Colossians 1:14 - Harmonizing Christ's Ransom Through The Bible

Colossians 1:14 and the Meaning of Ransom

And today we're going to be in Colossians and we will pick up sort of where we left off. I was trying to get my paperwork in the right place where I could pick up right where we left off. And I thought Matt was going to do another song and he didn't, so I didn't quite get it ready.

But now I'm ready. I get rid of that one. Get this one out and I'll be ready for you guys. Okay, well let's pray and we'll get started. Lord, we had so many requests today. So many people hurting and ill and grieving.

And Lord, we all came together in unity and agreed with our prayers led by Dave today. Thank you for Dave and Raymond, our deacons, and everything they do and how they love this church and the pillars of this church.

And Lord, thank you for Brother Paul and and for Matt and Ben now being called to preach. Thank you so much that you've given these gifts to our church. And may we all work together to be pillars of the truth and a lighthouse, a little lighthouse on a little hill in this big world.

And work through us, Lord, according to your will. We ask you to bless the study of your word today in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, well we're in Colossians chapter 1 verse 14. And it says, in whom we have redemption through his blood.

And that word is actually ransom in the original. And so we've been talking about the ransom. And if you remember last time, I gave you kind of a Webster's dictionary definition of the English word ransom.

The Greek word is the same. But I was looking at a big dictionary. So it has several definitions. My favorite goes like this. A ransom implies releasing from bondage or penalties by giving what is demanded or necessary.

That's my favorite definition out of all of them. Releasing from bondage or penalties by giving what is demanded or necessary to bring about that release. Does that make sense? That's what it is, what it always means.

And it always applies to the person, the person for whom the ransom is paid. Person or persons. No other persons, but only the persons for which that ransom was paid. There is argument and debate and has been for 2 ,000 years on who those persons are.

Who did Jesus give his blood for? And that's kind of what this study is about. And it's a surprising study if you grew up in the South, the Bible Belt, among predominantly Southern Baptists, a few independent Baptists and a whole lot of Pentecostals and Charismatics and Church of Christ, because nearly all the groups that I just mentioned don't get it on this issue.

They don't get it. They don't understand who the blood was actually given for. And they don't understand that everyone for whom it was given shall be in heaven because it is that blood that saves them.

They don't get that. And one of the reasons is because so many preachers are taught in the seminaries, certain things for one, but number two, they're taught to preach topical messages. So normally they're plucking a verse that they want to prove a point out of a context that they haven't even spent time reading.

And they make three points out of it and maybe a few sub points, but all of it or some of it could easily be out of context because they're doing that over a period of years and they think they already know the Bible.

But you and I know if you guys that are studying the Bible, you know that we understand why Paul so often said, let me remind you, brethren, because we forget things. We can forget several important things about a passage that we've read 10 times and we can go read it.

Or especially I like it when we're discussing it among some of us, you know, where several of us are talking about something that we've gone over a hundred times. We'll always learn something new that we never thought about.

It's always been in there, but we didn't see it yet. So when pastors get the point where they think they know the Bible and they just pull a verse out here and there to do a sermon, often they're out of context.

And that's one reason I think there's so much confusion. So I like that definition of ransom. It fits in very well with what scripture teaches about it. And so we've been studying this thing and I told you we would do it through three manners.

One is through the context, which we have completed that. We look at the context of some verses and there are several places in the Bible where the word ransom is found. The one that I chose in 1 Timothy to use is because it's the most difficult to understand.

It makes it sound like that Jesus died as a ransom for every individual. It makes it sound like that. There are no other passages where it sounds like that. So then you have to look at the one that seems to contradict all the others and you have to say, what am I not seeing here?

And so through looking at it in the context it's in, we can understand what it's actually saying rather than what it seems to be saying. Or you could put it this way, what actually means rather than what it seems like it's saying.

You got to look and say, well, what does it really mean? What is God saying here? And so that's so helpful to look at the context. But I said, we also look at number two, the grammar. I'm not talking about the definitions.

We've already done definitions. We did that kind of while we did the context, even with Webster's, right? But the third thing is that we're going to look at what the whole of the Bible says about the issue.

