In Mark 10:45 Jesus says, " For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Jesus used the metaphor of ransom because it would have had a very specific meaning for people living in the first century (Dr. David D'Andre). Nowadays, we explain this word in different way, but the core is maintained the same.
Rephrasing Mark 20:45, it can be seen, that the phrase "to give his life as a ransom to many" can be equalized to "giving his life to redeem many". The meaning of the word "redemption" came to us back from the first century. At that time people were divided into the owners of the land and slaves that were also divided into two parts: Jews and aliens (were treated with the special harshness). Therefore, if a person was in debt, he, at first, sold his land, and then, if it didn't help, - a man would sell himself. Nevertheless, that person could be bought back by his relative that would redeem him. Redemption is a paym ...view middle of the document...
He doesn't die, though, for our sins, - He comes back; and His main mission is to get us back to holiness, back to our original stage: perfect, holy, sinless; in a word - back to heaven.
Focusing on the Lukan Travel Narrative, we see that there are some parables that can be easily explained with the application of the concept of ransom. Mostly all of them can be divided into two main parts: the original stage (where everything starts and ends) and the unnatural stage (where something or somebody is out of their original stage). The clear example would be a story of a lost sheep. Therefore, its original state was it's herd; unnatural - outside of herd. When a Shepard went to find it, he was redeeming it. As a result they made a party, because everybody, including that sheep, was at home. This means, the sheep didn't do anything wrong, because God created all of us perfect and holy. "Sin - is a sense of separation with God."(Dr. David D' Andre)
The idea of ransom is also related to the concept of repentance, forgiveness and eternal life. As repentance means changing your mind, it's meaning can be connected with a person, that changes his mind, while being in the unnatural state and comes back home (or wherever his original state is); or God, who allows us back into His kingdom, because His son paid for us. Forgiveness in ransom means we are forgiven by God because Jesus Christ paid for us by dying on a cross, in other words, redeemed us. The eternal life is seen as a continuation of our life, but in our original holy state. In order to get eternal life, Jesus tells us to love the Lord, love ourselves and love our neighbors, believe and be "in a family". However our "family" is the original state that is created by God. Before we were sinners, but Jesus redeemed us. After that we become clean, forgiven, innocent and never alone, - always with God. Eternal life means being born again, which is equal to salvation, immortality and can be defined as a process of being born again.
Analyzing for quite a long time the ideas, I've written before, I understood, that without the existence of God - I wouldn't exist; that He has got me in His mind all the time; and that He is my source of being. In a word, I am a unique, perfectly created human being, that is nothing, but "a thought in the mind of God."(Dr. David D' Andre)
