March 8

March 8, 2009

The Cross of Christ: A Ransom for Many
a sermon on Mark 10.42-45
by David C. Mauldin
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Mobile, Alabama

I remember the first time I understood the power of addiction. A loud pounding on my door at 2:00 in the morning startled me. I was a college student, but this was summer, and every summer of my college years found me working in a church. In this case another guy in college and I were working with youth and children at this church, and it had a little house behind it much like our Segars Center. That’s where he and I lived. The banging on our door came from a man in his late 20s who was drunk and high on heroine. He was a member of the church.

His story was a sad one. Once a promising athlete, he got into the drug scene during high school. He became an addict. Somehow he found his way to the church, and the people of the church resolved to help him overcome his addiction. He went to meetings. He had a mentor. He had friends who practiced really tough love. They had helped him clean up, get a job, and find a place to live. With their prayers and support, and the grace of God, he finally got cleaned up, but that came after the incident at our door in the middle of the night. That night was a bitter disappointment because it was his first big relapse. He was so devastated, so ashamed. He had been warned not to show up high at any of his friends’ houses, so not knowing where to turn, he came to us.

He broke down crying. He said he had known what he was doing, what it would mean, what it would cost, but he couldn’t help himself. I felt so sorry for him. He wanted to be clean. He wanted to be free. But the drugs had control. His life was not his own. He was a slave to his addiction. We called his mentor, who came and got him and blessed him out royally. And he began the long, painful journey to freedom again from the start. That experience left a lasting impression in my mind. I fully believe he would have quit if he could have. He wanted to be clean. But like a moth to a flame, he found the attraction too strong. He wasn’t in control. Without the help of professionals, friends, his church, and the Lord Jesus Christ, he would never have been free.

During the season of Lent, I am preaching about the cross. We know that Jesus died on the cross because he loves us, in order to save us. But why did he have to die? And how does his death save us? The answer is so big that your mind cannot see it all at once. Instead, you have to circle it and look from different angles to get an idea of the whole. Scripture offers at least five different answers: Jesus set an example for us to follow. He gave his life as a ransom for many. He was our substitute, taking the punishment that should have been ours. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. And, on the cross Jesus triumphed over sin, death, and evil. These are not mutually exclusive, as if you have to pick one and abandon the others. Instead, they compliment one another, so that together they help us appreciate the richness of the mystery of the cross.

This is the second sermon in this series on the cross. Today we focus on an answer Jesus tacked on to the end of his response to a power play within his group of disciples. James and John wanted to be his top lieutenants. The other disciples resented this—maybe they had aspirations! Jesus reprimanded them and said that in the kingdom of God whoever wants to become great must be a servant. Even Jesus himself, the Son of Man, did not come to be served, but to serve—and to give his life a ransom for many.

You can find the same idea scattered throughout the New Testament. Anytime you see the words ransom or redeem in connection with the cross, it is talking about this understanding of Jesus’ death. On the cross, Jesus gave his life in order to set us free from sin and death. We were slaves. We were under the power of sin and of death. Jesus paid the price and set us free. Just a couple of examples: Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6.20: “You were bought with a price.” Revelation 5.9 praises Christ: “By your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

The image of ransom comes from the ancient slave market. In the first century, slavery was not based on race but on war and economics. You became a slave through capture in war or falling too far into debt. In that world, however, slavery usually wasn’t a lifelong condition. Sometimes it was, but often you could earn your freedom or a family member could redeem you, buy you back.

This is a powerful image of the cross. Powerful because it touches our experience in two tender places: It describes us as slaves to sin and death, and then, through Christ, we know the thrill of gaining our freedom.

Some people find the Christian idea that we are slaves to sin offensive. After all, we choose our actions, right? When faced with temptation, I choose whether to do what’s wrong or what’s right. That doesn’t sound like slavery. Plus, saying we are slaves to sin sounds like an excuse. “Why did you do that horrible thing?” “I couldn’t help it. I’m a slave to sin.” That is not what Christianity claims. Christianity never teaches that you don’t have a choice when tempted, and it never offers a convenient excuse. Instead, it says we are responsible for our choices, and God will hold us accountable.

We are slaves to sin because although we are free to do what we want, we are not free to want what is good. We choose the bad because we want to. There is a part of us the rebels against what’s good; it rebels against God. This is our slavery. You can say yes or no to any temptation, but you cannot say no to every temptation because the part of you that is supposed to love God and other people perfectly is broken. So you do not love the way God does. You are supposed to. God created you for that purpose. But you no longer have to power to do it.