What does all of the Bible teach about this word ransom? Because you have to look at this verse in Timothy that we're studying and it has to fit all the other passages or else you've got it wrong. Okay, so it has to because God never contradicts himself.

So that's what we're doing now. We've finished the context part and I want to pick it up right there. So we were in first Timothy chapter two, verses one through eight to what we just completed. What's interesting about that, I've gone out and looked at what several commentators, even Greek dictionaries and different things that scholars have written about this word pos, where it sounds like it says that he was a ransom for all men.

That word all in Greek is pos, right? We've been studying that word. So as I look at what a lot of people say about that word, it's interesting because I found one case here. It's a scholar who writes on a website called biblestudytools .com.

I haven't read the whole site, so I can't recommend it to you, but I did read this part on pos and I want to read this to you and it's exactly what I've been saying. I just think it's healthy sometimes for you guys to see.

I don't make this stuff up, okay? That I'm not the only person that believes these things is the only reason I even brought this up. So just to kind of finish up the context part, this particular scholar says that the word has found 1 ,242 places in the Bible and in only half of those places is it translated all in the English Bible, which tells you that it has a lot of shades of meaning in Greek.

It doesn't mean just one thing. Only out of 1 ,200 places, over 600 places, it doesn't even get translated into the word all. So it doesn't always mean all, okay? So that's the first thing this gentleman pointed out.

He says it usually means one of two things and you've heard me say it, but here's what he said. Number one, it means all can mean every individual like each or every or any or all individuals. Number two, it can be used collectively to mean some individuals from all types of groups.

Have you heard me say that? Okay, that's the second way it's used. Now, more than half of the ways the word is used in the Bible, it does not mean every individual. So over 600 places, it doesn't mean that.

It means something else and usually means the collective word. Some individuals from different groups is normally what it means. Now, here's an example that this gentleman gave and I've used examples before too, but listen to this.

This is Matthew 3, 5. Then went out to him, and this is when he's talking about John the Baptist, okay, to give you the context, the early chapters of Matthew where it's talking about the forerunner of Christ, all right?

So talking about John the Baptist, he's out in the wilderness and he's preaching at the river, right? Then went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea, that's Pos, all Judea and all the region round about Jordan, and the little word Pos is used there.

And the author of this little study says, does anyone who reads that really believe that it means every individual in Jerusalem, Judea, and the entire region, that every individual came to hear John, or does it mean some people from all those regions came to hear him?

Which does it mean? So he said, so there's an example of the collective use of the word Pos. I think that's a great example. He says, other places in the Bible, the place in 1 John, I believe is where it is, where it says, you are of God, little children, and the whole world lies in the wicked one.

Now, if whole, and that's not the word Pos, but it's a synonym of the word Pos, the word whole. If whole means every individual in the world lies in Satan, then how could it say, but you are of God, little children.

So if Pos or a synonym of that means every individual, it couldn't make sense to say, you guys are of God, but the whole world lies in Satan. So it doesn't mean every individual in the world. It means some from all parts of the world are in probably most people, but not all.

So it doesn't mean all there. You see the point? Okay. So there's another example he gives. The words world and all are used in some seven or eight senses in the scripture. And it is very rarely that all or Pos means all persons taken individually.

Very rarely. The words are generally used to signify that Christ has redeemed some of all sorts of people, some Jews, some Gentiles, some rich, some poor. It's like I wrote that, isn't it? But I didn't write this.

This is what I found this other scholar saying, some rich, some poor, and has not restricted his redemption to either Jew or Gentile, but he's died for all men. Beautiful. Thank you, sir, for reading my stuff on the internet, wherever he got this.

He must've been reading stuff or listening to stuff being posted out on our site. I don't know. Okay. So now let's look at the grammar. Now, Charlotte and I had to talk about this at home and she says, she didn't say this, but she kind of strongly implied this.

Do you think you can keep everyone's interest if you talk about the grammar? And I said, no, I don't. I'm hoping Ben will be in the room and Dave and a few others, Ashton, a few others. No, I did spend, I literally spent maybe eight hours studying this one day.

