794
VICARIOUS SACRIFICE
VICARIOUS SACRIFICE
founding of His Kingdom He devoted Himself with singleness of heart, understanding well the hazard it involved ; for He realized the tradition- alism of the age, its formalism, its lack of spiritual vision, its worldly lust and ambition, and He knew full well the opposition He would stimulate and the conflicts He must encounter. The history of the prophets was before Him, and the blood of the martyrs cried to Him from the ground. Even Plato was able to perceive ' that one perfectly just could not appear among the senseless and wicked without provoking a murderous hatred.' The law of righteousness, fundamental in His Kingdom, would, He knew, cut across the self-interests of men, as well as the conservatism of the Rabbinical teachers of the day. Consequently He compares Himself to the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, and states the terms of His discipleshij) as follows : ' If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me' (Lk 9^^). Nor did He mis- take the facts, for early in His career the antagon- ism developed which increased in intensity imtil it culminated in the Crucifixion. Only by a denial of His vocation in establishing the Kingdom of God could He have saved His life ; only by what was impossible with Him — the forgetting of the will of God and the ceasing to love men. Thus we see that vicarious sacrifice was necessarily involved in His work of establishing His Kingdom, and in this sense was not singular or exceptional, but came under the general law of service. ' Whatever more is to be said as to the significance of Christ's death, this at least is certain, that he died as a faithful martyr for truth and love ' (Bruce).
(2) There seems, however, to be something deeper in Jesus' consciousness than the mere fact that His work of founding His Kingdom will so cross the world-spirit of selfishness and sin that He will develop an antagonism which will end in His vicarious death. He clearly relates it to the fact of remission of sins. In Lk 22'^ there is a deeper thought than Hollmann has in mind when he says : ' He is only thinking of the dreary fact that His countrymen are going to treat Him as a criminal instead of as the Holy One of God,' for this passage was associated in the minds of His hearers with a Messianic work of the greatest significance. Stronger statements are found in Mk 10^-- ^^^•. Jesus is going with His disciples to Jerusalem, and on the way seeks to impress them with what He has stated very earnestly before, that in Jerusalem He will be delivered to mockery and death, but in three days will rise again. This announcement is followed by the ambitious request of James and John for chief seats in His Kingdom. With His mind filled with the thought of His coming passion. He replies to them, ' Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink the cup which I drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I am bap- tized ? ' Then follows in an address to the disciples, who are indignant at James' and John's request, the notable words, ' For the Son of Man also came not to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.' The correct interpretation of this passage is most important, for it is much emphasized by those who seek to find in Jesus' teaching an expiatory reference.
Dr. Baur and others have questioned its integrity, affirming that there is nothing like it in the Synoptics except Mt 20^, which Baur also casts under suspicion, that it is introduced so abruptly as to be questionable, and that it has a Pauline flavour, and if genuine, would not have been omitted by Luke. The criticism, however, seems scarcely valid, for in speaking to the disciples about the nature of greatness — that its value lies in service — it was natural that Jesus should allude to His expected death of which He had previously spoken, using it as an illustration of the point He was enforcing.
The passage has had various interpretations.
Usually much weight has been attached to the word \vTpov, 'ransom,' and its Heb. equivalents, these being assumed to fix its meaning ; but this is unsatisfactory, for the LXX has employed \vTpov to translate four different Heb. terms, and besides, since Jesus spoke Aramaic, it is not certain that XtJTpoi', in the way the LXX uses it, exactly repre- sents what Jesus said. If an exact interpretation \vere required, we should have to know the Aramaic word of which Xvrpov is the translation. Hollmann has discussed this term cogently and ably, showing that Jesus probably did not use the Aram, cognate of kopher, but the equivalent of a Heb. word de- rived either from ni3 ' to ransom,' Vnj ' to deliver,' or p"]? 'to set free.' Thus Xtjrpov would mean a purchase price, or a means of setting free. In this case avri, of Avhich much is made, would not signify 'in place of and establish a thought of substitution, but ' for,' and the passage would mean that Jesus would give His life for the freeing or saving of many — an interpretation which would fit in with the context much better than if XiJTpov is taken as the equivalent of kopher. The idea would then be that men of the world find greatness in assuming superiority over others, whereas Jesus finds it in serving others. But if we assume that XiJrpov means in this passage what it means in the LXX tr. of Leviticus, M'here the main idea of the ransom is that of substituting one thing for another, and if we hold that avri means ' in place of,' the most that we can make out of the passage is that Jesus gives His life as a ransom price to liberate many who are in bondage. But what is the bondage? Taking Jesus' other teachings into account, we cannot doubt that it is bondage to selfishness and sin, such selfishness and world-spirit as James and John l)ad just shown. This would accord with the use of XvTpdui found in 1 P V^ and Tit 2^*. But even if this is the meaning, the passage does not state the process or manner of the ransom. The thought that because the word is taken from the old sacri- ficial system we must find there the meaning that is to be attached to it, is not warranted by sound l^rinciples of exegesis. That the thought of a vicarious satisfaction ofi'ered to God is not intended, is rendered clear by the fact that such an interpre- tation would contradict the whole tendency of the teachings of Jesus, who constantly emphasized the free grace of God as ready to forgive every re- pentant sinner. Jesus does not conceive of His work as an ottering to God, or for the sake of God, but as performed solely in behalf of men. We conclude, then, that this important passage simply means that Jesus vicariously sacrificed His life in order to save men from the selfishness of sin. How He thought His death would accomplish this is not stated, and is a matter of inference. If any- thing is implied, it is that a comi^lete surrender to the good of men is such a break with the world- spirit whicii has just revealed itself, even in such good men as the sons of Zebedee, that if men will accept this serving spirit and act from the motive of self-denying love, they will thereby win an inner, moral victory over the world, and thus be freed from its bondage and evil.