Ransomed

I've been doing a study for some months now by Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in NYC on the book of Mark. It is very in-depth and I have learned some really incredible things and been reminded of truths that have longed been tucked away. I've been meaning to post several blog entries regarding key concepts I've learned or reviewed that had some kind of new spark to them that I wanted to share. Hopefully I will get around to writing about those.

I thought I would get started by sharing what I was reading about today. It is a review of the basic gospel but it was so refreshing and I learned a thing or two. It is from Mark 10:45. "For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many." Jesus had just finished describing about his upcoming death to the disciples for the third time. They were still not getting it. They were still thinking of the Messiah as the one who would come to usher in the new kingdom, an earthly one, and they wanted a piece of the power and prestige as Jesus' right & left hand men. Jesus, in verse 45, is telling them that He first must come as the suffering servant referred to in Isaiah 53. So, Jesus had been telling them that He was going to suffer and die; now He is explaining why He must do so - as a ransom for many.

I've always thought of ransom meaning that someone has been kidnapped and someone else must pay a very large and unreasonable sum to release the captive. The one kidnapped is incapable of paying because they are held in captivity. However, upon further reading in this study, "ransom" actually meant in those days to purchase someone out of slavery and refers mainly to prisoners of war - to bring a prisoner of war who has been captured by the enemy out of his slavish captivity.

Here are some things to be gleaned from this verse - Mark 10:45.

1. Jesus could have come to be served. Jesus, the Messiah, "God with us" had every right to expect to be treated with honor and dignity and glory and with all the other rights and privileges afforded the King of kings. He came to build His kingdom and could have taken it and His glory by force at that time. Many expected that the Messiah would come to set them free from Roman "captivity." That is what the disciples were hanging onto. However, in actuality, He came to build His kingdom in a much different way than the way earthly kings bring glory to themselves. His was a plan of service.

2. We are enslaved by something that we need to be ransomed from- Not the "captivity" of the Romans over the Jewish people, but rather a captivity of our hearts. He wasn't concerned with political captivity. He was concerned about His creation's much longer standing spiritual captivity to sin, death & the Law. See Romans 3-6

3. There is a price for that penalty that must be paid in order to release slaves. Ransomed does not just mean that the person sneaks in at night and conducts the slaves to freedom, or creates an elaborate escape, or a battle plan; it specifically involves a price to be paid. (Romans 6:23 "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.") Jesus paid it all for us. We don't have to pay anything or do anything nor could we if we tried. Nothing we could pay or do would be enough.

4. This verse tells the sum of the price - Jesus' life! "...to give his life a ransom..." His enemy had taken His creation and enslaved them. He came to take them back by paying the ransom for sin with His own sacrificial death. A ransomer, who has much to give, experiences loss and poverty so that the slave, who has nothing, can be free. (II Cor. 5:21 "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.")

5. This word "ransom" implies that a new relationship is formed between the ransomed and the ransomer. If someone gave up all He had out of love for your sake, would you not give your all back to Him out of love and gratitude and serve Him willingly and joyfully and follow Him faithfully?

6. It assumes that there is real evil and real sin and real guilt and real divine justice. Jesus death is senseless unless we are truly in bondage & honestly in need of being ransomed. Modern people don't recognize the real problem & extent of evil & sin on a global and individual level and that justice must be honored. Ancient people had difficulty understanding the concept of a loving God that would come to make the perfect payment Himself. Instead they strove to appease a begrudged and capricious god or gods who could never be appeased.

There are many other words to describe the gospel - justified, made righteous, bought, reconciled, redeemed, propitiated, triumphed over, made new. However, it all involved some sort of substitution on the part of both man and God. Man tried to substitute himself for God, to be like God, to bring glory to himself - the essence of sin. However, God came and substituted Himself for man, dying man's death for us, accepting our penalty - the essence of salvation.

"God presented Him as a sacrifice...so as to be both Just and Justifier of those who believe." Romans 3: 25-26

This is a summary of the notes from the Tim Keller study with my thoughts thrown in here and there.