That's all I looked at was this just for me to get it. Okay. And then this weekend I spent two hours after I finished it. And after I got it, I spent two hours this weekend, a week, some week or two later after doing the initial study, trying to see what could I, how could I say this where it won't put everybody to sleep and you'll get something out of it.

And so after two hours, I gave up. So here's what I've got after giving up on that. And Charlotte's solution was just skip it. So anyone that wants to go with Charlotte and get lunch ready at this point, you may be dismissed.

All right. So Greek grammar is like math. I've said so many times, it ends many false arguments about interpretation of scripture. It just ends the argument because the Greek is like math. It either means this or it doesn't use it so many places, not all the time.

Sometimes you can only tell something by the context, but even then, when you're looking at context, often you're looking at the grammar, the grammatical structures of the sentences and how the words fit together.

And in Greek, you have little articles. Well, we have it in English, like A and D, those are articles. In Greek, they're even more important and they're not used like they are in English, which makes it where it's easy to make mistakes if you don't study Greek and you try to use tools like Blue Letter Bible or something, and you don't understand about the articles, you might get something wrong.

That's why I have Brother Raj and other books that I read about Greek. And Ben and I are about to start to learn Greek, by the way, Dave, if you want in on that, you're welcome. Welcome to join, but we're going to start studying that together every week in a more formal manner because I've always felt convicted to do it.

But I've studied it a lot without a teacher, but one of the things that I understand about these is that the articles make big difference quite often. So, you know, I wrote something about John 3 .16 once, and I called it the most misunderstood verse in the Bible, but most of that is because of the fact they take it out of context.

They don't read verse 17 .18 with it, they just pluck 16 out. But I heard Dr. White, this gentleman that Ashton and Ben took Charlotte and I to hear him do a debate, I heard him in his debate against what I consider an atheist person.

He didn't claim to be one, but I think he was a non-believer that he was debating against. And one of the things that he used to win the debate was a little article that was in front of a word. And by the way, this gentleman is a Greek professor at seminary when he's not debating.

So like he teaches Greek, and he was pointing out how the little article in front of that word made the other gentleman's interpretation impossible. It cannot mean that. And so I had been doing this grammatical study on the word pos prior to going to hear that man.

So when I came back to it, because it was getting close to being time to preach this here, I came back to it about three weeks ago, I thought about what he said. I said, you know what? I'm going to look into the articles in here and see if they make a difference.

And it went, boom, look at this. I'd never seen this before. So it's really, it's not that this is something you need to memorize and just have in your pocket to use. This is the sort of thing that I give you just so you know it's true.

I just want you to relax in it. I want you to rest in the knowledge that this is actually how God said this. And it shows us the difference between every individual, if all means all individuals versus some from every group, it shows you another way you can get a sense of what God's meaning in it.

Which one does God mean when he says pos? And so it's pretty fascinating, I think. So I remember Dr. White, what he said was, you know, my opponent's going to try to go all over the place and pull stuff out of context and prove stuff.

And he said, but ladies and gentlemen, today we will force the opponent to stick with the text we are in and interpret it in context and correctly with regard to grammar. And then he went into the debate and boy, he did.

He nailed, if that guy is straight off out here, he said, well, actually that's great wonderful philosophy that you're proposing, but let's look at the text. And he would bring it right back to the five or six or eight or 10 scriptures they were supposed to be talking about.

And he would show stuff in the grammar. It's really, really insightful to see. All right. So in first Timothy two, one through eight, we see in verse one, Paul gives thanks for all men. There's the word pos is used there.

And I'm going to give you this. I don't really expect you to even take notes if you don't want to, but it's just something for you to know that this is true, but that is an adjective. It's used as an adjective, but it's in the genitive.

And I'll tell you what that is or remind you what that is in a minute is plural. And it's masculine in Greek. It, it often manners, whether it's singular or plural, whether it's feminine, masculine, or neuter, which means a thing rather than a person.

And in this case, it's genitive, which is information we need to know. Now in verse two, it talks about for Kings and for all that are in authority there, the words pos is used again, and it is an adjective.

It's genitive and it's plural and it's masculine. So it's the same, same usage, but we get down to verse four where it says he will have all men to be saved, which is a key verse for us to understand because that would contradict most of what scripture teaches.

