There Are Countless Captivities But Always The Same Ransom

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Pastor Foley

By placing the Work of Mercy of ransoming the captive within the fullness of the Scriptural context we’ve come to see in our posts this month how:

  • ransoming the captive is actually a ministry of ransoming the captor (who is revealed as most captive of all), and how
  • ransom is not paid to captors but rather embodied by us, as we who have been set free in Christ lay down our lives for captors in a re-presentation of the sacrifice of Christ, and how
  • all ransoming is a Work “outside the frame”–that is, rather than negotiating with terrorists and pimps and prison guards and hostile political forces according to the rules of their game, ransoming is an invitation and an invocation to God himself to manifest according to his rules and his power, and how
  • his power is most fully manifest on earth in his love of his enemies and his transformation of their hearts.

In short, as Jay E. Adams puts it, ransoming the captive is always a story of how an enemy of God “disowns the devil, denounces his cause, and deserts his army.”

Now on this firm foundation we get to ask: what does that look like in real life? Remember, Nan is still in the brothel, and whatever strategy we set needs to be applicable to that context.

But the great insight of the Scripture is that God doesn’t have multiple strategies for ransoming captives that vary according to severity of captivity, wealth of ransom-givers, or politics of parties involved. He has just one strategy, and it is equally and simultaneously applicable to the smallest captivities and to the largest, because all ransoming Work is always a re-presentation of the one and only ransom for sin, the Lord Jesus. Or as the Ransom himself puts it:

if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

So we’ll lay out the practical implications of that in the next four posts. To telegraph our punch, we’ll break out the Work of Mercy of ransoming the captive into four practical steps:

  1. Presence
  2. Planning
  3. Partnership
  4. Petitioning to God and Proclaiming to Captors.

Whether it’s Nan in the brothel, Mr. Bae’s parents in the concentration camp, or a custody battle in which one parent refuses to let the other see and spend time with a child, the pattern of the remedy is, amazingly, always fundamentally the same.

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Why Neither Nonviolence Nor Violence Are Ever The Right Strategies: The Great Insight That All Great Men Of History Can Only Ever Get From Jesus

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Pastor Foley

You might be surprised to see a piece on nonviolence materialize smack in the center of a month of posts on ransoming the captive, but this is actually right where it belongs.

Or, more accurately, doesn’t belong. Because on the basis of the posts we’ve laid out so far, we now have a sufficiently panoramic theological view to see why neither nonviolence nor violence are ever the right strategies for Christians when it comes to ransoming captives, and why Jesus truly is the only way to understand their strategic insufficiency.

As we talked about in the last post, the first rule of ransoming is to ransom the captor. It’s the revolutionary insight that evades videogamers and videogame creators everywhere: Mario should not seek to rescue Peach but should instead endeavor to set Donkey Kong free. Set Donkey Kong free and the endless levels of increasingly complex game play come, amazingly, to an end, no longer necessary.

Fanciful idealism? Hardly. It’s the great insight that’s woven into the very fabric of the universe–the only solution to ransoming the captives that does more than to displace, postpone, or exacerbate the otherwise intractable problem of captivity.

It is what Gandhi saw in Jesus that transformed his struggle against the British…into his struggle with the British for Indians and Brits to be set free, together.

It is what Martin Luther King saw in Jesus that transformed the American Civil Rights struggle as well. Once you see–really see–the captivity of those whom you were absolutely positive were your sworn enemies, nothing about the struggle can ever be the same again.

The insight, notably, has always come historically from people beholding Jesus and the way Jesus beheld his enemies–as captives even as they thought he himself was their captive–crying out to his father for them, not him, to be set free:

39 And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads 40 and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” 41 So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, 42 “He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” (Matthew 27:39-43, ESV)

4 And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34, ESV)

Regrettably, though great men apprehend much in beholding Jesus, there is one area where they still miss the essential Jesus (and thus, likely, his divinity). Our battle is not against flesh and blood: Correct. But this does not mean there is not a battle, and thus it does not mean that nonviolence is either the answer or even a viable strategy. There is a battle, of such magnitude and incomprehensible dimensions that it simply makes the fighting and nonfighting of humans silly and irrelevant.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12, NIV)

The Scripture does not say we do not battle. To the contrary, it says that the battle is on–against the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

And, incredulously, it says that we are the ones who battle against such forces. And this is why neither nonviolence nor violence are ever the right strategies, and why nonviolence is never advocated by Jesus or his immediate successors as the strategy; namely, earthly violence is simply on a different plane as heavenly powers or spiritual forces.