Think about my friend the addict. How many days did he resist the temptation to fall back into his old habit before that sad night he showed up at my door? He was in bondage. Christianity says we all are: to sin. So yes, you choose your actions, but what you cannot choose is the one thing you were created for. You cannot say, “From this day forth, I will be just like Jesus. I will love God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength and my neighbor as myself.” You can say that, but you can’t do it. This is what Christianity means by our slavery to sin. If you want to test the theory, try it out. Try to live a holy, sinless life. How long can you go? Once you start to make progress, one of two things will happen: You will either fall into the sin of spiritual pride, or you will realize how far you have to go. It never fails: The people closest to God always known better than anyone else how far we all fall short.

So much for our slavery to sin. Our slavery to death is more obvious. We all die, end of discussion. Christianity claims God wants something better for us. Christ died, therefore, to set us free from both sin and death. His resurrection enables us to live a new life of freedom. The result is a process. Those of you in the Lenten book study will remember the line: “I have been saved from the penalty of sin, I am being saved from the power of sin, and one day I shall be saved from the presence of sin” [McGrath, Doubting, p. 17]. When you come to faith in Christ and become a Christian, you are set free. The rest of your life you will go on claiming that freedom, learning how to live as a free person. Your final liberation will come with your own resurrection, which God has promised. You will be raised to eternal life, free from death and the fear of death. You will then be like Christ and able to love perfectly, just as he does. If you are in Christ, you are already set free from the penalty of sin. You are being set free from the power sin has over you. One day, you will be rid of sin entirely. All this happens to you by the grace of God, and it happens because Jesus died for you and rose again.

Again, this image is so powerful because it offers us freedom. Freedom is the key concept. I want you to imagine yourself on the auction block. You live in the first century. Your town has fallen in war. The enemy said if the town didn’t surrender peacefully that everyone inside would be sold into slavery. The town did not surrender quietly, and now you have been shipped off to a foreign land and put up for sale as a slave. You are no longer your own person. You belong to another. The sale goes forward, but there in the crowd is a merchant from your city. He was away when the city was attacked. He recognizes you, and he starts to bid. He pays the price, then he sets you free. How do you feel? Most of us can’t even imagine that. It’s too far from reality for us to understand the emotions involved. Perhaps only those who have been enslaved, say to an addiction, and been set free really know how being ransomed feels.

I like the idea of ransom because it speaks to our experience and our deepest longing. Jesus sets us free! It’s such a hopeful way to talk about the cross. Like all the other answers, however, this one has it limitations. Ransom is an analogy. Jesus’ death is like a ransom. His blood is like a price paid. The power of sin is real in your life. Jesus’ death was a real event. Your freedom in Christ is real. But the word ransom is a figurative way to talk about these realities. Like all analogies, it breaks down. This one breaks down as soon as you ask the question: To whom was the ransom paid?

That’s a question you can’t answer because it violates the logic of the image. Take another example I’ve borrowed from Alister McGrath: If I call a field a flowers a sea of color, I mean (and you understand me to mean) that the wind blowing on the flowers makes them look like waves. It is the color and the movement I am describing. I do not mean that the flowers are salty and wet! So if I talk about a field of flowers as a sea of color, you do not ask me, “Well, how salty are they?” That doesn’t make sense.

In the same way, when scripture says Jesus gave his life as a ransom, we can’t ask: “To whom was the ransom paid?” The image just doesn’t work that way, and I’ll give you two good reasons way: (1) People have tried to answer that question, and ever time they end up with more difficulties than they solved. (2) The idea of ransom has Old Testament roots, and there it is obvious the idea is freedom.

Theologians in the early church were fascinated with the question, “To whom was the ransom paid?” The answer they almost always gave was the Devil. The story went like this: When humanity fell into sin, we came under the power of the Devil. We sold ourselves, as it were, so that he had rightful authority over us. Christ asked what the Devil would take in exchange for us. The Devil wanted Christ himself. So a deal was struck, but the Devil miscalculated. Because Christ is God and because he is sinless, the Devil could not hold him. So he lost humanity for nothing.

