Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 314 · November 10
A Ransom for Many
“Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. The word to stay with is ransom, and it is the least religious word in the sentence.
A ransom is a price paid to get somebody out: a slave bought free, a prisoner released, a debt cleared by somebody who owed nothing. Exodus prices a life in those terms twice. A man whose ox has killed somebody may be allowed to buy his own life back: he shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid upon him. At a national headcount, every man was to give a ransom for his soul unto the LORD, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them. The small word after it carries as much weight: a ransom for many is a ransom in the place of many, one head counted for the crowd. Paul says it with the picture removed: who gave himself a ransom for all. Every English Bible bundled here, ten of them, keeps that word.
Look at when he said it. The mother of James and John has just asked for the two best seats in the kingdom, the other ten are furious, and he calls the group over to tell them that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and it shall not be so among you. Then the ransom sentence, at the end of an argument about rank, as the reason for all of it. The lowest place at that table is still not competed for, and the man who paid for you is in it, carrying dishes. You would be welcome beside him this week, in the one spot where you have been holding out for the better chair.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 314 is According to His Mercy (Titus 3:5).