JP writes
Here’s the clue I’ve mentioned from the Old Testament about God being the recipient of a ransom. In Psalm 49:7–8, we read, “Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice” In Psalm 49:15, we then read, “But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me.”
I don’t think this is a direct reference to the ransom of Christ, but rather a picture of how difficult it is to get people out of Sheol, which is laying claim on all these human beings like a kidnapper. But it certainly is suggestive that if a ransom is to be involved in rescuing humans from death, it’s not going to be unbiblical to talk about paying it to God.
So when Jesus comes into the world, he says in Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:20, “You were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”
God Paid God
Here’s why I think the ransom was paid by God to God, and in what sense it was a ransom. The key text that is absolutely crucial, I think, is Romans 3:24–25. Here’s what it says: “[They] are justified by his grace as a gift” — that’s what it means to be treated graciously — “through the redemption” — the ransoming — “that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood” — in other words, a sacrificial offering made on the mercy seat to God to avert his wrath and restore men (what a ransom does is restore us to the rightful parent or God or whomever we’ve been kidnapped from, so to speak) — “to be received by faith.”
“The payment was not silver and gold, but the blood of Christ exalting and restoring the glory of God.”
The picture is the following: Man has fallen short — far short of the glory of God. He has offended the glory of God. He has besmirched and dishonored the glory of God (Romans 3:23). We have committed treason by exchanging the glory of God for images (Romans 1:23).
God in his holiness and wrath upholds the glory of his name by sentencing us in condemnation — to eternal suffering in hell. But he’s also a God of great mercy, and he prepared another way for his glory to be upheld in justice. That’s what Romans 3:25 is about — namely, by sacrificing his Son for those who believe ...
Free from Wrath
That sacrifice, Paul says, ransomed or redeemed people from the wrath of God. What a glorious gospel! Saved from the wrath of God! Romans 5:9 says, “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.”
That’s the big issue. That’s the big problem in the universe — God’s wrath. By the shedding of blood, we have escaped the wrath of God. The blood ransoms; it redeems from the wrath of God. If someone asked, “How did it do that? How did the payment actually work?” I would say that what was paid was the repair of God’s dishonor. The repair of God’s dishonored glory. The death of Jesus, in giving up so much glory out of love and honor to the Father, has repaired all that has been dishonored by the sins of God’s people. That’s what’s been paid.
In that sense, I think the ransom was paid by God in Christ to God in sending his Son to die. He died to rescue us from God’s wrath because we could never, ever pay the massive debt of glory that we owed to the Father. The payment was not silver and gold, but the blood of Christ exalting and restoring the glory of God.
