatively Little on this Subject in the Gospels. It is preeminently desirable, in our study of the mediation of Christ, to know as accurately as possible the teachings of our Lord himself. It is the prevalent belief that the synoptic gospels furnish us with the most exact tradition of his words, and we shall first examine what they report touching the giving of his life for the salvation of man. But we shall also study in the same connection whatever the fourth gospel has to say upon the same subject. We should admonish ourselves, however, in advance, that the gospel records are not the class of biblical writings in which one would look for any extensive treatment of the doctrinal significance of Jesus's death. They are rather a record of the facts of his birth, life, works, death, and resurrection, and bear the style of memoirs. We do not find in them any formal or detailed instruction on the significance of these great facts. The disciples were strangely slow to understand what their Lord did say to them about his death and resurrection, but so far as we have any report of his teaching on these matters, whether in the synoptics or in the gospel of John, we study them as words of the highest value.

2. His Entire Life a Ransom for Many. Of all the reported sayings of Jesus, bearing on the doctrine of mediation, the most noteworthy is probably that which is recorded in Matt. xx, 28, and Mark x, 45: "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." The main question in this passage touches the precise meaning of the last three words, a ransom for many (λúтpov ávтì noddāv). In defining the word λúrpov, ransom, in such a statement as is here made, we cannot fairly ignore the usage and connotation it holds in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament.' In Exod. xxi, 30, it means the price that may lawfully be put upon the life of one who is exposed to the penalty of death, and by the payment

all of which גאלה and פדיון כפר It is used alike for the translation of

have in common the meaning of ransom, redemption, or price of redemption. The word ȧvríkur pov in 1 Tim. ii, 6, seems to be substantially identical in meaning, and Aurpwois (Luke i, 68; ii, 38; Heb. ix, 12) and ȧrokúrрwσ15 (Rom. iii, 24; Eph. i, 7, 14; Col. i, 14; Heb. ix, 15) also have the same general significance and connotation.

of which he is to be released from such penal exposure. In Exod. xxx, 12, the word is employed to designate the poll tax of half a shekel which "every man shall give as a ransom for his soul unto Jehovah." In Lev. xxv, 51, it stands for the price paid for the liberation of one who has been sold into bondage. The word is also used in connection with the redemption of land that had been sold (Lev. xxv, 24), and the redemption of the produce of the land which by the law of tithing belonged unto Jehovah (Lev. xxvii, 31). In all these examples and illustrations of the ransom the main idea is that of substituting one thing for another. Hence the preposition ȧvrí, for, in place of, is naturally employed in Matt. xx, 28, as most consonant with the idea of a ransom price. The Son of man gives his life as a ransom price for the liberation of many who are assumed to be held under some sort of bonds. In what this bondage consists nothing in the text or context tells; but the statement in Matt. xxvi, 28, that his blood "is shed for many unto remission of sins," and the use of the verb AvrρÓW in Titus ii, 14, and 1 Pet. i, 18, in the sense of "ransoming from all iniquity," and "ransoming from a vain manner of life," are good evidence that the ransom contemplated by Jesus in the text under discussion is deliverance from the bondage of sin. The figure of "selling one's self to do evil" would probably have been familiar to readers of the Old Testament (comp. 1 Kings xxi, 20, 25; 2 Kings xvii, 17), and Paul develops this idea at length (Rom. vi, 16-23; vii, 14, 23). What Jesus himself taught about the impossibility of serving two masters and about repentance and remission of sins accords with the same idea. When, therefore, he declares that he "came to give his life a ransom for many" the most natural and obvious thought suggested is that of redemption from the bondage of sin. But the process or mode by which this redemption is accomplished is not here described; nor should we assume that the "giving of his life" in this text refers exclusively to his death on the cross. Jesus foretold his death and spoke of its necessity (comp. Luke ix, 22; xxiv, 7, 26, 46; John xii, 23-27); he recognized the closing period of his earthly life as a crucial hour; but when he says, "For this cause came I unto this hour," we are not justified in the inference that the events of his death on the cross were of more value in his work of mediation than many other events of his life. We must duly recognize all the great facts of his incarnation, and his resurrection and ascension, and the apostolic teaching that he ever lives to make intercession for us. The sacrifice of his life includes also every cup of agony

