Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Matthew 20:28
Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
28. a ransom ]=the price paid for the redemption of a captive from slavery. For the thought cp. Rom 3:24; 1Co 6:20 ; 1Pe 1:19. The English word is derived through the French ranon from Lat. redemptionem.
for many ] Cp. 1Ti 2:6, “Who gave himself a ransom for all.”
for ] Not , ‘on behalf of,’ but , ‘in the place of.’
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Mat 20:28
Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto.
A Divine mission
I. The son of man. Humility combined with dignity. Man was the offender, man must suffer the penalty. Not a fictitious manhood, but real like our own. This ought to attract us to Him, for He is akin in nature and sympathy.
II. He came. The errand unique as the Person who undertook it. He came voluntarily on an errand of mercy.
III. Not to be ministered unto, but to minister. He had not a selfish thought in His soul. Does He want servants? Thousands of angels are His chariot. He served in the workshop, home, amongst His disciples. As the Son of Man in heaven he continues a kind of service to His people.
IV. And to give his life. We have no lives to give. They are forfeited to Divine justice. His death was voluntary. Christ did not come into the world merely to be an example, or merely to reveal the Godhead. His sacrifice was substitutionary.
V. A ransom. Every male person among the Jews belonged to God, and must be redeemed. The price was the ransom. Jesus redeems us from the curse of the law.
VI. For many. The word for has a vicarious meaning. He gave His life instead of many.
1. Man is not redeemed from the bondage of his sins without a price. -No one goes free by the naked mercy of God.
2. That price must be a life. Not merely a character. The question has been asked, Who receives the ransom? Not Satan. Satan has no rights. It was paid to the Great Judge. This is a mystical way of speaking. The sufferings of Christ vindicate the law and render mercy possible.
3. What is the result of this? Man is redeemed. He is no longer a slave. Did Jesus Christ redeem you? (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Saviours character, life, and death
I. His character Christ Divine. This being premised we can bring forward two satisfactory reasons why He called Himself the Son of Man.
1. Because He would gradually develop Himself.
2. Because our concern with Him principally lies in His assuming human nature.
II. His life. Came not to be ministered unto, etc. This fills us with astonishment, when we remember the place from which He descended. Our Saviour could derive nothing from external appendages.
1. Admire His condescension.
2. Resemble Him therein,
III. His death.
1. Consider Him as a ransom.
2. It was intentional.
3. It was voluntary.
4. It regards the personal esteem He has for His people.
5. We see here where a poor burdened conscience can alone find relief.
6. Let the love of Christ strike your minds.
7. If He has ransomed you, you are not your own. (W. Jay.)
A ministering Christ
I. The negative object of Christs coming-Not to be ministered unto.
II. The positive object of his coming-To minister, etc.
1. The scenes of His private life. Christ a carpenter.
2. The scenes of His public life. Wearisome toils. Lesson-
(1) Be clothed with humility;
(2) Gratitude to Christ for His love;
(3) Repentance. (H. L. Nicholson, B. A.)
Christ the servant and the Saviour of His people
I. The service he rendered to man by his life.
1. He came not to be ministered unto as regards His external authority. He might have excited the admiration of the world by His outward show; but He was poor.
2. He came to minister as regarded instruction.
II. The blessing he effected for man by his death.
1. The blessing procured.
2. The means by which this blessing was procured. He gave His life, etc.
3. The number for whom this blessing was procured. (J. Sibree.)
True greatness the result of personal service
The patriot is great, but he has served his country. The philosopher by the force of his genius has enlarged the sphere of human knowledge, thus of the greatest use to mankind. The same true in religion. Christ was not introducing a strange precept when He said that the men who are the most eminent in life are the most literally the servants of the public.
1. The greatness thus derived from usefulness may be augmented or decreased by the meanest of those you employ.
2. The touching reference of our Lord to His own case. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
Christian humility
He is the most lovely professor, who is the most lowly professor. As incense smells the sweetest when beaten the smallest, so saints look fairest when they lie lowest. Arrogance in the soul resembles the spleen in the body, which grows most, while other parts are decaying. God will not suffer such a weed to grow in His garden, without taking some course to root it up. (Archbishop Secker.)
