1. Redemption. The word redemption or ransom is easily understood ; it means the buying back, the paying something for another. When a man had incurred a debt, and, in accordance with ancient law, had been imprisoned or sold as a slave in consequence of that debt, the payment of the debt by another constituted his redemption from slavery, his ransom from bondage. All mankind was in that condition before God, and we are in that condition ; burdened with the ten thousand talents of debt which we cannot pay ; in bondage to sin and Satan ; sold under sin, tied and bound with the chain of our sins ; our very lives justly forfeited to the majesty of violated law. And from this condition Christ delivered us. As far as the effects to us are concerned, we might say that He purchased us from this slavery, that He bought us by the price of His life and death ; redeemed us with His
1M. Macaskill.
278 JUSTIFICATION
precious blood. And the figure chiefly used is not that He pays the debt, but that He cancels it ; forgives it, freely and unpaid ; blots it out, tears it up, nails its no longer valid fragments to His cross.
Tf The Authorized Version does not keep the same English equivalent for the same Greek word, and the words, " reconcilia- tion," " atonement," " propitiation," and " redemption," seem to be used almost indiscriminately in it. But in the Greek they are always kept distinct. We have here the word " redemption," and the Greek word is afoXurpuxrig. In chap. iii. 25 the word we have is " propitiation," and the Greek word is JXaarripiov. And we have in chap. v. 11 the word xaraXXayjj, translated wrongly in the text as " atonement," but rightly in the margin as " reconciliation." Now, it is most important to keep these three things separate, because they are the work of different offices of our Lord Jesus Christ. " Eedemption " is the work of the king. " Propitiation " is the work of the priest. And "reconciliation" describes the work of the prophet. And if we want an all-round view of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must combine the three, and then we have Christ's work — the work of the Anointed Prophet, the work of the Anointed Priest, and the work of the Anointed King.1
T[ It is simply impossible to get rid of the conception of a ransom from the New Testament. Christian piety should surely be as willing to consider gratefully "all our redemption cost" as to recognize confidently " all our redemption won." We need not press the metaphor of redemption to yield a theory of the atonement ; but the idea of Christ's death as a ransom expresses the necessity of that death as the condition of man's salvation, as required not only by the moral order of the world, but also by the holy will of God, which that moral order expresses.2
Alas! my Lord is going,
Oh my woe ! It will be mine undoing;
If He go, I'll run and overtake Him;
If He stay, I'll cry aloud and make Him
Look this way. 0 stay, my Lord, my Love, 'tis I; Comfort me quickly, or I die.
1 E. A. Stuart. a A. E. Garvie.
ROMANS in. 23, 24 279
" Cheer up thy drooping spirits ;
I am here. Mine all-sufficient merits
Shall appear Before the throne of glory
In thy stead: I'll put into thy story
What I did. Lift up thine eyes, sad soul, and see Thy Saviour here. Lo, I am He."
Alas! shall I present
My sinfulness To Thee ? Thou wilt resent
The loathsomeness. " Be not afraid, I'll take
Thy sins on Me, And all My favour make
To shine on thee." Lord, what Thou'lt have me, Thou must make me. "As I have made thee now, I take thee."1
2. The Kedemption is in Christ Jesus. How has He accomplished it ? Take the steps in order.
(1) Man, having broken the Divine law, is under condemnation. The Most High appears before us as the moral governor of men, presenting to them His law, with the simple requirement, Obey. Obey and you shall live — " Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth these things shall live by them." Disobey, and you shall die — " The soul that sinneth, it shall die." But man has transgressed the law, and thus incurred the penalty.
(2) The claims of the law have been fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ. He assumed man's nature, was made under the law, and fulfilled all righteousness. "I do always those things which please the Father " was the utterance of His own conscious- ness; "I find no fault in Him" was the verdict of His foe; " Who did no sin," " Jesus Christ the Kighteous," was the witness of those who knew Him best ; " This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased " was the declaration of God. In the life of Jesus, the law found its fulfilling and complete embodiment.
1 Christopher Harvey.
28o JUSTIFICATION
But though our Lord thus fulfilled the law's claim, He suffered its penalty as though He were guilty. His death was not the necessary end of the human life which He assumed. He was wounded for transgression, He was bruised for iniquity, chastisement was upon Him, He made Him to be sin who knew no sin. He was made a curse, " for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree," He cried that He was forsaken of God. Christ fulfilled the law perfectly, and yet suffered as though He had broken it wholly. (3) Christ's twofold nature made His fulfilment of the law imputable. He was Man. The law imposed on man must be ful- filled by man; it is not angelic holiness, nor heavenly holiness which is required, but human holiness. The righteousness of the Man, Christ Jesus, was of this kind, wrought out under the same limitations and conditions, and only with the same power as those under which the law was at first laid upon Adam, and by which Adam might have stood. But the Word who was made flesh was God. Thus He was under no obligation to the law, He owed it nothing on His own account. Had He been simply man, all His righteousness would have been necessary for His own justification, but He was God, everlastingly and infinitely holy, in and of Himself, and if as such He stooped to obey the law, and work out a human righteousness, He needed not that for Himself, He was righteous already, it ivas a righteousness extra and to spare, and the very righteousness man needs. And so of the Penalty which He paid. Since He was man, that penalty was inflicted on man's nature, but since He kept the law, no penalty was due from Him; like His righteousness, it was something extra and to spare. But He was also God, which gives His sufferings an infinite value, and makes them constitute a price paid, a curse endured for transgression, as great as God is great. Here, then, we see in Christ a perfect obedience to the law, and the law's penalty completely endured, and both by human nature, and the point is — Christ does not need them for Himself, He has them both to spare.