The preposition repí is, however, used in connection with λúrpa in the Septuagint of Num. xxxv, 31.

which he drank (comp. Matt. xx, 22; xxvi, 42; John xviii, 11), and the baptism of overwhelming trials which he underwent (comp. Mark x, 38; Luke xii, 50). His severe temptations in the wilderness, his longsuffering with a "faithless and perverse generation" (Matt. xvii, 17), his upbraiding of Chorazin and Bethsaida, his weeping over Jerusalem, and his amazement and bloody sweat in Gethsemane were all of them together only a part of the mediatorial struggle involved in his giving his life a ransom for many. He recognized it as the high purpose of his mission "to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke xix, 10). He "came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Matt. ix, 13), and he would search far and labor long to gather in "the lost sheep of the house of . Israel." In all these statements we read the struggle of an intensely sympathetic friend of the sinner, one who, like the ideally good shepherd, is ready to lay down his life for the sheep. He endured all manner of opposition of sinners, and "resisted unto blood, striving against sin" (Heb. xii, 3, 4). Such a giving of his life for the ransom of many from the bondage of sin need not and ought not to be complicated in thought by attempts to discover in the mediation of Christ something analogous to every idea which the figure of a ransom suggests. In what manner this heavenly Redeemer accomplishes his ministry of redemption is a legitimate inquiry, and will be considered in the pages which follow; but when Jesus says that his life was given to bring about the liberation of mankind from the power of sin it diverts attention from his main thought when one asks "to whom the ransom was paid,” and how it could be an "equivalent satisfaction" of the debt which guilty man owed God.' Confusion of thought must needs attend the effort to press into dogmatic significance every suggestion and implication of a metaphor. In such a text as Deut. vii, 8-"Jehovah redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt"-we do not suppose that a ransom price was paid to Pharaoh or to the Egyptians; nor do we once imagine

It seems hardly necessary to make mention of the old patristic fiction of God giving the soul of Jesus as a ransom to Satan, who was thought of as holding humanity in captivity. Such an importance accorded to Satan formed part of a fanciful and absurd demonology now quite effectually exploded. The fater Anselmic theory of substituting the infinite merit of Christ's sufferings as an equivalent satisfaction for the infinite demerit of sin moves in a realm of thought quite foreign to the Scriptures. It has a logical affinity with the later Romish doctrine of indulgences, and with ultra Antinomianism and its fictions of the imputation of man's guilt to Christ, and of Christ's personal righteousness to the elect. The originators and advocates of these theories failed to perceive that a ransom of such infinite merit, and such a complete satisfaction of justice, logically leave no reasonable ground for the doctrine of salvation by grace. Whatever grace may be alleged in such a monergistic scheme is by the hypothesis so essentially compulsory as to rob it of all the real qualities of mercy. But perhaps the worst feature of this monergistic scheme was its sovereign exclusion of the nonelect from any share in the imputed righteousness of Christ.

that Sheol and death receive a stipulation when we read Hos. xiii, 14: "From the hand of Sheol I will ransom them; from death I will redeem them." The great fact in this case is that Jesus Christ entered into all the experiences of human life. He was tempted in all points as we are; he confronted the scorn and malice and violence of a hostile world; and in all this struggle he sacrificed himself and gave up his own life to rescue men from sin. It seems, therefore, irrelevant and idle to inquire after some particular creditor to whom such a ransom must have been paid. When we think properly of a deliverer who of his own good will subjects himself to a fearful struggle, involving the sacrifice of his life to rescue others from the peril of death, we do not ask to whom, but rather for whom, that costly price of self-sacrifice was paid. Such ransoms are prompted by the purest emotion of love; one noble life is given instead of the many exposed to death, and the sufferings involved are even gladly borne for the sake of the rescued ones and for the glory that must result from such a work of redemption.

