What does it mean that Jesus came to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45)?

The Son of Man Himself is the shining example of service of this kind. Who so great as He in His original estate? Then "thousand thousands ministered to Him" (Dan. 7:10). Who took so lowly a place, ministering to others? Who carried service to such a length as "to give His life a ransom for many"? For this reason alone, apart from other considerations, the place of pre-eminence must be His. They, who follow Him most closely in lowly service in this day, will be chiefest in that day.

In verse 45, the Lord not only brings His death before His disciples for the fifth time, but He explains its significance. Previously He had emphasized the fact of His death, so that the minds of the disciples might no longer be obsessed by expectations of a coming visible kingdom. Now the meaning of the fact appears. He would die to pay the ransom price for many. Here then we have a plain statement as to the substitutionary and atoning character of His death from His own lips. It is "many" here, for the actual, realized effect of His ransoming death is the point. In 1 Timothy 2:6, where the bearing and scope of it is in question, the word is "all."

Again we read: "The Son of Man came … to give His life a ransom for many" (Matt. 20:28). "His life," someone may exclaim, "see it says 'His life a ransom for many.'" True, but that is not all it says. He "came … to give His life." It was the giving of His life — the yielding of it up in death — that affected the ransom. The perfection and spotlessness of His life made the offering up of it so acceptable to God, and thus was one of His great qualifications for the sacrificial work. He was indeed the Lamb "without blemish."

In the O.T., except in Ex. 21:30, the word is kopher, lit. 'a covering,' a cognate word to kaphar, often translated 'atonement.' None "can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him." Ps. 49:7. But God could say, "Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom." Job 33:24. The word occurs also in Ex. 30:12; Job 36:18; Prov. 6:35; Prov. 13:8; Prov. 21:18; Isa. 43:3. In the N.T. it is λύτρον, or ἀντίλυτρον, from 'to loose, set free.' Christ gave Himself, His life, a ransom for many: the precious blood of Christ witnesses that every claim of God against the believer has been answered. Matt. 20:28; Mark 10:45; 1 Tim. 2:6.

One of the chief aspects presented to us in the Scriptures is, that the blood of Christ was our ransom. This is expressed most clearly in several passages in the Word of God. 'Forasmuch as ye know,' says Peter, 'that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold … but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot' (1 Peter 1:18-19). Again, 'In whom we have redemption through His blood' (Eph. 1:7). The redeemed also sing, 'Thou hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood,' etc. Rev. 5:9). The Lord Himself expresses the same truth when He says, 'The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many' (Matt. 20:28). Now, the meaning of 'ransom' is a price paid for redemption; of 'redemption,' to buy back or out of a state of captivity or bondage. If, therefore, the blood of Christ was our ransom, it involves several things.

In the same Gospel of Matthew, later on, we have not merely words about the Lord, but His own words. Some have the feeling that when we have the very expressions of our blessed Lord, there is more in them than in any other communications of scripture, though these may ever so forcibly set forth the same truth. There is indeed a majesty and a depth in the utterance of our Saviour, which is quite peculiar and characteristic of Himself; but the authority of scripture throughout is really and precisely the same. The moment you bring in varying degrees of authority, you undermine the essence of its power, by introducing uncertainty; and uncertainty as to God's word is deadly. However this be, in Matthew 20:28 it is written, "Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered to but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for" — all? Nay; for "many."

There is indeed a true sense in which our Lord is a ransom for all; and the apostle speaks of it in 1 Tim. 2, "the testimony to be borne in its own seasons." But a nice difference distinguishes the two texts. When, as in Matthew, it is a ransom for many, we have it clearly defined. The "for" is "instead of" (ἀντὶ) many. It is strict substitution. When, as in 1 Timothy, all are in view, it is simply "on behalf of" (ὑπὲρ) all. "For" has not always the same sense in Scripture. It is the more needful to make the remark, because so many are apt to reason, that if "for" means one thing in one place, it must have the same force in another. Now take Romans 4:25, He "was delivered for our offences," and next "raised again for our justification." The "for" (διὰ), though it be in Greek the stronger case of the same word, does not mean the same thing in the two clauses. "For our offences" expresses the reason why He was given up; but His being raised is in order to our justification, not because we were justified, which would contradict the truth, and particularly the words immediately after in Romans 5:1.

Seed of Abraham. Here again we meet with that which is corrective of mistaken thoughts. Statements at times are made, as if the Lord, by becoming a man, took up the whole human race, so as to be their elder Brother. He took hold of the seed of Abraham is true Scripture teaching. But who are they of whom this is written? The nation of Israel? No. But those who, like Abraham, are justified by faith; for of all who believe is he the father (Rom. 4:11). Such are of faith, and are blessed with faithful Abraham (Gal. 3:9). They are his sons (Gal. 3:7), and all who are in Christ, or Christ's, are reckoned as Abraham's seed (Gal. 3:29). Hence the Lord takes hold of a class among men — a class from which none are excluded, whatever their nationality, if only they really believe on Him. For them He gave His life as a ransom (Matt. 20:28). And though we are taught that He gave Himself a ransom for all (1 Tim. 2:6), indicating that none who will receive it will be excluded from its benefits, the Lord declared in the Gospel, speaking of those who would benefit by His death, that His life was the ransom for many. He suffered in their stead. Guarded, how guarded, is Scripture in its language! And the more we recognise that, and observe how it speaks, the fewer mistakes as to its teaching shall we make.

