The Randsom Theory

Today we begin looking at the work of Christ or as it is known: The Doctrine of the Atonement.

This doctrine tries to explain HOW the death and resurrection of Jesus brings about OUR salvation.

NB: We must differentiate between the FACT of the atonement and the various THEORIES of the atonement.

The fact of the atonement is simple:

Ephesians 1:7 KJV 1900

7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;

That is the fact.

But the theory asks HOW?

We will look at 4 popular theories beginning today with:

The Ransom Theory.

For about nine hundred years from the time of Irenaeus and Origen up until the time of St. Anselm the ransom theory was popular among the church fathers.

According to this theory the sacrifice of Christ’s life served as a ransom to deliver man from the bondage to Satan and from the corruption and death that were the consequences of sin.

The basis for this theory is of course Mark 10:45.

Mark 10:45 KJV 1900

45 For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.

Much as a ransom payment might be made to terrorists who are holding a group of hostages in order to get those hostages liberated, so the sacrifice of Christ’s life was a ransom given to liberate human beings from bondage to sin and death.

Question:

This interpretation naturally raised the question as to whom the ransom was paid.

The obvious answer to this question seemed to be the devil – Satan – because it was the devil who held men in bondage.

2 Timothy 2:25–26 KJV 1900

25 In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; 26 And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.

God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

Here he says that human beings have been ensnared by the devil and are in bondage to him.

Similarly in 1 John 5:19 we have a very sweeping statement:

1 John 5:19 KJV 1900

19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.

1 John 5:19 NASB 2020

19 We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

According to 1 John 5:19 the entire world lies in bondage to Satan.

So God agreed to give over his Son to Satan’s power in exchange for the human beings that he held captive.

Opposition:

Not all of the church fathers agreed with this ransom theory.

Gregory Nazianzus, for example, was sharply critical of the ransom theory.

He did not want to make Satan the object of Christ’s atoning death.

It seemed inappropriate to say that Satan would be the one to whom atonement is directed.

The Trick:

But most of the church fathers agreed with Origen who wrote,

To whom gave he his life ‘a ransom for many’? It cannot have been to God. Was it not then to the evil one? For he held us until the ransom for us, even the soul of Jesus, was paid to him, being deceived into thinking that he could be its lord, and not seeing that he could not bear the torment of holding it.

As Origen’s statement revealed, the fathers typically thought of this arrangement between God and Satan as a very clever ruse on God’s part.

He tricked Satan into making this exchange.

You see, as the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God could not possibly have been held captive by Satan.

But by his incarnation – by becoming a man – Christ appeared to be just as weak and vulnerable as other human beings who were under Satan’s control, and it was only after the captives had been freed by Satan that the Son of God manifested his full divine power by rising from the dead and breaking the bonds of death and hell and thus escaping from Satan's power.

Gregory of Nyssa, one of the other Cappadocian church fathers, gives the following very colorful analogy to illustrate how God cleverly deceived Satan.

He says,

In order to secure that the ransom in our behalf might be easily accepted by him who required it, the Deity was hidden under the veil of our nature, that so, as with ravenous fish, the hook of the Deity might be gulped down along with the bait of flesh.

Here he says that Christ’s flesh is like the bait to lure Satan and inside is hidden this hook of the deity of Christ that will ensnare Satan and in fact undo him.

Intreating feature:

One of the most interesting features of the ransom theory as espoused by the church fathers is their widespread conviction that Christ’s incarnation and death were not actually necessary for man's redemption.

God chose to bring about our liberation from Satan’s power by Christ’s death and ransom payment but he didn’t have to.

St. Augustine, one of the Latin church fathers, wrote very bluntly:

“they are fools who say the wisdom of God could not otherwise free men than by taking human nature, and being born of a woman, and suffering all that he did at the hands of sinners.”

So according to Augustine, if you think that the incarnation and death of Christ was necessary for our redemption you’re a fool.

He didn’t think it was necessary.

Why Not?

Given his omnipotence God could have freed people from Satan’s power directly.

Being omnipotent it would be child’s play for God to liberate us from a creature like Satan.

There wouldn’t need to be any ransom payment.

So the entire arrangement of making this ransom payment in order to free us was simply the choice of God’s will.

This is the way he contingently chose to bring about our redemption but it wasn't necessary.

The Problem:

George Smeaton, who is a 19th century theologian who has written a couple of fine books on the subject of the atonement, conjectures that the reason that the church fathers held this view is that they were focused primarily upon the consequences of sin, mainly death and mortality and corruption, rather than on sin itself.

They were focused on how God overcame the consequences of sin rather than sin itself.

They held that God in his omnipotence could deal with those consequences of sin without any atonement.

So Christ’s death was not required on this view by God’s justice as later thinkers like Anselm and the Reformers were to say.

It wasn’t a matter that God’s justice required this to be done, it was simply a decision of his will.

So Smeaton says of the church fathers,

“They separated God’s free-will from the moral perfections of His nature – rectitude, wisdom, and goodness.”

Lets discuss this for a moment:

Whenever we look at God we must always be careful not to separate his “nature” from His “character”.

Let me explain:

By His nature I am referring to his Omni-attributes: Omnipresence, Omniscience and Omnipotence.

By His character I am referring to his Goodness, holiness, justice and love.

And as it turns out, God’s nature is “limited” by his character.

For example:

James 1:13 KJV 1900

13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:

Hebrews 6:18 KJV 1900

18 That by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us:

What the reformers did and still do to this day, is to put God’s Omnipotence on the throne and have all other attributes subservient to that.

So, since God is omnipotent He can do whatever he wants to do.

Psalm 115:3 KJV 1900

3 But our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.

So they say since God can do whatever he wants, he could have just cancelled our sin, without any need for a random to be payed.

Well lets take a moment to think about this:

In a court the Judge reigns supreme. Whatever the judge says or decides goes.

So lets imagine a scenario:

Come home and a killer has hands over family neck.

Goes to court: The judge decides to simply cancel the sin.

How would you feel?

Angry!

Why? Because the decision is unjust.

Well now lets turn God.

God has the power to do anything, but its not just God’s omnipotence that needs to be taken into account: His character must be taken in as well.

God is just.

Job 4:17 KJV 1900

17 Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his maker?

And since God’s character cannot change:

Malachi 3:6 KJV 1900

6 For I am the Lord, I change not; Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

So God cannot be unjust.

Since he cannot be unjust, he cannot just cancel sin. Not because he does not have the power to do so, but because His divine Justice prevents him.

Conclusion:

With that we’ll close. Next time we will look at St. Anselm’s satisfaction theory which effectively undid the ransom theory so that it never really appeared again prominently in church history.124