Christ stooping to save
The mother, wan and pale with incessant vigils by the bedside of a sick child;-the fireman, maimed for life in bravely rescuing the inmates of a blazing house;-the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae;-Howard, dying of fever caught in dungeons where he was fulfilling his noble purpose of succouring the oppressed and remembering the forgotten;-the Moravian missionaries, who voluntarily incarcerated themselves in an African leper-house (from which regress into the healthy world was impossible, and escape only to be ejected through the gates of death), in order that they might preach the glad tidings to the lepers,-all these, and many other glorious instances of self-devotion, do but faintly shadow forth the love of Him who laid aside Divine glory, and humbled Himself to the death of the cross.
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 28. A ransom for many.] , or a ransom instead of many, – one ransom, or atonement, instead of the many prescribed in the Jewish law. Mr. Wakefield contends for the above translation, and with considerable show of reason and probability.
The word is used by the Septuagint for the Hebrew , pidion, the ransom paid for a man’s life: see Ex 21:30; Nu 3:49-51; and is used Nu 35:31, where a satisfaction (Hebrew copher, an atonement) for the life of a murderer is refused. The original word is used by Lucian in exactly the same sense, who represents Ganymede promising to sacrifice a ram to Jupiter, , as a ransom for himself, provided he would dismiss him.
The whole Gentile world, as well as the Jews, believed in vicarious sacrifices. Virgil, AEn. v. 85, has nearly the same words as those in the text. “UNUM PRO MULTIS dabitur CAPUT,” – One man must be given for many. Jesus Christ laid down his life as a ransom for the lives and souls of the children of men. In the Codex Bezae, and in most of the Itala, the Saxon, and one of the Syriac, Hilary, Leo Magnus, and Juvencus, the following remarkable addition is found; “But seek ye to increase from a little, and to be lessened from that which is great. Moreover, when ye enter into a house, and are invited to sup, do not recline in the most eminent places, lest a more honourable than thou come after, and he who invited thee to supper come up to thee and say, Get down yet lower; and thou be put to confusion. But if thou sit down in the lowest place, and one inferior to thee come after, he who invited thee to supper will say unto thee, Go and sit higher: now this will be advantageous to thee.” This is the largest addition found in any of the MSS., and contains not less than sixty words In the original, and eighty-three in the Anglo-Saxon. It may be necessary to remark, that Mr. Marshall, in his edition of the Gothic and Saxon Gospels, does not insert these words in the text, but gives them, p. 496 of his observations. This addition is at least as ancient as the fourth century, for it is quoted by Hilary, who did not die till about A. D. 367.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
So saith Mark, Mar 10:45. The apostle saith, Phi 2:7 he made himself of no reputation, and took on him the form of a servant. Our Saviour had before taught them, that the disciple is not above his master. Such, saith our Saviour, as is the King in my kingdom, such must the rulers and great persons in it be. See what a kingdom I have; I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, to serve the necessities of mens and womens souls and bodies; and to give my life a ransom for many, lutron, a redemption price. The apostle useth , which signifieth a price paid instead of another, 1Ti 2:6. So as there is no further satisfaction or price to be paid for any.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
Even as the son of man,…. Meaning himself, the seed of the woman, the son of Abraham, and of David, according to the flesh; and whom he proposes as an example of humility, and as an argument to draw them off from their ambitious views of worldly grandeur, and from all thoughts of the Messiah’s setting up a temporal kingdom; since he
came not to be ministered unto by others; to be attended on in pomp and state, to have a numerous retinue about him, waiting upon him, and ministering to him; as is the case of the princes, and great men of the world; though he is Lord of all, and King of kings;
but to minister; in the form of a servant unto others, going about from place to place to do good, both to the bodies and souls of men: he “came” forth from his Father, down from heaven, into this world, by his assumption of human nature, to “minister” in the prophetic office, by preaching the Gospel, and working miracles, in confirmation of it; and in the priestly office, one branch of which is expressed in the next clause,
