Christ's Ransom, Bribe, Substitution, or (Irrelevant)?

For over a thousand years, Christians believed that Christ’s sacrifice was a ransom paid to the devil. Much of Christian doctrine has been developed in response to new ideas. This idea did not become an issue, so nobody studied it in depth for a long time.

The word ransom does appear once in the New Testament (Mark 10:45), and Satan is said to be the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4), but that’s not enough to support the theory. The theory was discredited by Anselm of Canterbury in the twelfth century. Anselm argued that instead, the sacrifice was a gift from God the Son to God the Father that restored God’s honor, which had been insulted by the Fall. In turn, God would simply forgive the sins of Jesus’ followers.

Anselm’s explanation fit the scriptural evidence better than the ransom-to-the-devil theory, but the Protestant Reformers, having been freed from Roman Catholic group-think, modeled scriptural evidence even better. They pointed out that Anselm’s theory created a violation of God’s Justice.

The current theory, held by most Christians, is that God could not simply forgive sins without violating one of His major attributes, Justice. Justice, not God’s ego, had to be satisfied. Therefore, God the Son, like a big brother, stepped in to bear our punishment (2 Corinthians 5:21). The gift of justification is sufficient for all and available to all, but only those who fully recognize their need for the gift and submit to God's free bestowal of His grace receive it. 

• (Tangents: 
• (Submit to God's free bestowal means accepting the gift as a free gift. This excludes thinking that we deserve the gift due to parentage, due to our own efforts such as good deeds (that are already owed to God) or participation in ceremonies, by the efforts of others (such as parents and priests baptizing us or saying prayers for us), or by our own perseverance.
• (Hyper Calvinism disagrees about the order of events in conversion. It claims that the gift is sufficient only for those God chose, and that people do not need to actively receive redemption because God takes the initiative in applying it to His chosen. Afterward, they submit because they have received redemption and enlightenment, not in order to receive it.)

Jesus was uniquely qualified to die on behalf of others.

• Being fully human, He could represent man.
• Being fully God, He could live a sinless life and had no sins of His own for which to be punished.
• Being infinite God, the value of His death was sufficient to pay for the sins of all humans.
• Being fully God, He could survive the punishment.

Unfortunately, we see a massive departure from basing theology on biblical evidence. Theologians who are more Marxist than Christian introduced the idea that Christ’s sacrifice was an example of love and not an act of redemption. Ideas like sin, guilt, sacrifice, and repentance offend their advanced, civilized sensibilities — not to mention their egos. 

That idea shows up in the teaching of many “New Evangelical” and mainline churches. They want to be "current" and "relevant," so they avoid offending people with messages about sin and Jesus's blood. The message focuses instead on how a relationship with God makes life better, safer, healthier, and especially, more prosperous. In this gospel, you don’t need God because your guilt would defile heaven and you could not bear to be in God's fiery presence; you need God because He wants to be your friend and provider.

Some call this recent message “sloppy agape,” wherein agape (ah-GAH-pee) is the Greek word for the highest level of love. In stead of obeying scripture's command to balance truth and judgment against love, they focus on love alone. Whereas the message of redemption portrays Christ's sacrifice as the elixir that cures sin's deadly disease, sloppy agape delivers a mere energy drink.

So we’ve gone from redemption being a ransom to the devil, to the sacrifice being a bribe to God, to a substitution for us in our punishment... and if we don’t correct the trend, to irrelevance.

Copyright 2019, Richard Wheeler. Permission granted for personal and non-compensated use, but please give credit where credit is due.