In each placs it is the figure chosen to indicate the redemptive significance of the death of Christ which had become familiar in the Apostolic Church, and had apparently become specialized by the time the Pastoral Epistles were written. Access to its meaning in the apostolic times may be sought in (a) the fairly frequent uses in the NT of cognate or derivative forms of "Kirpov for expressing the saving processes or issues of Christ's death for men ; e.g. iXvrpadriTe (1 P 1'8), XvrpoKns (He 9'°), aTroXirpoiaii (Ro 3^, Eph 1', Col 1") : as so used its reference is clear ; it offers an illustrative form of the great I
apostolic unity of thought which directly relates the death of Christ to the reconciliation of God and men ; (6) tlie occasion and context of the term as used by the Synoptics (Mk 10^, Mt •20-'') ; here the redemption for which the Son of Man gave His life a ransom is closely connected in the context with the liberali<m of the disciples of Jesus from the thraldom of worldly and ambitious self-seeking, and their entrance into the liberty of selfim]iarting .service in the Kingdom of God which it was the mission of Jesus to establish by His death (so Beyschlag, NT Thr.ol. i. 153 ; Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salvation, p. 47f. ); but this view is not fully adequate to the expiatory value attri- buted to Christ's death by Christ and His apostles (Mt 2628, 1 Co ll-«> 15^); (c) the attempt to find, with most expositors, a closer definition of the term by isolatin" it from its context and treating it as a word study ; it is the representative in the LXX of certain much-used Hebrew words. Several of these are there rendered by a common use of Xurpov. Which of them corresponds most closely to the NT usage is a matter of tliscussion. One of them, is?, is said to have the root idea of ' covering,' or of ' wiping away,' though it is almost entirely used in an accommodated moral sense of 'making pro- pitiation ' (cf. Driver in HDB iv. 128, G. F. Moore in EBi iv. 4220). The leaning here is, therefore, towards sacrificial implications. The alternative words are n-i? and '7x3 with the primary significance of ' liberating,' which lean towards the social or legal notion of redemption, illustrated possibly by the obligation to redeem laid upon the goel or kins- man (cf. Lv 25*' ; see T. V. Tynims, Christian Idea of Atonement, London, 1904, p. 240 ti'.). The majority of expositors favour the former deriva- tion, though Wendt and others criticize its lin- guistic basis. The idea of ransom is thus obtained from the idea of ' covering ' or ' clearing the face ' of an ottended person by means of a gift, especially by a gift which is the satisfaction for the life of a man paid either to God or man (cf. Ex 21*" 30'-, Nu 2F», Job 33-\ Is 12^ Ps 49', Pr 6^*, Am 5'= ; cf. also Crenier, Bihl.-Theol. Lex. of NT Greel^, p. 408; B. Weiss, Bibl. Theol. i. 101). Support for the second line of derivation with the primary idea of a ransom price paid is found in the rendering of nis in Is 35'", Ps 69'*, Hos 13'^ Is 51", Jer 31" ; and in the rendering of Sxj in Is 5l'°, Jer 31". (rf) Dissatisfied with a reference of the NT passages to the LXX, and assuming that Jesus spoke not Greek, but Aramaic, G. Hollmann has sought by elaborate investigation to discover the Aramaic term of which \vTpov is the equivalent ; he thinks that this inquiry results more favourably for the idea of ' liberating ' than of ' covering ' in the Hebrew original (Die Bedeutung des Todes Jesu, Tiibingen, 1901, p. 98 tt".). One advantage of the precarious method of thus going behind the Greek terra has been a fruitful suggestion by Ritschl that Ps 49''- and Job 33'-^ (cf. Mk 8"), where both nis and ^Nj occur, may furnish the best interpretation of Xurpov in the mind of Christ (cf. Becfitfertigung und Versohnung*, ii. 69 fi'. ; Denney, Death of Christ, p. 43 f.).
Whichever line of derivation may be followed, the resultant idea from the Hebrew terms, of which Xinpov is the representative in the LXX, is that the word indicates the means or cost by which a re- demption is achieved. Consequently the apostolic interpretation will lie within that circle of ideas which carry the implication that life in the higher sense may be lost, and that man lias no means of buying it back. To meet such a situation Christ laid down His life as a price or means of redemp- tion by which the forfeited possession was restored. The further implication we should gather from the consensus of the teaching of Jesus and His apostles
KAPTUEE, ECSTASY
READING
299
is tliat this ransom was not His dcatli alone, but Hi.s life also — Himself indeed, in that perfect unity of which the life liveil, hiid down, and taUen again are integral jiarts. It is not stated to whom tlie ransom price was paid. This has been the sul)ject of wide conjecture. It does not seem essential to the apostolic use of the metaplior to state it. Nor isitstated precisely from what the ransom delivered ; it was a saving advantage for men. A closer defini- tion when sought will best be sujiplied from the analogy of faith as it deals with the issues of the death of Christ and from the more dehnite use of analogous terms in the apostolic teaching (see Atonement and Eedemption).