A similar scripture is: "The Son of Man came … to give His life a ransom for many" (Mark 10:45). Here again the actual result of His death amongst men is in question. But we also read: "The Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all" (1 Tim. 2:5-6). Here, taking up the standpoint of propitiation, the value of His death before God is in question, and hence the scope and bearing of His death towards all men comes into view.

(1) The price paid, or the ransom money. Speaking to the disciples, our blessed Lord said, "The Son of Man came not to be ministered to, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many" (Matt. 20:28). In another scripture we read that Christ "gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time" (1 Tim. 2:6). That is, He gave Himself in death — corresponding so far with the other scripture quoted, "gave His life." The significance of these statements will be explained by a passage from the Old Testament "The life of the flesh is in THE BLOOD: and I have given it to you upon the altar, to make an atonement for your souls: for it is THE BLOOD THAT MAKES AN ATONEMENT FOR THE SOUL" (Lev. 17:11). Hence, "without shedding of blood is no remission" (Heb. 11:22). It was therefore the blood of Christ (for the life is in the blood) that constituted our ransom money: this was the price paid for our redemption. Hence Paul says, "In whom we have redemption through His blood" (Eph. 1:7); and Peter, in the scripture we have before cited, that we are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. It is no wonder that he terms it "precious," since it availed to meet all the claims of a holy God upon us, so that on that foundation he could proclaim salvation to all. For, in truth, it not only satisfied God's claims, but so infinite was its value that the Lord Jesus, by the shedding of His own blood, glorified God in all that He was, — in every attribute of His character, — and thus He can righteously justify every one that believes in Jesus. Yea, more, He glorifies Himself, in bringing every believer to Himself, in making him His child, and if a child, then an heir, an heir of God, and a joint-heir with Christ (Rom. 8:17).

Believers also have been redeemed. Once they, like the Israelites, were in bondage — "the servants of sin" (Rom. 5:17), under the blinding influence and power of the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4), and taken captive by him at his will. (2 Tim. 2:26.) It was for them, in this condition, that the Son of man gave His life as a ransom, His blood being the price paid for their redemption. Hence it is that we read, that "by His own blood He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption." (Heb. 9:12.) Silver was used as a type of the price of redemption in days of old (Ex. 30:11-16), and on one occasion gold was given in the place of silver (Num. 31:48-54), these being the two most precious metals, and employed therefore to signify that the redemption of the soul is precious; that is, beyond price. For "they that trust themselves in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; none of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him … that he should still live for ever, and not see corruption." (Ps. 49:6-9.) It is on this account that Peter contrasts typical redemption by silver and gold with the precious blood of Christ. For how precious must that be which secured redemption for all believers, so precious as to exceed all finite estimate. God only could provide such a ransom; for He only knew what was needed to effect the deliverance of His people. How, then, should it fill our souls with adoring gratitude as we think upon the unspeakable value of the blood of Christ, with gratitude to Him who gave the Lamb for the sacrifice, and also to Him who, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God?

But what is important is to see the actual use of anaphero, when used with sacrifice. Numbers 14:34, and Isaiah 53: 11, are plain proofs that it is used for bearing sins penally. But now, as to sacrifice. The reader must bear in mind that the act of having the sin on the victim is not in itself the expiation. That puts the victim in the answering place. For the other, death and the judicial action of God must come in to put it away. It must be slain and offered on the altar — as it is said, "by means of death." Christ had to take our sins on Him, and therefore die — give His life a ransom for many. Every one, therefore, believes He had taken them on Him before He gave up the ghost. The question is, did He take them on Him in order to suffer on the cross, and suffer the penal judgment of them there, as the victim was brought up to the altar, then the sins confessed on his head, and then the victim itself, thus made sin, slain, and burnt? Or was Christ born into this penal state, suffering it before He actually gave Himself up to be offered on the cross? Was He under the penal consequences of sin in the sufferings of His active service — was that penally from God? or in the sufferings of the cup He took to drink upon the cross from God? I believe the latter — that it was after the victim was presented as an offering to the altar (in Christ's case we must say presented Himself as a spotless victim to the cross) that the penal sufferings for sins were on Him, because our sins were on Him; and that it is to this bearing of sins alone that the passage in Peter applies. Christ offered Himself without spot to God. Jehovah laid, then, the iniquity upon Him. He who knew no sin was then made sin. Did the Lord lay the iniquity upon Him before He offered Himself without spot, a proved spotless lamb? One who knew no sin was made sin when He had bowed to His Father's will to drink that cup.