Ransom – The problem of slavery

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served,
but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many”
Mark 10:45

For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.
1 Timothy 2:5-6

To ransom means to “redeem” and “the price of a life” in the Greek and Hebrew. It means to pay for the release of a prisoner or to buy a slave. Redemption is also an associated word. In the English dictionary, ransom means “to rescue,” “to deliver” and “to free.” Traditionally, Ransom theory is taught that the devil held us as his prisoners to sin and death but then Jesus died to pay the devil to set us free. The death of Jesus was the cost to set us free. Some even say that God tricked the devil into releasing us from captivity. In this view, the devil failed to realize that the sinlessness and divinity of Jesus made it so that Jesus could not be held down by death. So the idea was that the devil worked hard to kill Jesus because he thought that he would be victorious that way but he was unexpectantly surprised when Jesus rose from the grave. But, since the devil had already accepted the death of Jesus as payment to release his prisoners, he was obligated to set them free. This theory is also the one that C.S. Lewis used in the Chronicles of Narnia when Aslan dies in Edmond’s place. Edmond was set free because the White Witch accepted Aslan’s death as an acceptable exchange in accordance to the laws in the realm of Narnia. The pushback on the interpretation of this theory is that it seems absurd for the God over the whole universe to owe anybody anything or to be obligated to pay something to get what He wants. This seems to elevate the devil to be more powerful than he actually is. In defense of the traditional view of ransom theory, it would make more sense that those who espoused it were not thinking of the Satan proper. But rather, as sin and death as being “the adversary,” which is what “Satan” means. Or “the devil” as representative of the kingdom of darkness. If that’s the case, then Jesus paid sin and death to set us free to release us from the kingdom of darkness. This would be a more metaphorical interpretation. I personally see “ransom” meaning “to set free” without the idea of a literal price being exchanged. An example of this would be in Exodus 6:6 where Moses is given instruction by the Lord to say to Israel, “I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.” When God freed the Israelites through Moses, there wasn’t any payment that was made. God just freed them. You might find it helpful, then, to insert the word “free” whenever you see the word “redeem.” To interpret the word, “ransom,” we can see that the cost or price was His suffering and so Jesus bought us by His sufferings but the price was simply the metaphorical price that He paid to set us free. He didn’t make a literal payment to anyone. I will call this The New Ransom Theory and that is what I will defend in this lesson.

First, let’s address the claim that says Jesus tricked the devil into setting us free. What do we know from the Bible about what the devil knew? Throughout the course of Jesus’ life, it seems as though the devil was trying to have Jesus killed. From His very birth, Herod had all the babies killed, hoping that he would also kill this new King born in Bethlehem. The religious leaders wanted Him dead. The crowd that yelled “crucify Him!” wanted Him dead. Satan tempted Jesus to jump off a cliff. Later, Satan entered Judas to betray Jesus to have Him handed over to the Romans. The devil assumed Jesus was the Son of God (Mt 4:3; Lk 4:3, 9) and the demons knew that Jesus was the Son of God and the Christ (Mt 8:29; Mk 3:11; Lk 4:41). Jesus also made claims of divinity that were understood as such (Jn 8:51-59; 10:36-39; 19:7). However, an interesting paradox occurs when we look at what happened with Peter.

Matthew 16:21-23

From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. 22 Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” 23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.”

It appears here that Satan was attempting to thwart the plan for Jesus to be killed. Did the devil receive new information that he changed his mind about wanting to kill Jesus? No, that cannot be, because Satan still decided to enter into Judas much later into the story to have Jesus betrayed so that He would be killed. But this is really interesting here because in Matthew 16 Satan hears all that Jesus was speaking to His disciples since he was present within or next to Peter, putting thoughts into his mind. So, the devil would have heard what Jesus said about how He would be raised up on the third day. Jesus also foretells His resurrection at other times (Mt 20:19). It would seem then that the future resurrection of Jesus would have come to no surprise for Satan. So then, what’s going on in Matthew 16 with Satan speaking through Peter? Jesus says it plainly, that the devil was attempting to be a “stumbling block” to Him. The devil was attempting to trip Jesus up, causing Him to sin by abandoning the commandment He had received from His Father (Jn 10:18). If Jesus were to do that, then God’s rescue mission would have failed because Jesus would no longer be a sinless sacrifice. It was necessary for Jesus to be obedient in all things and also for Him to die willingly. If the devil could have thwarted one of those things, then he would have had victory over Jesus. Throughout Jesus’ life, the devil had tried to tempt Jesus into sinning or to prematurely cause His death but was never successful.

