With the end of the first century of the Christian Era and the death of John, the last intimate eyewitness of Christ’s ministry, questions began to surface: Who was Jesus? Why did He come? Why did He die? Responses to such queries came through a host of metaphors found in the Scriptures: the sacrificial Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world; the conquering King of kings; the Light of the world. Jesus was seen as the Son of God—a cosmic deliverer, an emissary from heaven, but also as the Son of man, identifying with us.

While the Bible speaks about reconciliation, atonement, adoption, and redemption, one of the most telling pictures lies in the idea of ransom. Jesus says, “The Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom (lutron) for many” (Matt. 20:28). And echoing Him, Peter says, “You know that you were ransomed (elutrōthēte) from the futile ways inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18, 19).

The idea of ransom was common in the ancient world. The word indicated something of value to be reclaimed from a pawnshop. It also referred to the purchase of freedom by a slave and the practice of paying ransom for release of a captured hostage or prisoner of war. Hence Paul’s comment, “You were bought (ēgorasthēte) with a price; do not become slaves of men” (1 Cor. 7:23).

I. The Ransom Price

However, the question was raised, If ransomed, who collected the ransom price? Interestingly, the Bible never says. Over the centuries a dramatic scenario took shape—part fact, part fiction. According to the tale, a deal was struck between the Father and Satan. Adam had sold his rights—indeed, his soul—to the devil. Knowing the Father’s earnest desire to have Adam returned, Satan demanded the ultimate price: the life of the Son of God, the final object of Lucifer’s hatred.

So Jesus came—so goes the scenario—and lived under the duress of Satan’s torment, and finally forfeited His life. But according to the story, Lucifer himself was fooled, for the Father raised His Son from the grave, leaving Lucifer with nothing but an empty tomb.

II. The Important Truth

Despite these imaginations, we discover here a nugget of truth. Christ did indeed give His life as a ransom for us sinners. There is a far more important truth than an answer to the question who received the payment, namely, that in Christ’s atonement a monumental price was paid to accomplish reconciliation between us, as fallen sinners, and our righteous God. “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Rom. 5:10).

Before a watching universe God demonstrated once and for all how far He would go to make possible redemption of lost sinners. In this extension of His love is revealed the manner in which Christ’s sacrifice partakes of ransom qualities.

We must never forget that it was our God who initiated our rescue, who reached out to us. “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself” (2 Cor. 5:18). And He continues to reach out to us today. When we accept His merciful invitation, we walk in the certainty of salvation guaranteed by Christ’s death and resurrection.

In one brief sentence Paul probes the depths of what it means for God to love: “But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). Three truths leap out at us. First, God demonstrates His kind of love. Second, we grasp our helpless condition as sinners. And third, we watch Him initiate the whole plan of salvation.

In God’s plan Christ fulfills the everlasting covenant, meeting a commitment crafted before the world was. He would volunteer to lay down His life for us. As Adventists understand especially well, He was fulfilling concurrently a purpose of cosmic proportions.

III. But what about His love?

Unfortunately, love has become an almost shapeless word. Often it is tied to sentiment, and even confused with a religious feeling. But as used in the Bible, love is a power word. Love is aggressive: God at work tracking us down to help us. Love is a principle. God’s love is an unshakable commitment, inviolable, a predisposition in our favor that cannot be discouraged. Divine love—there is no way to shake it or deter it. It is a relentless pursuit by a God eager to help, one who never gives up. In this sense God is love.

IV. More Than an Example

In the high Middle Ages a French monk, Peter Abelard, constructed what he felt described what love really means. It has come to be called the moral influence theory. Reacting against the coarse ransom idea of his time, he argued that in no sense was Jesus a ransom, rather someone elevated. If only we could grasp the nobility of God’s character, he reasoned, our self-ridden hearts would melt and be moved to repentance, and sin would be abandoned.

For Abelard, Christ’s death really was the ultimate demonstration of God’s love, hence a description of His character. So Jesus suffered with us to set the example. He identified Himself fully with humanity and tasted all of life. He suffered with the sinner rather than directly for the sinner. This theory reinterpreted the meaning of those texts that tell us Christ died for us.

Despite its core truth, Abelard’s doctrine fell far short of the full biblical picture. Its soft view of sin suggests that difficulty arises not so much from the sinner’s violation of God’s perfect character and His will as from his failure to understand God’s affection for him. It leaves little or no room for the biblical teaching that Christ came not only to demonstrate God’s love but to manifest His justice as well. With the atonement described principally in terms of enlightening us about His purpose, Christ’s work as a sacrifice dying for guilty sinners is muted. The focus falls especially on inward moral enlightenment, not so much on a plain and open outward death that resolved the major conflict sin had introduced in God’s universe. So Abelard brought us a partial truth—Jesus as the demonstration beyond all question of God’s unfailing concern for us.

Today, this view is widely held in Christian circles and also affects the Adventist Church. Some suggest that Christ came primarily to show His concern for us in our common human fate, to share our sorrows, to assure us God understands and cares. While all this has merit, it carries the subtle suggestion that, after all, sin is not really that serious and we should take final comfort in the knowledge that God never ceases caring. L. Morris writes: “The thrust in all this is on personal experience. The atonement, seen in this way, has no effect outside the believer. It is real in the person’s experience and nowhere else. . . What it [this theory] says is both true and important. It is when it is claimed that this is all that the atonement means that we must reject it. . . If Christ was not actually doing something by his death, then we are confronted with a piece of showmanship, nothing more. . . Unless the death of Christ really does something, it is not in fact a demonstration of love.”¹

But salvation means more than a good feeling between us and God. It means a grueling confrontation between God’s righteousness and human revolt that entangles us all. It means a love that carried Jesus to the ultimate sacrifice to obtain for us reconciliation with our Creator. The scene at Golgotha, in fact, means taking up the guilt of every sin and bearing its consequence: total alienation from God on Jesus’ part. Only here surfaces the depths of God’s self-sacrificing, persistent love.

