There have been a lot of complaints about my response and critique of Warren McGrew. I called him a Pelagian, and he maintains that Pelagius didn’t affirm what is accused of him. This led to a discussion of the atonement. I came across someone who stated they hold to the ransom theory.
This theory is usually defined as:
These passages led church father Origen (c. 185-c. 245 AD) to develop a theory of the atonement called “ransom theory.” In this understanding, Adam and Eve became captives to Satan and sin at the fall, followed by all of their offspring – the entire world. In order to bring salvation to the human race, Jesus died to give Satan his due price of blood, buying back humanity. However, Jesus did not remain dead, in the clutches of Satan, but rose back to life, defeating Satan and the death he brings to the world.
This historical analysis isn’t actually that accurate and has been challenged in recent times:
This is completely contrary to the way in which the church fathers are typically represented in the secondary literature. In fact, I’m having to revise what I’ve already written in the first draft of this book I’m writing because I’ve come to see that the focus on the so-called ransom theory of the atonement is not a focus that belonged to the church fathers themselves. Rather it’s modern scholarship which has focused on this aspect of the church fathers’ doctrine and made it appear as though this was the entire atonement theory held by the church fathers when in fact, like the biblical material itself, the church fathers had a multifaceted theory of the atonement that did include ransom as part of it but also included vicarious suffering, sacrificial offering, penal substitution, and so forth.
The options for whom Christ died as a ransom for can be Satan, Death, or to God. Most reject the notion Christ was a ransom to the Devil. The issue with this is that the Bible doesn’t present Christ as giving his life to be a sacrifice to Satan. It also grants Satan more power than he really had, as if he had some sort of leverage over an omnipotent God.
The person we are dealing with withholds a view that we simply don’t know who the ransom is paid to and that it has no relevance to Christ’s saving work. I’ve addressed Mark 10:45 in the video:
1 Timothy 2:5-6:
For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, a testimony at the proper time.
Mark 10:45:
For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Matthew 20:28:
Even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
In each of these passages, we have Christ dying as a substitute for another party. There is a strong emphasis that these passages are dependent upon Isaiah 53. This gives us a connection to Old Testament atonements that were for appeasing God (which is the general idea for the purpose of the atonement in the ancient world). Given that connection, we have reason to think this “ransom” was paid to God.
Secondly, if we focus on 1 Timothy 2:5-6, we have Christ mediating between God and man. The notion of him being a mediator also supports this notion as connected to the New Covenant functions of how Christ fulfills the Old Testament sacrificial system. Even further, Christ doesn’t mediate for us from devils, angels, or forces of nature. He mediates for us because we stand condemned before God. This gives us further reason to think that this is about Christ dying in our place for being condemned before God.
Just as there’s only one God, there’s also only one mediator (μεσίτης) between God and the human race, “the man Christ Jesus” (cf. John 14:6b). The letter to the Hebrews presents Jesus as the mediator of a new covenant that replaces the old covenant mediated by Moses (Heb 8:6; 9:15; 12:24; cf. Gal 3:19–20). Jesus supersedes all other intermediaries, whether angels (Col 2:18; Heb 2:2), Moses (Gal 3:19; Heb 3:1–6), Jewish high priests (Heb 8:6, 9, 15; 12:24), or other religious figures. The “mediator” concept is further described as a “ransom” (ἀντίλυτρον, see ἀπολύτρωσις in Rom 3:24; 8:23; 1 Cor 1:30; Col 1:14) paid through Jesus’s death (cf. Titus 2:14: λυτρόω). This presupposes universal human sinfulness (cf. Romans 1–3). The reference to Jesus’s humanity stresses both his identification with humankind and his status as the man/human par excellence who alone was able to provide redemption from sin (see Paul’s Adam/Christ theology in Rom 5:12–21; 1 Cor 15:21–22, 45–49).
The expression echoes Jesus’s statement that he would give his life as a ransom “for many” (Semitic style; cf. Matt 20:28 = Mark 10:45: λύτρον). Here the ransom is said to be “for all” (ὑπὲρ πάντων; cf. 2 Cor 5:14–15; Titus 2:11; 1 John 2:2). Jesus gave his life in exchange for (ἀντί) and on behalf of others (ὑπέρ; cf. vv. 1 and 2).
Köstenberger, Andreas J. Commentary on 1-2 Timothy and Titus (Kindle Locations 2423-2438). Holman Reference. Kindle Edition.
Another writer argues this in their article:
Psalm 49 establishes a dilemma of direst condition:
Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice. (49:7-8)
The condition of man since the fall is one of bondage to sin and corruption from death. Having disobeyed God, we have revolted from our inside selves to His good order and holy decrees. Therefore, we are slaves to death and children of wrath.
The psalmists then effectively tell us, no man can rescue himself. And we can’t even rescue each other. And why? Because no sinner can muster the moral currency required to pay the ransom for this rescue.
This is cause for great humility in ourselves, because those who are saved are not saved by any righteousness of their own, and for great patience and mercy with others, because those who do not believe in Christ are, biblically speaking, captives.
So there is the gospel of Jesus Christ to be carried into every dark corner of the soul and every far corner of the world! Because in the gospel comes the ransom that sets captives free. Psalm 49:15 tells of it:
“But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me.”
God will pay the ransom himself in order to receive us back to himself. He has done this through Christ, who is our ransom, as we see in texts like Mark 10:45:
The context of this passage shows us Christ as the “mediator” not between men and the devil or between God and the devil but between men and God. It would seem from the shape of this text, that the ransom is paid by the Son of God to God the Father, as Jesus becomes the ransoming mediator between God and men, making atonement for men to God. And of course, we see the foundation of this truth in Psalm 49:7, where the ransom price of man’s life is said to be owed to God.
Further, I don’t take Christ to be a literal payment. He wasn’t some divine coin or something. As the late Steve Hays wrote:
i) The preposition (anti) implies substitution. However, the vicarious nature of the transaction doesn’t turn on the particular nuance of a particular preposition. For the one-to-many relation implies substitution, apart from the preposition.
ii) Likewise, a ransom takes the place of the slave/captive(s). The text is using a payment substitution metaphor.
iii) That he dies for the sake of others suggests he will die in their place.
iv) If the death of Christ in Mark has a penal character, then that’s penal substitution. Cf. 14:24–which alludes to Isa 53:11-12, as well as the sacrificial cultus (e.g. Lev 4:7,18,25,30,34).
The Council 