and to give his life a ransom for many: what he came to give was his life, which was his own, and than which nothing is more dear and precious: besides, his life was an uncommon one, being not only so useful to men, and entirely free from sin in itself, but was the life of the man Jesus, who is in union with the Son of God: this he came to “give”, and did give into the hands of men, to the justice of God, and death itself; which giving, supposes it to be his own, and at his own disposal; was not forfeited by any act of his, nor was it forced from him, but freely laid down by him; and that as a “ransom”, or redemption price for his people, to deliver them from the evil of sin, the bondage of Satan, the curses of a righteous law, from eternal death, and future wrath, and, in short, from all their enemies: which ransom price was paid “for” them in their room and stead, by Christ, as their substitute; who put himself in their legal place, and laid himself under obligation to pay their debts, and clear their scores, and redeem them from all their iniquities, and the evil consequences of them: and this he did “for many”; for as many as were ordained to eternal life; for as many as the Father gave unto him; for many out of every kindred, tongue, and people, and nation; but not for every individual of human nature; for many are not all.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
A ransom for many ( ). The Son of man is the outstanding illustration of this principle of self-abnegation in direct contrast to the self-seeking of James and John. The word translated “ransom” is the one commonly employed in the papyri as the price paid for a slave who is then set free by the one who bought him, the purchase money for manumitting slaves. See examples in Moulton and Milligan’s Vocabulary and Deissmann’s Light from the Ancient East, pp. 328f. There is the notion of exchange also in the use of . Jesus gave his own life as the price of freedom for the slaves of sin. There are those who refuse to admit that Jesus held this notion of a substitutionary death because the word in the N.T. occurs only here and the corresponding passage in Mr 10:45. But that is an easy way to get rid of passages that contradict one’s theological opinions. Jesus here rises to the full consciousness of the significance of his death for men.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
A ransom for many. Compare Sophocles, “Oed. Col.,” 488.
“For one soul working in the strength of love Is mightier than ten thousand to atone.”
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
28. As the Son of man Christ confirms the preceding doctrine by his own example; for he voluntarily took upon himself the form of a servant, and emptied himself, as Paul also informs us, (Phi 2:7.) To prove more clearly how far he was from indulging in lofty views, he reminds them of his death. “Because I have chosen you to the honor of being near me, you are seized by a wicked ambition to reign. But I — by whose example you ought to regulate your life — came not to exalt myself, or to claim any royal dignity. On the contrary, I took upon me, along with the mean and despised form of the flesh, the ignominy of the cross. If it be objected, that Christ was:
exalted by the Father, in order that every knee might bow to him, (Phi 2:9,)
it is easy to reply, that what he now says refers to the period of his humiliation. Accordingly, Luke adds, that he lived among them, as if he were a servant: not that in appearance, or in name, or in reality, he was inferior to them, (for he always wished to be acknowledged as their Master and Lord,) but because from the heavenly glory he descended to such meekness, that he submitted to bear their infirmities. Besides, it ought to be remembered that a comparison is here made between the greater and the less, as in that passage,
If I, who am your Master and Lord, have washed your feet, much more ought you to perform this service to one another, (Joh 13:14.)
And to give his life a ransom for many. Christ mentioned his death, as we have said, in order to withdraw his disciples from the foolish imagination of an earthly kingdom. But it is a just and appropriate statement of its power and results, when he declares that his life is the price of our redemption; whence it follows, that we obtain an undeserved reconciliation with God, the price of which is to be found nowhere else than in the death of Christ. Wherefore, this single word overturns all the idle talk of the Papists about their abominable satisfactions Again, while Christ has purchased us by his death to be his property, this submission, of which he speaks, is so far from diminishing his boundless glory, that it greatly increases its splendor. The word many ( πολλῶν) is not put definitely for a fixed number, but for a large number; for he contrasts himself with all others. (667) And in this sense it is used in Rom 5:15, where Paul does not speak of any part of men, but embraces the whole human race.
(667) “ Il prend PLUSIEURS, non pas pour quelque certain nombre, mais pour les autres: car il fait une comparaison de sa personne a tout le reste des hommes;” — “He takes MANY, not for any fixed number, but for the others; for he makes a comparison of his person with all the rest of men.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(28) Not to be ministered unto.The words found a symbolic illustration when our Lord, a few days afterwards, washed the feet of the disciples who were still contending about their claims to greatness (Joh. 13:3-4); and the manner in which St. John connects the act with our Lords manifested consciousness of His supreme greatness, seems to show that the words which we find here were then present to his thoughts. The Son of Man seemed to the beloved disciple never to have shown Himself so truly king like and divine as when engaged in that menial act. But that act, we must remember, was only an illustration; and the words found their true meaning in His whole life, in His poverty and humiliation, in the obedience of childhood, in service rendered, naturally or super-naturally, to the bodies or the souls of others.
