308
KEDEMPTIOX
REDEMPTION
because this language had lost to the writers of the OT its precise import, but in order to intimate that these deliverances were not, and were not to be, without cost. Even the later Jews were not without some sense of this, and looked about for the purchase-price. ' With two blooils,' says the Midrash on Ex 12-'-, 'were the Israelites delivered from Egypt, with the blood of the paschal lamb and with the blood of circumcision ' (A. Wiinscbe, liibliotheca Bnbbinica, ii. [1890] 135, as cited by F. J. A. Hort on 1 P 1", p. 79''). There is no compelling reason, then, why we should not recognize an implication of purchase, however undefined, even in Lk 1°* 2*' 24".
If there be any instance in the NT of the use of a derivative of Xiirpof, from which this implica- tion is wholly absent, it will most probably be found in He 11^, where, in the bead-roll ot the heroes of faith, Ave are told of some who were beaten to death, ' not accepting the ransoming (diroXirrpwais), that they might obtain a better resurrection.' There is nothing in the context to intimate that the deliverance from their martyr- dom which they refused was to be purchased by a ransom. But is anything further needed to carry this intimation than the employment of this particular word, in which the idea of a ransom is included ? Is it not possible that the writer has selected this particular word (it is not employed in the account from which he is drawing) precisely in order to intimate that Eleazar and ' the seven brethren with their mother' — if he is really allud- ing to their cases (2 Mac 6, 7) — felt apostasy too great a price to pay for their deliverance? They did not refuse a bare deliverance ; they refused a deliverance on a condition, a deliverance which had to be paid for at a price which they rated as too high. The term employed is, at all events, perfectly adapted to express this fact ; and the words of this stem, when used elsewhere in this Epistle, retain the implication of purchase (9"- '').
There is another passage in which we are practi- cally dependent on the implications of the form itself, without the aid of contextual indications, to determine its meaning. This is 1 Co 1™, where the Apostle, in enumerating the contents of that wisdom which Christ has brought to His followers, orders the several elements, which he mentions, thus : ' that is to say, righteousness and sanctifica- tion, and also ransoming.' It is a little surprising to find the ' ransoming ' (d7roXi>rpuo-is) placed after the righteousness and sanctification, of which it is the condition. We may, therefore, be tempted to give it some looser sense in which it may appear to be conceived as following upon them, if not chronologically, at least logically. There seems to be no justification, however, for departing from the proper meaning of a word which is not only clear in its natural meaning, but is closely defined in other passages in Paul's writings in accordance Avith this natural meaning. We may think, with Lightfoot and T. C. Edwards, of the eschato- logical usage of the word, and understand it 'of redemption consummated in our deliverance from all sin and misery ' ; and suppose it to be mentioned last because referring to the final deliverance, and, therefore, ' almost equivalent to i^ai) aldvtos ' (Light- foot, ad loc. ; cf. also Edwards, ad loc). Or we may think with H. A. W. Meyer and C. F. G. Heinrici of its ordinary use as the proper term to designate the act by which Christ purchased His people to Himself by the outpouring of His blood, and suppose it to be mentioned last in the enumera- tion of the blessings received from Christ, with the emphasis of climax, because it supplies the basis of those further acts of salvation (justification and the gift of the Spirit), by means of which righteous- ness and holiness are conveyed to believers. The
one thing which wo cannot easily suppose is that Paul has departed in this one instance from his uniforai u.sage of a word which holds the rank of a technical term in bis writings. A. Deissmann cries out : ' This rare word occurs seven times in St. Paul r (op. cit. p. .331, n. 2). The reason obviously is that Paul had something to say which he needed this word to say. Are we to suppose that he might Jvist as well have used the common words, current in everyday speech, for what he bad to say?
How little strange the idea of salvation as a thing purchased is to this particular Epistle may be observed from the declaration twice repeated : ' 'ye wei-e bought with a price' (6™ 7"^), which Paul uses as an incitement to Christian etlbrt. The addition to the assertion of the verb that we have been 'bought,' of the words, 'with a price,' serves to give great emphasis to the exclusion of all notion that salvation was acquired for us without the payment of an equivalent, and thus to make very prominent the essential idea of exchange which Tinderlies the conception of ransoming. What the price was which was paid for our purchasing is not mentioned in these passages : it was too well understood to require explicit state- ment. It is similarly taken for granted in the like allusion in 2 P 2', where the false teachers who were vexing the Church are condemned as even ' denying the Master (SearbT-q^) that bought them.' There is no question that they were bought: this pungent fact is rather treated as the fundamental thing in the consciousness of all Christians, and is therefore employed as a whip to their consciences to scourge them to right conduct towards their Master. In all these instances the stress falls on the ownership over us acquired by Christ by His purchase of us. They therefore naturally suggest the remarkable words of Paul, when, in bidding farewell to the Ephesian elders, he exhorts tliem ' to feed the church of God, which he acquired by means of his own blood ' (Ac 20^). Although, however, not the specific ' purchased ' but the broader 'acquired ' is employed here, the emphasis is shifted from the mere fact of acquisition and consequent ownership to the costliness of the acquisition, and therefore the price paid for it is not only explicitly mentioned but strongly stressed. God has acquired His Church by means of His own blood, a paradoxical statement which presented no difficulties to Paul and his readers, but rather was freighted with the liveliest gratitude. Whence ' the church of God ' was thus acquired ' by means of his own blood,' we learn from the new songs of the Apocalj'pse. It was ' purchased out of the earth,' 'from among men' (14'-''), or, more explicitly, 'of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation' (5"). And here we are reminded again of the great price which was paid for it, and of the great deliver- ance which was obtained for it at this great cost. The purchase-price was nothing less than ' the blood of the Lamb,' and they that are purchased are 'loosed {Ximv, the primitive of XvTpoverdai) from their sins in bis blood' (P), and made unto God 'a kingdom and priests ' (1' 5'°) who shall ' reign upon the earth ' {5'°). All the virtues gather to them — 'they are without blemish' (14'). That nothing should be lacking to the presentation of the whole idea of ransoming outside the term itself, we find Paul employing the exact synonym, 'to buy out' (i^ayopd^eiv), to express the common idea. ' God sent forth his Son,' be tells us, 'born of a woman, born under the law, that he might buy out them under law, that we might receive tlie adoption of sons' (Gal 4'"-) ; 'Christ bought us out from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us ' (Gal 3"). Paul's whole doctrine of the ransoming Christ has been compressed into these two sentences. We were under the dominion of law, and have been