The problems with this are obvious. First, how crazy is the idea that anyone but God could have rightful authority over us? Second, it makes God sound kind of tricky. In seminary I called this the “bad check” theory of the atonement. God gave the Devil a check for the life of Christ on Good Friday, and on Easter morning it bounced. That’s kind of funny, but it doesn’t make much sense.

Sensing the problems here, one thoughtful theologian in the early church (John of Damascus) said that the enemy the ransom was paid to was death, not the Devil. But that doesn’t work too well, either, because it personifies death.

Theologians of the Middle Ages claimed the ransom was paid to God the Father. They pictured God as a feudal overlord whose honor had been offended by our sin. Sin, in this view, means failing to give God his due. God demands satisfaction! We can’t give it. But Jesus can. His death satisfies the Father’s honor and restores us to good standing with him. You may have heard preaching along these lines. I have. There are big problems, though. For starters, anytime you set God the Son against God the Father, you’ve made a mistake. You can’t have loving Jesus buying off mean ol’ God the Father, who will take nothing less than his own Son’s life to satisfy his honor. That’s insane. The Son and the Father are One. On the cross, God gave himself. That’s basic. Plus, I think God’s honor is bigger than that. It is too big for our sin to violate. Many theologians have obsessed about God’s honor and how sin violates it. I think that worry is misplaced. God is God, so he doesn’t have to worry about his honor. It’s only us tiny little people who guard our honor so carefully because deep down we know how small it really is. God is God, and your sin doesn’t change that. It doesn’t hurt God. It hurts you. But God loves you, so he cares. He cares enough to do something about it, namely come in the flesh and die on the cross.

When we talk about Jesus’ death as a ransom, we are talking about us being set free. It makes no sense to ask to whom the ransom was paid. The second reason I am sure of this is the way the Old Testament uses the same idea. It talks over and over about God redeeming his people from slavery in Egypt. What it means is, he set them free. God didn’t make a payment to anyone. The Israelites were slaves of Pharaoh. What payment did Pharaoh receive? Plagues, the death of his firstborn, the destruction of his army? Not much of a bargain for him! God didn’t bribe Pharaoh. God put him in his place and led the children of Israel out to freedom with a mighty hand! I think when Jesus used the word ransom, he had the Exodus in mind. In fact, I’m sure he did, because it was at the Passover meal, which celebrates the Exodus, that Jesus took bread and said, “This is my body, which is broken for you.” And the cup, which he called “the new covenant in my blood which is shed for the forgiveness of many.” He wanted his disciples—and us!—to know what his death was about. He wanted us to know that his death was no accident. It was God’s plan. It was his choice. He died in order to deliver us from sin and death. Once again, with a mighty hand, God reached down to free his people.

When scripture talks about the cross as a ransom, it is talking about our freedom. Don’t push the analogy where it was never meant to go and ask, “Well, to whom was the ransom paid?” Jesus’ death was a ransom the way the Exodus was a ransom. It was a mighty act of God by which he set his people free. …

When we think about the cross as a ransom, what difference does it make in our everyday lives? I’ve already said it: In Christ you have been set free, so start living that way!

You need to use your imagination again. This time imagine you were born into slavery. It is all you know. Then one day you are redeemed and set free. That’s how scripture talks about our experience as Christians. All our lives in slavery until Jesus sets us free. But what happens next? We are free, but we don’t know how to live free. All we know are the old habits and attitudes. So we spend the rest of our lives learning how to enjoy our freedom.

Romans chapter 8—arguably the best chapter in the Bible—says: “You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” You see, when Jesus ransoms you from slavery, he does not just set you free. No, that’s not enough for God, not by a long shot. He wants even more for you. He adopts you. You become his beloved child. From slavery to freedom to adoption—that’s the path of a Christian. Jesus does this. God’s grace and the cross and resurrection make it happen. Your part is to start acting like what you are. You are not a slave anymore. So don’t act like one. Sin and death have no control over you. So you need to grow out of those old habits. You are now a child of God. He has adopted you as his own. So you need to start acting like a child of God. That is the Christian life and the concept of ransom as simply as I can explain them.

Anytime you are reading scripture or singing a hymn and you see the words ransom or redeemed, you know what it means: Jesus sets you free! Already he has set you free from the penalty of sin. Right now he is setting you free—more and more every day, hopefully—from the power of sin. Someday he will set you free from the presence of sin. Then you will be fully free—a beautiful new creation of God. Already you are his own dear child. Someday you will look and act like him. Enjoy your freedom in Christ, and praise God for it! Amen.

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