We might be able to say that Roman crucifixion was Satan’s idea. Maybe he thought that if he had Jesus’ body torn apart and brutalized, then maybe Jesus’ body would be too far gone to come back from the dead. But with the witness of Jesus’ many miracles, it would be hard to hold such a view. Or, we might be able to say that Satan conceded his premature death plan by using Judas to hand Jesus over for crucifixion. Ultimately, Satan just hated Jesus and wanted Him dead. The only way I think that we could say that Satan didn’t foresee Jesus’ resurrection is if we believe that the devil was blinded by His bloodlust to see Jesus dead that he wasn’t thinking about anything past that. While this is possible, I don’t think it’s actually provable. Michael Hieser suggests that the powers of darkness knew who Jesus was but they just didn’t know the plan. This is based off 1 Corinthians 2:7-8 which says, “but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” Assuming that the rulers are the devil and his demons, we might be able to say this is true even as they were aware that Christ would rise from the dead but they just didn’t know the implications of what that resurrection would do. But again, that seems unlikely, especially considering that upon closer examination, the text points most clearly to earthly rulers because verse six describes these rulers as “passing away,” and the wisdom to which these rulers did not understand that they crucified Jesus, verse five says, “the wisdom of men,” further indicating the context is about earthly rulers. Biblical scholar, Gordon Fee, would also agree with this understanding.

In conclusion, I don’t think that Satan was blindsided by what Jesus foretold about His own resurrection. Therefore, it is unbiblical and unreasonable to maintain that God tricked Satan into setting the captives free. For these reasons, my view of “ransom” is to simply “set free” and the cost was Jesus’ suffering and death but it was not a literal price paid to anyone.

But what about the price being paid to God? This wouldn’t make sense either because it is the devil who has these people held captive in sin and death to do his will (2 Tim 2:26). They are under his domain of darkness (Col 1:13). Hebrews 2:14 says, “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” Satan was the one who held the power of death in which God needed to rescue us from. The devil is the slave master of death because he is the slave master of sin. Having kept humanity under bondage to sin, he kept them indebted to death. It was through the temptation of the devil that death entered into the world, as Jesus says of him, “he was a murderer from the beginning” (Jn 8:44).

For these reasons, it would be nonsense to say that God paid God to set the captives free from the devil. If we believed that, then we would also have to maintain that the devil has no autonomy and is simply a proxy to do God’s will of destruction upon humanity, as if this is all some elaborate rouse to make God look good as the hero when He was the one who caused the fire. But God is not the arsonist and the firefighter. God is not responsible for the evil, sin, temptation, and rebellion of humanity which brought them into bondage under the devil’s domain. Humanity needed to be freed from the devil—not from God. The devil was the jailer and so if a ransom price would be paid to anyone, it would be paid to the devil. But as we have just discussed, this is not a viable view either.

The only view left besides the metaphorical one, is that the ransom price was paid to the law and in accordance with the law, the devil has claim to the descendants of Adam because of their sin. This would be more akin to how C.S. Lewis would see it. This might be a specific law that God previously spoke or it might be more of an unwritten law—a spiritual law or law of nature. In The Chronicles of Narnia, it would be referred to as “the deep magic” or “the laws upon which Narnia was built.” Even though Edmond’s sin was treason against Aslan and by this Aslan could forgive the offense against himself, the White Witch mentioned that there was an ancient law in place by which Aslan was obligated to abide by. In this way, we could say that there is some kind of law or agreement between God and the devil that those who choose evil, the devil has rightful claim over. As God had said in the garden that the price for rebellion is death when He said, “in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Gen 2:17). God would not go back on this word that was made law and it is only in Him that there is spiritual and physical life because He is life. So anyone who chooses contrary to God will by nature choose death and so long as sin reigns, death reigns. In this view, we could say that Jesus fulfilled what the law required, which was death, and thereby, freed those who were held captive by the devil. This law of death was more of a metaphysical and spiritual reality by which the devil held claim to the descendants of Adam. In the spiritual realm, there has been a battle warring from the ages between good and evil. God does what He can to convince humanity to believe and follow Him to receive life while the devil does what he can to convince humanity to believe his ways are better and to follow him to death and hell. Both sides agreed that whoever follows after them belong to them. God lays claim to those who have faith and obedience and the devil lays claim to those who are in unbelief and disobedience. However, this goes deeper than just loyalty because the devil had claim over all the descendants of Adam in that mortality belonged to the whole race because of Adam’s sin. But by Jesus dying on the cross for us as the second and perfect Adam, he represented all of us to put death to death so that in believing Him, we can receive immortality. Jesus reversed the curse of the law by fulfilling its demands so that He could be both just and the justifier of those who have faith in Jesus (Ro 3:26). In the Chronicles of Narnia, we see that when Aslan rose from the dead, the stone table was broken, which was the representation of the law’s demands against us. Then, all the Narnians who had been turned into stone by the White Witch and held prisoner, came to life and came to be with Aslan. This was because the curse of the deep magic had been reversed. In this way, the Ransom model of the atonement deals with humanity’s problem with the law of death and frees us from the devil’s claim over our lives.

