Today’s Scripture: 1 Timothy 2:5-6

“Christ Jesus . . . gave himself as a ransom for all.”

If Christ paid our ransom price, to whom was it paid? Some have thought it was paid to Satan, who holds unbelievers captive, but this cannot possibly be true. If it were, there would be a sense in which Satan was victorious over Christ. If we think of the ransom in terms of money, Satan would be “laughing all the way to the bank.” The better answer is obviously that the ransom was paid to God acting in his capacity as Judge. It was God’s justice that Jesus satisfied, his cup of wrath that Jesus emptied, and his curse that Jesus bore as he paid our ransom price.

Once again, a human analogy of biblical truth ultimately breaks down when pressed to every detail. In human experience a ransom is paid to an adversary—a kidnapper, an opposing army, or a slaveholder. But God both demanded the ransom price and paid it in the death of his Son. In human experience we also recognize a distinction between the ransom price paid and the redeemer who pays it. Jesus, however, was both redeemer and ransom as he laid down his life in our place.

We should never cease to be amazed that the one who established the law and determined its curse should himself ransom us from it by bearing that curse in our place.

O, what wondrous love; O, what infinite wisdom! Our glorious God devised such a plan that satisfies his justice and upholds his law while at the same time providing a complete redemption for us from the curse of his law. Surely we need to say often the words of Jonah when he cried out from the belly of the fish, “salvation comes from the Lord” (Jonah 2:9, NIV). (Excerpt taken from The Gospel for Real Life)

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