For example, Jesus said, all men won't be saved. There'll be few that enter into the gate of heaven and many there be that don't. So it would contradict that concept. If it's true that God would have all people to be saved, it would contradict something God already said, something Jesus said.

So we have to take a look at this from a word meaning, from a grammatical and from a contextual viewpoint, or we'll get it wrong. Now what's interesting is it's not in exactly the same format as the other two, where it says he will have all men to be saved.

It is an adjective like the other two, but it's not genitive. It's accusative, which I'll tell you what that is in a minute. It is plural and it's still masculine. Now the accusative simply marks the object in a sentence.

So in English, we have different ways of marking object. It usually has to do with where it is in the sentence, but in Greek, it's a little word ending on the word. It shows that it's actually accusative, which means it's an object.

Now, then it goes down to verse six. It says, who gave himself a ransom for all, pos, for all. And that's adjective and it's not accusative. Now it goes back to genitive and it's plural and it's masculine.

So we told you what accusative is. It marks an object. What is genitive? Well, genitive is a case in Greek grammar that we have it in English too, but it's just not done the same way. But it's a little word ending at the end of a Greek word that shows us it's genitive and it expresses possession of something.

And so like the term that contains the genitive case ending on it, it possesses in some way or other, the word that it's describing. So if the word has that ending and it's genitive, it means it owns this word over here that it's describing or it's part of it or it has to do with it.

Does that make sense? So that's helpful to understand that. And then he goes in our passage, goes on out to verse seven and eight, where he talks about the fact that he is the apostle to the Gentiles, not just the Jews.

God came to save all men, not just Jews, but also Gentiles is in the context. So we start to think already that the word doesn't mean every individual. It means some from every group. We already think that because of the context.

So I want to point out, this is just simply from a bigger Greek dictionary than what you guys normally are using, because a lot of times you're using strongs with Blue Letter Bible and that's fine starting place.

But when you want to dig deep into the meanings of Greek, you have to look at these great big dictionaries, kind of like the big old, remember the old big dictionaries you used to have in school? You could have a dictionary like this and you look back, they got one like this in English.

It's like that for Greek. And this is called the Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains. Hmm. So you didn't used to have semantic domains, you just had dictionaries. So this is a deeper study into the Greek.

So looking at the word pos in that particular dictionary, it talks about the, you know, the different, like the pos is masculine, posa is Greek, and it gives the singular and it gives the plural and these different things to start out.

But then it just says, here's what it means. Number one, it means all, it can mean all, meaning every individual, it can mean each individual, or it can mean the whole, it can mean the whole of a group.

Usually that would be in plural, not singular if it means the whole, if it means every individual is usually singular. Okay, so that's wonderful. Then it gives a whole bunch of example verses where it's used to mean that.

Secondly, it can mean one out of a totality of something else. So that would be kind of more the meaning we think it means from the context of some people from every group. Some people from every race will be saved is this Greek word pos when it's used in the meaning of one of a totality.

And then it goes on in the fifth manner it can be used is every kind of. So you would interpret it this way in English instead of saying that God wants to save all men in English where it sounds like individuals, you would say he wants to save every kind of man.

You see how that helps? And that is more often than not the meaning in the epistles. He wants to save every kind of man, not just Jews. You get it? You've gotten that before from me, but we're going to see how the actual grammar helps with that.

That's just the definition, that part, but it's from a big dictionary. So it gives all the meanings of that word. We've already looked at the context. It tends towards every kind of as the correct translation in the Timothy verses we're looking at.

There's a Swedish biblical scholar who lived in the 1940s and 50s. He was a professor of New Testament at University of Basel. And his name is Bo Iver Reicht. And I want to show you his study on the grammar, especially with regard to the articles, either having an article in front of the word or after the word or not having it and how important that is.

Because that's really what I was looking for. And so this scholar divides the word poss into two categories, kind of like the previous scholar that I just read. But the categories he's looking at here is number one, it can be used as an adjective.

Now you guys remember if you've been out of high school for a long time, you may not, but which one, what kind of how many. So if you said, I have six apples, the word six is an adjective, which tells me how many apples.

