Of course, even words like these, in the very form of which the modal implication is entrenched, and which owe, in fact, their existence to the need of words emphasizing the mode unambiguously, may come to be used so loosely that this implica- tion retires into the background or even entirely out of sight. In our common English usage the words 'redeem,' 'redemption,' 'redeemer' retain no sure intimation of their etymological denotation of ' buying back,' but suggest ordinarilj' only a ' buying out.' They are sometimes used so loosely as to convey no implication even of pur- chase. That XfrpoOcT^ai, XiirpunTis, dTToXi/rpujtris have sutlered in their NT usage such a decay of their essential signiticanee cannot be assumed, however, without clear proof. In point of fact, the actual accompaniments of their usage forbid such an assumption. In a number of instances of their occurrence the intimation of a price paid is promi- nent in the context ; in other words, the deliverance spoken of is dehnitely intimated as a ransoming. In the remaining instances this intimation becomes no doubt rather an assumption, grounded in their form and their usage elsewhere ; but that is no reason for neglecting it. The apparently var3'ing usage of the terms depends merely on an oscillation of emphasis between the two elements of thought combined in them. Sometimes the emphasis is thrown on the mode in which the deliverance as- serted is wrought — namely, by ransoming. Some- times, on the other hand, it is shifted to the issue of the ransoming which is affirmed — namely, in deliverance. In the former case the stress falls so strongly on the idea of ransoming that the mind tends to rest exclusively on the act of purchasing or the price paid. In the latter it rests so strongly on the idea of deliverance that we are tempted to forget that an act of ransoming is assumed as its procuring cause. In neither case, however, is either element of thought really suppressed entirely. Christ's ransoming of His peojile is of course always thought of as issuing in their deliverance. His deliverance of His people is equally thought of always as accomplished by a ransoming.
We may be surprised to observe that tlie epithet ' Redeemer' (' Ran.somer,' Xnrpur^s) is never apjilied to our Lord in the NT. Even the Ijroader designa- tion, ' Deliverer,' is applied to Him only once, and that in a quotation from the OT (opi/ii/ne^os, Ko 11-^
from Is 59»>: cf. 1 Th 1'"), In fact, we do not meet with ' Redeemer ' (XuTpwrj}?) as a <lcsignation of our Lord in extant Christian literature, until the middle of the 2nd cent. (Justin, Dud. xxx. 3 ; cf. Ixxxiii. 3), and it does not seem to become common until three cent\irics later. Nevertheless, ■Justin hinjself tells us that it was in ordinary use in the Christian community when he wrote. 'For «e call Jllm Helper and Kcdeemer,' he says, with an allusion to I's li)'-". .\nd it .seems that in the only instance of the ap|iearance of the term in the NT — Ac 7", where it is u.scd of Moses — its employ- ment as a designation of our Lord is already pre- sup|iosed. For it is applied to Moses here only as the type of Christ, and with a very distinct reference to the antityiie in the choice of the word. The Israelites had demanded of Moses, ' Who made thee a ruler and a judge ?' .Stephen, driving home his le.sscm, declares that him who was thus rejected as ' ruler and judge ' tlod has sent ' both as ruler and as redeemer.' The ' both . . . and ' is to be noted as well as the change of term. 'Redeemer' is introduced with great emphasis; attention is called niarkeilly to it as a signilicant point in the argument. ' Observe,' says H. A. \V. Meyer, 'the climax introduced hyXvr pwriiv in rela- tion to the preceding SiKaar-fiv. It is introduced because the obstinacy of the people against Mo.ses is type of the antagonism to Christ ami His work (v.*') ; consequently, Moses in his work of deliver- ance is a type of Christ, who has ert'ected the Xcrpuffis of the people in the highest sense (Lk li* 2^", He 9'-, Tit 2'^) ' (Commentary on tlie NT, ' Acts,' vol. i. [1877] p. 204 f.). We must look upon the absence of instances of the application of the ei)ithet ' Re- deemer' to Christ in early Christian writers, therefore, as merely a literary phenomenon. Chris- tians were from the first accustomed to speak of their Lord as ' Redeemer.' The usage undoubtedly was not so rich and full in the earlier ages of the Church as it has since become. The intense con- creteness of the term probably accounts in part for this. Hut it was already in use to express the apostolic conception of the function of our Lord as Saviour.
The basis of this apostolic conception is laid in our Lord's own declaration, ' For verily the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many ' (Mk 10", Mt 20^), a declaration elucidated and enforced in those others, preserved by John, in which He speaks of laying down His life for the sheep (Jn 10"), or His friends (15"), or of giving His Hesh for the life of the world (6"). In tbis great declaration our Lord is commending a life of service to His disciples by His own signal example. He adduces His example after a fashion which runs on precisely the lines repeated by Raul in I'h 2^"-. He calls Himself by the lofty name of the Son of Man, and, by thus throwing the exaltation of His Person into contrast .with the lowliness of the work He was performing, He enhances the value of His example to a life of service. He describes His whole mission in the world as service, and He adverts to His ransoming death as the culminating act of the service which He came into the w'orld to render. He, the heavenly man of Daniel's vision (Dn 7'^), came into the world for no ntlicr purpose than to perform a service for men which involved the giving of His life as a ransom for thcni. Thus He makes His ransoming death the final cause of His whole manifestation in the world. The terms He employs to describe His death as a ransom are as simple and precise as possible. He speaks of ' giving his life,' emphasizing the voluntariness of the act. He speaks of giving His life as a 'ransom,' using the most exact word the Greek language atiords (\\iTpov) to express the price paid to secure the