Mario can’t, in the terms of our diminutive example, set Donkey Kong free either through nonviolence or violence. They’re irrelevant–attempting either is a strategic category error. For  Donkey Kong to be set free, the software itself has to be rewritten–an intervention that is only possible from outside the frame of the game.

Nonviolence and violence describe the relationship between the avowed combatants in the contest. The recognition that combatants are actually co-captives is a epoch-shaking insight, to be sure. But by itself the insight remains pitifully insufficient to set captives free. It is why civil rights movements lead to advances but never quite to transformations.

No, nothing happens unless a force is definitively and permanently engaged from outside the frame. And the foundational testimony of the Christian faith is that there is but one such force: God himself.

And that is why Jesus acts neither nonviolently nor violently toward his captors as he hangs on the Cross. Instead, he acts toward the only force he ever acts in his life–the only force with which we ourselves should ever act in matters of ransoming the captive, or with regard to any matters at all:

44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. (Luke 23:44-46, ESV)

It is only when we are finally disabused of our faith in both violence and nonviolence that we can definitively engage the battle and unleash the one and only power so disruptive that prisons can contain neither captives nor the praise of those who, set free, sing the song of triumph of our God.

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First Rule Of Ransoming: Always Ransom The One Who Is Most Captive, Namely, The Captor

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Pastor Foley

Three Scriptures receive virtually no attention in the study of the Work of Mercy of ransoming the captive and yet are indispensable to it.

The first is 1 Timothy 1:12-16 (ESV), where Paul doxologizes:

12 I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, 13 though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, 14 and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15 The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. 16 But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.

The second is Ephesians 6:12 (ESV), where Paul contends:

12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

The third is Galatians 6:1 (ESV), where Paul exhorts:

Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

Put these all together and you get a fascinating–and fascinatingly neglected–3D Scriptural portrait of the Work of Mercy of ransoming the captive.

Rewind back to the first Scripture, 1 Timothy 1:12-16. Paul is referencing his Saul days, when he mercilessly persecuted the body of Christ. Did Jesus ransom the Christians who were captive to Saul? Yes. How?

By ransoming Saul himself.

Ephesians 6:12 explains why. It reminds us of an oft-forgotten or overlooked aspect of ransoming: The Work of ransoming goes deeper than the physical. Human beings don’t–can’t–control the power of sin and death, despite what we humans like to believe. Absent Christ’s intervention, sin and death control us. That is, the principalities and powers eat us for lunch.

The good news is that Christ’s death for sinners means full ransom for captives, not just the partial ransom of bodily freedom. As Jesus himself says (in Matthew 10:28), “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.” 

When you put on these 3D glasses, captivity is fully unmasked: The captor, ultimately, is just another captive, despite what he wants to believe (and what he wants you to believe as he snarls at you menancingly, too). Saul, the captor of Christians, is revealed as Saul, the captive of sin. If Christ were to ransom the Christians but leave Saul captive, that would still be impressive. But as Paul points out in Romans 5:6-8 (ESV), Christ moves beyond impressive to downright divine:

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Christ, in other words, regularly moves in a way contrary to human sight, understanding, and inclination, ransoming the one who is most captive, the captor himself. Reveal the captivity of the captor to the captor himself, set him free in Christ, and it is the captor himself who ministers to those whom he has been holding.

It’s a recurring theme in Scripture, like in the story of Paul and Silas and the Philippian jailer in Acts 16:25-34 (ESV):

25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, 26 and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened. 27 When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. 28 But Paul cried with a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” 29 And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. 30 Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. 34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.

And as we’ll see in our next post, it’s not a practice Christ discontinued once the Bible Days drew to a close.

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