If I said I had six red juicy apples, then six is an adjective. What kind, I mean, how many red is an adjective, what kind of and juicy isn't is an adjective, which means how you got to eat it with a napkin in your hand.

Right? So it's what, what kind of how many etc. It's an adjective. And the second use is as a noun. This word poss can actually be a noun in a sentence. Now he divides each of those two into two subcategories as an adjective.

And here's where it's important. It can be an adjective with the article or without it. And as a noun, it can be a noun with the article or without the article. Now, those are his divisions. They're important, or he wouldn't have divided them up that way, not even talked about it, right?

So they're important. Now, Reich makes the following comment on the word uses. He states that poss as an adjective, and we're not too interested on the noun part because in our scripture today, it's used as an adjective.

Remember at every point where I showed you down through verse eight, it's always an adjective. So he says, as an adjective, it can have very different meanings, according to its use with the article or without it.

Isn't that interesting? The use of the article normally depends on whether or not the simple noun would be with or without the article. So like if it's an adjective modifying a noun, usually if the noun has the article, the adjective will have the article.

If it doesn't, it won't. You got that? It's kind of simple grammar. So now he wants to talk about the adjective without the article. Well, it can have a couple of different meanings. One can be, it's called elative.

You won't remember this. It doesn't even matter, but elative is only used with abstract nouns, and an abstract noun is something that's not concrete. It's like a thought or a concept. It means abstract.

In our verse, we're not talking about abstract. So this doesn't even matter. So forget elative. It doesn't even matter. The other idea is called distributive, and this is what matters. Because distributive, when we have that word in math, some of you guys that take math, remember when you're trying to prove in algebra or geometry, you'll have the distributive principle.

So it's the same meaning in grammar, by the way. Did you know I took a grammar course at Baylor University, which was beyond what I had to take. I liked it, so I took an extra course in grammar, and the entire course was grammar as math.

So all the way, like the way that you structure a sentence and all that, it didn't use the way you learned here in school here. It learned math. It used math principles and concepts and terms to do the grammar.

It was really fun. I liked it. So you would use words like distributive in the grammar. Well, he's using it here. And so sometimes the distributive significance, sometimes it can mean like each, which would kind of like be more like individuals, like each individual or something like that.

Or it can be generic, which is each one from a group or some from a group. Now, when it means each one from a group, it's interesting because our scholar here points out that this particular word, pos, is weaker on that issue than a different Greek word, ekostos, that you could use to mean each or all.

We're looking at pos here, so ekostos doesn't matter. That's not the word in our text, right? Well, what's interesting is if the Holy Spirit had wanted to say that God wanted every individual to be saved rather than some from every group, he would have probably used the word ekostos rather than pos.

Because when you use ekostos, it means each individual in the group and maybe in all groups. It's a stronger word for individual. When you use the word pos, it can be more generic, meaning some from every group.

You see the point? So in the first place, the Holy Spirit did not use the strongest word for individual that he could have used. He used the weaker of the two, which can sometimes mean not every individual.

That's interesting to know. So this would mean not every individual being emphasized, but each one from a group, but without as much stress on the individual as the Greek word ekostos would mean. So without reference to the particular individuals in the group, it is speaking of some from different groups.

He then lists the following outline of the word's usage with these distinctions in mind. So number one, it could be an adjective with the article, and number two is going to be the adjective without the article.

Okay, so in our particular passage that we're studying, there is no article, just so you know up front. So that's going to be the one we're going to pay attention to. But he talks about, well, what if it has the article?

What if it doesn't? And ours doesn't, but so if it has the article, it can be in a predictive position with the demonstrative article implying significance, or it can be attributive where the content of the whole is emphasized in its totality, and normally it'll be in the plural if that's the case.

All right, so the word can mean whole or as a whole or generally as a whole when it's got the article. Well, ours doesn't have it, so I think we can forget about that. In all cases in 1 Timothy, the adjective is without the article, so forget that.

So now let's look at this. What about the adjective that's without the article? He says, okay, it's either elative, which is if it's abstract. Well, it's not abstract, so we can scratch that off. So now we get to the actual usage in our passage.

It has distributive significance. It could be translated each or it could be generic, which means each one from a group, and it's not the word that would be the strongest word for emphasizing the individuals in the group.