But Ransom also goes further than freeing us from death. It’s also about freeing us from sin. It is also by sin that we are held captive by the devil. In Luke 4:18 Jesus quotes from the book of Isaiah and says that the Spirit of the Lord is upon Him and He has anointed Him and sent Him “to proclaim release to the captives,” and “to set free those who are oppressed.” Sin has given the devil legal right to oppress us and sin allows demons to enter into people to demonize them. Notice that with Judas, it was the sin he had in his heart being committed to betray Jesus that the devil was allowed into him (Mt 26:14-25; Jn 13:27). Judas already made a deal with the devil (so to speak) by selling his soul for thirty pieces of silver to betray Jesus. At that time, the devil had claim over him to possess him. Unfortunately though, Judas never truly repented and so he perished. The Gerasene demoniac was also an example of a prisoner of Satan because he had a legion of demons inside of him (Mk 5:1-20). These evil spirits made the man crazy to where his dwelling place was among the tombs and “constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and gashing himself with stones” (v. 5). But he didn’t want to be like this. He didn’t want to be a prisoner. He didn’t want to hurt himself. The demons were doing this to him and making his life miserable. With the little volition that this man had, he saw something in Jesus that the demons didn’t like and so he ran up to Jesus in hope that he could be set free and Jesus set this prisoner free by casting out all those demons. Mary Magdelene, one of Jesus’ disciples, was also among one of these prisoners until Jesus set her free (Lk 8:2). We also have the account of the boy who was often thrown into convulsions, foamed at the mouth, and thrown to the ground by a demon and then Jesus cast it out (Mt 17:14-18; Lk 9:37-43). We are not given the specific reason of how the demon entered into him. It could have been from sin, trauma, or from someone placing a curse upon him. But for those who abide in Jesus and renounce such things, they are protected from this. But for those who are under the system of this world controlled by the devil, they are subject to the possibility of demonic bondage and illness caused by evil spirits. It is only by the power and authority of Jesus’ name that the demons must leave. Sometimes sin also needs to be renounced because of it being a legal right for the demons to stay. Now, if Jesus died to set us free from sin, then He set us free for the purpose of keeping us free from the grasp of the devil. The death of Jesus on the cross broke the powers of sin and revoked the devil’s legal claim on us. Now, we can still choose to sin and in doing so, allow the devil an opportunity to exercise his control or influence but we are no longer in bondage to sin and we can choose not to sin because Christ has set us free. We have died to sin with Him (Ro 6:2, 8, 10).

In regard to how Jesus set our hearts free from sin itself, besides Romans 6, I will refer you to the Moral Influence theory and Revelation 5:9 which says, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (cf. Acts 20:28). The way I see God purchasing us with His blood is that He purchased our hearts with His love. His death and the love in which He demonstrated for us, metaphorically bought our hearts to be devoted to Him. His love then purified our hearts to set us free from our corruption. Now that we are made whole, sin has lost its power. And where sin has lost its power—we are free. And where we are free, we are indebted to God in our love and gratitude from what He set us free from. Once slaves to spiritual Egypt. Now sons and daughters and priests to the Most High God and King of kings.

So far, we have seen that Jesus has set us free from sin, death, and the devil but there is one more means by which this freedom is obtained. Jesus said that “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn 8:32). It is Jesus Himself who is that truth (Jn 1:14). He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (Jn 14:6). At the most basic level, this is the truth about Jesus coming to rescue sinners by His life, death, and resurrection. Jesus died to bind the strong man, Satan, and plunder his kingdom. “When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men” (Eph 4:8). In KJV it says, “he led captivity captive.” Jesus’ resurrection reversed the captivity. Those who once belonged to the devil are now freed and belong to Him through faith. The powers of darkness could not hold Jesus down and this power He gives to us through His indwelling presence. Now we don’t have to fear the devil and can say, “greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world” (1 Jn 4:4) and “we know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him” (1 Jn 5:18). The devil only has as much authority over us as we let him have. By faith, we must believe that Jesus set us free and by this freedom we belong to the Lord and the devil has no claim on us.

This is the basics of the gospel by which we shall know the truth and the truth shall set us free but sometimes Christians don’t experience freedom in its fullness. This could be because they’re believing lies from the devil, putting more stock in their experience than they do by faith in God’s Word. It could be that their sin gives place/opportunity for the devil (Eph 4:27). It could also be that they have strayed away from the purity and simplicity of the gospel through various false teachings or corrupted gospels (2 Cor 11:3). In our day and age, we lack people teaching the fullness of the gospel and this results in Christianity becoming reduced down to moral behavior modification. There are others who teach a corrupted gospel where we achieve the grace of heaven and immortality through our own good works. Others teach a diluted gospel where it’s all about the love of Jesus and sin isn’t even talked about. And still there are others who teach a baggaged gospel, where the heaviness of some theological beliefs and intellectualism have weighed down the gospel’s simplicity and purity to Christ and the gospel that was handed down to us by the Apostles. Anything that strays from the simplicity, purity, and fullness of the gospel taught by Jesus and the Apostles, leaves open the door for sin bondage and the powers of darkness. Jesus said that “if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (Jn 8:36) “and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (Jn 8:32).

So, if you’re not free, check your theology.