The Ransom

‘The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many’ – Mark 10:45 (NIV)

It took a long, long time for the Apostles to come to the point where they understood who Jesus really was.

But from the very moment that Peter publicly states that Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus openly teaches his Twelve Apostles that he must go to Jerusalem, where he will be ‘rejected’, and ‘killed and after three days he will rise again. He spoke plainly about this’ (Mark 8:31-32-NIV).

Jesus then leads the apostles to Jerusalem. Three times he tells them very plainly what is going to happen to him (Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:32-34 and also 9:9-10), before he states, ‘The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Mark 10:45-NIV).

It is always important to allow scripture to speak for itself and hear carefully what each passage is telling us. To force a passage of scripture to say what we think it ought to be saying is an aberration.

So we must ask and listen to what Mark (and the Apostle Peter) is telling us about the atoning death of Jesus Christ.

There are two central pieces of evidence.

First, as already stated, Jesus taught that through his death, many (men and women) would be ransomed. To ransom is to buy back. It is a business or market term used to purchase an item or repay a financial liability. A person could be ransomed out of slavery by paying the appropriate sum of money.

However, we must use the concept of ‘ransom’ carefully when explaining the atonement, for example, it is wrong to state or imply that the devil had any rightful claim over humanity and that somehow God owed the devil a debt.

Rather, as Christ embodied humanity in his death, humanity’s sinful falling short of God’s perfection was perfectly and righteously satisfied on our behalf and paid, so that all who believe in him are now clothed in his perfect righteousness and stand free from condemnation as adopted ‘sons’ in Christ Jesus.

The second leading perspective on Christ’s atonement is the (only) statement that Mark records Jesus saying during the six hours when he was crucified. Jesus quotes the first line of Psalm 22:1, ‘My God, my God why have you forsaken me?’ By focusing on this statement, Mark is underlining the agony of separation that Jesus experienced as in his humanity he interceded for all humanity and all human sinfulness before the throne of God. (Mark’s final comment on the crucifixion is in the words of the centurion, ‘Surely this was the Son of God’).

Psalm 22 then proceeds to a place of vindication and victorious celebration; ‘all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord’.

Mark, therefore, emphasises the human agony Christ experienced in his death within the overall work of ransoming atonement and its effect on humanity.

As Peter writes in his first letter, ‘For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit’ (1 Peter 3:18-NIV).

‘The price is paid, Alleluia
Amazing grace, so strong and sure
And so with all my heart,
My life in every part
I live to thank You for the price You paid’

Graham Kendrick – ‘The Price is Paid’