It's the word pos, which is weaker, which could mean some from all the groups, but it doesn't have to mean everybody in all the groups. So that's what our word actually is. Now, it's kind of interesting because when you have the adjective without the article, then the noun doesn't have it, and just so you can put this down, if Ben was here, he might want to jot this down, but he's watching babies.

He's probably listening back there, but it's the word anarthros, anarthros, A-N-A-R-T-H-R-O-U-S. An anarthros noun is a noun that doesn't have the article. Ben will use that, don't you think?

He'll definitely use that. But when it is one of those, then it's not immediately preceded by the definite article. It's an anarthros noun, and any, it can mean any, it can mean anyone. If it's with the plural, it can mean all or any from a class or some from a class and so forth.

Any and every kind of with the thing which the noun denotes. So the reason I put that in is because that phrase every kind of is what it often means when it doesn't have the article, is the best way to translate this in our passage.

God wants to save every kind of man, not just Jews. There you have it. So now I'm done with the grammar. You can take a deep breath. It was not extremely painful, but just so you know, the very grammar implies that you would have a stronger argument if you argued that it means every kind of person just from the grammar than if you said it means every individual person.

So now we've got the context strongly indicating it means every kind of person. You got the grammar indicating it most likely means every kind of person. And that leaves us to the last point. And that is what about the whole of the Bible?

The Whole Bible and the Ransom of Christ

So now it's 12 after 12, and I'm ready to talk about what the whole Bible says about this. Are you ready? Please proceed quickly. Okay. First Timothy 2 .6 is the first place we studied who gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time.

Now, if that means all individuals, it's going to contradict every other verse I give you in the whole Bible. Okay. So let's look at the next one. Matthew 20 .28. Jot these down. These are important. So you start out with the hard one, the difficult one.

First Timothy 2 .6, which we've spent so many Sundays discussing. And to make that one fit all these other ones, then you have to translate it like we did according to context and grammar that it means all kinds of.

Okay. Now, if you don't, you have a major problem. God contradicted himself, which he can't do. So Matthew 20 .28 says, even as the son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many, not all.

Now you can look the word many up if you want to, and it is the word many. And as I started the whole study with from a philosophical viewpoint, you can say that all can sometimes mean many, but you can never say that many sometimes means all because it never does.

Now let that soak in because it's important because in Matthew 20 .28, it says he died for many people. Now the Holy Spirit chose that word and he could have chosen the word poss or even the stronger word that we mentioned a moment ago that means every individual and he didn't.

He chose the word many. So Jesus in Matthew 20 .28 did not die for all people. He died for many people. Or you could say as in first Timothy 2 .6, he died for some people from every people group, which is many people.

And it fits. You see how the two fit together if you interpret them that way. And Matthew 20 .28 doesn't require any interpretation. It just means it says many. Mark 10 .45, Mark chapter 10, verse 45, for even the son of man came not to be ministered into, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for again, many, not all, but for many people.

This is why I believe Calvin was correct when he talked about limited atonement is what he called it, that Jesus did not die for every individual, but for the elect, which is many people. If you look at it from Adam and Eve till now, right, it's few people.

If you just look at people on the earth today, it's a, it's a very big minority. The people he died for as a small group compared to the whole, but it's many, many people. It's millions of people. If you go from the beginning of the world till time, Jesus comes back millions of people, many, many people that he was paid the ransom price for.

In Hosea, let's go to the Old Testament, chapter 13, verse 12, the iniquity of Ephraim is bound up. His sin is hid. The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him. He is an unwise son for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children.

I will ransom them from the power of the grave. I will, see verse 12 and 13 points out that that Israel was not perfect. They were sinful people. They deserved hell. They need to be ransomed, right? I will ransom them from the power of the grave.

I will redeem them from death. Oh death, I will be your plagues, God says. Oh grave, I will be your destruction. Repentance shall be hid from my eyes. Now, who do you think when it talks about, I will ransom them, is it talking to in that context?

Who is being spoken to? Everybody in the world or who? Ephraim only, which represents Israel. Not everybody in the world, but a particular group. So here in the Old Testament, the word ransom doesn't mean that universally every human gets ransomed.