Paul stated: “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures” (1 Cor. 15:3). Literally the text says Christ became our place of sacrifice (Greek, hilasterion), an unclouded reference to the ancient Hebrew sacrificial system. Both on the surface and at bedrock, the principle is substitution.

Typical of pagan religions, the ancient Greeks worked to appease their gods, quieting the gods’ anger and seeking favor with gifts and a regimen of specified deeds. Unfortunately, this concept persists among some Christians today, at times surfacing in arguments over faith and works. Because of associating the death of Jesus with appeasement of God—a pagan idea—it seems that substitutionary atonement is being rejected hastily.

V. A Case Study

According to 1 John 2:2 our forgiveness is secured because Jesus is our propitiation, expiation, or atoning sacrifice (hilasmos).² In the NT this term is found in 1 John 2:2 and 4:10 only. In the OT it occurs five times with various but related meanings. In Lev. 25:9 it qualifies the word “day” thereby referring to the Day of Atonement. In Num. 5:8 it describes the ram of atonement and in Ezek. 44:27 the sin offering. In Amos 8:14 it is translated with the term “guilt” and in Ps. 129:4 with the word “forgiveness.” In 1 John hilasmos is translated “propitiation” by the King James Version, the New American Standard Bible, and the English Standard Version to name some translations. The Revised Standard Version has rendered it with the term “expiation.” The New Revised Standard Version as well as the New International Version use “atoning sacrifice” for hilasmos.

What is the difference between the terms? Propitiation normally has to do with appeasing an angry God. God’s wrath against sin must be placated. Ben Witherington explains: “Propitiation is an act that appeases the wrath of God against sin or some offense, offered by a human being. Expiation, by contrast, is not something of which God is the recipient or object, but rather the subject, referring to the divine act of removing the defilement of or cleansing someone from sin, or covering or protecting someone from the consequences of sin.”³ This term sounds better today, because the biblical God is not associated with capricious pagan deities. However, by choosing the term “expiation” instead of “propitiation” the concept of divine wrath against sin referred to frequently in Scripture may be downplayed.

Therefore, a number of scholars favor “propitiation.” In this case, however, propitiation should not be understood in terms of the pagan background that occurs in non-biblical literature. J. Stott states: “The Christian propitiation is quite different, not only in the character of the divine anger but in the means by which it is propitiated. It is an appeasement of the wrath of God by the love of God through the gift of God. The initiative is not taken by us, nor even by Christ, but by God himself in sheer unmerited love. His wrath is averted not by any external gift, but by his own self-giving to die the death of sinners. This is the means he has himself contrived by which to turn his own wrath away . . .”⁴

The term hilasmos seems to include both the concepts of propitiation and expiation which may be reflected in the translation atoning sacrifice. John takes a stand against a false concept of sin and possibly against a false understanding of Jesus and his work. He portrays Jesus as our atoning sacrifice and intercessor.

VI. The Father’s Favor

In Christ’s death is no hint of the Savior’s effort to win the favor of the Father. With that favor already in hand, His confidence carried Him to Calvary, despite the shuddering of His human frame. Only on the cross, confronted by the withdrawal of His Father’s presence in revulsion against sin, did the stark break become clear. As our guilt fell on Him, there was expressed from His lips the agonizing cry, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).

With His final words, He surrendered His life into His father’s hands and suffered the second death, carrying the burden of rejection for rebellion against God. Here He stands in our place. His is the despair of lost sinners staring into a black hole of oblivion, devoid of hope: “The Saviour could not see through the portals of the tomb.”⁵ Death overtook Him as the abandoned sinner, alone, in the place where each of us really belongs.

Jesus came, not to appease, but to cancel guilt and cleanse sinners. In no sense is this bribery of God. Instead, it was a calculated divine plan of which Paul said, “This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3:25, 26). Rather than responding to God’s demand, it was done at God’s initiative.

Jesus paid our ransom and freed us, the captives of sin, showing us how God loves. But there is much more. Real understanding comes when we come to grips with the desperate nature of our sin problem and how God must deal with rebellion running loose in His universe.

At question is God’s righteousness, His justice. God undertakes to bridge the gulf. He substitutes Himself to demonstrate the changeless nature of His law, and performs all that is needed. Christ becomes the divine sacrifice, His cross an altar (see 1 Cor. 5:7). In amazement we stand aside, watching as He takes it up in our behalf. He “gave himself up for us” (Eph. 5:2) and “offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins” (Heb. 10:12). God “sent his Son to be the propitiation / expiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

VII. Conclusion

Jesus demonstrated how God loves. He came to bear the inevitable punishment for revolt against the infinitely righteous character of God. In Christ our sin was judged and condemned. God’s righteous nature remains intact and its violation dispatched. While we stood like wide-eyed children, He reconciled us, now to shower the benefits of the cross upon us who accept Him in faith. With the universe as witness to it all, what more could He do?