3. Words of Jesus at the Last Supper, Another important saying of our Lord bearing on the doctrine of his mediation is found in connection with the Last Supper, when he took the cup and gave it to the disciples, and said, according to Matt. xxvi, 28: "Drink of it all ye; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many (TEρì Toλλv) unto remission of sins." The parallel text in Mark xiv, 24, reads: "This is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for manу" (vπèρ поλλv). The reading in Luke xxii, 20, is peculiar, is omitted from some ancient manuscripts, and has been thought by some critics to be an interpolation': "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, that which is poured out for you" (Vπèρ vμшv). Paul's statement in 1 Cor. xi, 25, corresponds closely to that of Luke: "This cup is the new covenant in my blood: this do, as oft as ye drink, in remembrance of me." These solemn words, together with what Jesus said in the same connection about eating the bread as a symbol of his body given and broken for them, have obvious allusion to some typical significance in the passover meal which our Lord and his disciples were eating togther. They clearly imply that in some sense he became for them a true paschal lamb and whatever else the paschal supper signified; and it agrees with this idea, that, according to Luke xxii, 16, 18, he himself

1 Thus Westcott and Hort, after stating the difficulties of the critical problem, observe: "These difficulties, added to the suspicious coincidences with 1 Cor. xi, 24, 25, and the transcriptional evidence given above, leave no moral doubt that the words in question were absent from the original text of Luke, notwithstanding the purely Western ancestry of the documents which omit them."-Notes on Select Readings, p. 64.

partook of it neither by eating nor drinking. All the synoptists record Jesus's refusal to drink thenceforth from the fruit of the vine until he should drink it new (xaivóv) in the kingdom of God. If, however, we suppose that he ate of the paschal lamb with them, but declined to eat of the bread and drink of the cup, we obtain nothing of essential value for determining the significance of our Lord's words on the occasion. He declared the bread to be his body and the cup his blood of the covenant which was shed for many, and the language can mean no less than that he himself was in some sense given as a sacrifice for many, whether he himself at that time ate of the paschal lamb or not. It is also well to note in passing that Paul conceived Christ as "our passover slain" (1 Cor. v, 7). Whatever the particular forms observed in the course of the paschal meal in the time of our Lord, there can be no doubt that the feast itself was celebrated as a memorial of Israel's deliverance from the bondage of Egypt (comp. Exod. xii, 14; xiii, 9). The story of that deliverance could not well be told apart from the memorable sprinkling of the blood of the first paschal lamb upon the side posts and lintel of the houses to defend the dwellers therein against the destructive plague. Thus the entire feast of the passover was on the one hand essentially a memorial of Israel's redemption unto Jehovah; on the other hand, the words my blood of the covenant, used by Jesus according to all the synoptists, can hardly be explained otherwise than as a conscious appropriation of the language of Exod. xxiv, 8, where the reference is to the blood of burnt offerings and peace offerings sacrificed unto Jehovah; but the emphatic statement that he would not drink of this symbol of the blood of the covenant until he should drink it xaivóv, new in kind, with them in the heavenly kingdom, reminds us of the words of Jeremiah (xxxi, 31-34) about the new covenant between Israel and Jehovah,' and helps to point out the spiritual significance of all this language of Jesus at the paschal meal. It was a new kind of eating and drinking to which he would elevate their thoughts by means of this symbolic meal, a feasting together in the heavenly kingdom of his Father.' The eating of his body and drinking of his blood must mean a partaking of his spirit and of the eternal life which he imparts (comp. John vi, 53-58, 63). He surrenders himself, body and soul, to the death of the cross, for the redemption of many from a worse

The use made of this passage from Jeremiah in Heb. viii, 6, ff., is worthy of careful study in connection with the words of Jesus. The plan of our treatise requires us to treat it in another connection.

One might compare the figure of "reclining with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. viii, 11), and the blessedness of those "who are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb" (Rev. xix, 9).