[1.] It is a. price. " We are bought with a price," 1 Cor. vi. 20; being " not redeemed with silver and gold, and corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ," 1 Pet. i. 18, 19 : which therein answers those things in other contracts.^ He came to " give his life a ransom for many," Matt. xx. 28, — a price of redemption, 1 Tim. ii. 6. The proper use and energy of this expression in the Scripture, I have elsewhere declared.
Now, the proper effect and issue of the death of Christ as a price or ransom is, as I said, redemption. Now, redemption is the deliver- ance of any one from bondage or captivity, and the miseries attend- ing that condition, by the intervention or interposition of a price or
' "Tantane me tenuit vivendi, iiate, vohiptas, Ut pro me hostili paterer siiccedere dextrge. Quern genui? tuaiie hsec genitor per vulnera server, Morte tua vivens 1" — Virgil, iEneid. x. 846. 2 Viiidic. Evan., cap. xx.-xxii. vol. xii.
* " Nil quidem emitur nisi intervenicnte pretio; sed hoc tamen additum magnam emphasiji habet." — Bez.
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ransom, paid by the redeemer to him by whose authority the captive was detained: —
1st. In general, it is a deliverance. Hence Christ is called " The Deliverer," Rom. xi. 26 ; giving himself to " deliver us," Gal. i. 4. He is " Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come," 1 Thess. i. 10.
2dli/. It is the delivery of one from bondage or captivity. We are, without him, all prisoners and captives, " bound in prison," I.sa. Ixi. 1 ; " sitting m darkness, in the prison house," Isa. xlii. 7, xlix. 9 ; " prisoners in the pit wherein there is no water," Zech. ix, 11 ; '' the captives of the mighty, and the prey of the terrible," Isa. xlix. 25 ; under a " captivity that must be led captive," Ps. Ixviii. 18: this puts us in " bondage," Heb. ii. 1 5.
'idly. The person committing thus to prison and into bondage, is God himself. To him we owe " our debts," Matt. vi. 12, xviii. 23-27 ; against him are our offences, Ps. li. 4 ; he is the judge and lawgiver, James iv. 12. To sin is to rebel against him. He shuts up men under disobedience, Rom. xi. 32 ; and he shall cast both body and soul of the impenitent into hell-fire. Matt. x. 28. To his wrath are men obnoxious, John iii. 36; and lie under it by the sentence of the law, which is their prison.
HJdy. The miseries that attend this condition are inmnnerable. Bondage to Satan, sin, and the world, comprises the sum of them ; from all which we are delivered by the death of Christ, as a price or ransom. " God hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son; in whom we have redemption through his blood," Col. i. 13, 14. And he " redeems us from all iniquity," Tit. ii. 14; "from our vain conversation," 1 Pet. i. 18, 19; even from the guilt and power of our sin; purchasing us to himself " a peculiar people, zealous of good works," Tit ii. 14: so dying for the " redemption of transgressions," Heb. ix. 15 ; redeeming us also from the world. Gal. iv. 5.
5thlrj. And all this is hy i\ve, payment of the price mentioned into the hand of God, by whose supreme authority we are detained cap- tives, under the sentence of the law. The debt is due to the great householder, Matt, xviii, 23, 24; and the penalty, his curse and -wrath: from which by it Ave are delivered. Rev. i. 5.
This the Holy Ghost frequently insists on. Rom. iii. 24, 25, " Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins:" so also, 1 Cor. vi. 20; 1 Pet. i. 18; Matt. xx. 28; 1 Tim. ii. 6; Eph. i. 7; Col. i. 13; Gal. iii. 13. And this is the first consideration of the death of Christ, as it hath an influence into the procurement of that grace wherein we hold communion with him.
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[2.] It was a sacrifice also. He had a body prepared him, Heb. X. 5 ; wherein he was to accomiDhsh what by the typical oblations and burnt-offerings of the law was prefigured. And that body he offered, Heb. X. 10; — that is, his whole human nature; for "his soul" also was made "an offering for sin," Isa. liii. 10: on which account he is said to offer himself, Eph. v. 2; Heb. i. 3, ix. 26. He gave himself a sacri- fice to God of a sweet-smelling savour; and this he did willingly,^ as became liim who was to be a sacrifice, — the law of this obedience being written in his heart, Ps. xl. 8 ; that is, he had a readiness, will- ingness, desire for its performance.
Now, the end of sacrifices, such as his was, -bloody and for sin, Rom. V. 10; Heb. ii. 17, was atonement and reconciliation. This is every- where ascribed to them, that they were to make atonement ; that is, in a way suitable to their nature. And this is the tendency of the death of Christ, as a sacrifice, atonement, and reconciliation with God. Sin had broken friendship between God and us, Isa. Ixiii. 10; whence his wrath was on us, John iii. 36 ; and we are by nature obnoxious to it, Eph. ii. 3. This is taken away by the death of Christ, as it was a sacrifice, Dan. ix. 24. " When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son," Rom. v. 10. And thereby do we " receive the atonement," verse 1 1 ; for " God was in Christ reconcil- ing the world to himself, not imputing to them then- sins and theu- iniquities," 2 Cor. v. 19-21: so also, Eph. ii. 12-16, and in simdry other places. And this is the second consideration of the death of Christ; which I do but name, having at large insisted on these things elsewhere.