To give his life a ransom for many.The word rightly rendered ransom, is primarily a price made for deliverance, and in this sense it is found in the Greek version of the Old Testament for the ransom which is accepted instead of a mans life in Exo. 21:30, for the price of redemption accepted as an equivalent for an unexpired term of service in Lev. 25:50, for riches as the ransom of a mans life in Pro. 13:8. No shade of doubt accordingly rests on the meaning of the word. Those who heard could attach no other meaning to it than that He who spake them was about to offer up His life that others might be delivered. Seldom, perhaps, has a truth of such profound import been spoken, as it were, so incidentally. It is as if the words had been drawn from Him by the contrast between the disputes of the disciples and the work which had occupied His own thoughts as He walked on in silent solitude in advance of them. It is the first distinct utterance, we may note, of the plan and method of His work. He had spoken before of saving the lost (Mat. 18:11): now He declares that the work of salvation was to be also one of redemption. It could only be accomplished by the payment of a price, and that price was His own life. The language of the Epistles as to the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, our being bought with a price (Rom. 3:24; 1Co. 6:20), redeemed by His precious blood (1Pe. 1:19), the language of all Christendom in speaking of the Christ as our Redeemer, are the natural developments of that one pregnant word. The extent of the redemptive work, for many, is here indefinite rather than universal, but the ransom for all of 1Ti. 2:6 shows in what sense it was received by those whom the Spirit of God was guiding into all truth. Even the preposition in, for many has a more distinct import than is given in the English version. It was, strictly speaking, a ransom instead of, in the place of, ( not ) many. Without stating a theory of the atonement, it implied that our Lords death was, in some way, representative and vicarious; and the same thought is expressed by St. Pauls choice of the compound substantive , when, using a different preposition, he speaks of it as a ransom for (, i.e., on behalf of) all men (1Ti. 2:6).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
28. Give his life Even as the Son of man showed himself greatest of all by the greatest sufferings and sacrifices of all. Give his life a ransom An atonement an atonement by death, an atonement by substitution is here briefly but powerfully expressed. The Saviour will give his life as a ransom for the souls of many. Now a ransom is always a substitute. The price paid is put in the place of the bondage of the ransomed person. If a sum be paid to ransom a slave, the money goes to the master, in the place of the slave’s servitude. If the ransom goes to redeem a captive, the ransom is placed to the conqueror, in the room of the captive. If a Damon gives his life to ransom Pythias from the scaffold, Damon’s death is the substitute for Pythias’s death. And so if Christ’s death be given to ransom sinners from death, his death must be a substitute for their death. He dies in their stead. His death is temporal, and theirs is eternal. So that if they by faith accept his death in place of their own, they may be saved from that impending doom.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“Even as the Son of man came, not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
And they must take as their supreme example the Son of Man. He Who was destined to come out of suffering to receive the throne and the glory, had not come to exercise lordship and vaunted authority, nor to look to men to serve Him and cringe be humble before Him, nor to sit on a throne of pride. Rather He had come to serve, and His future throne would be a throne of service (Luk 12:37; Luk 22:27). And in the last analysis His service on earth would in His case involve Him in total humiliation and in giving His life a ransom for many. He would fulfil the sacrificial ministry of the Isaianic Servant.
That the Suffering Servant of Isaiah 50, 53 was in mind here can hardly be doubted. Jesus was declared to be the Servant after His baptism (Mat 3:17) and at His Transfiguration (Mat 17:5), while the context here is one in which the idea of lowly service is emphasised, and it comes at the end of Matthew’s ‘Isaianic section’, the section in which he cites Isaiah by name to the exclusion of all other Scriptural writers, see Mat 3:3; Mat 4:14; Mat 8:17; Mat 12:17; Mat 13:14) prior to His presentation of Himself as the King (see introduction). But in this case, as Jesus has not specifically cited Isaiah, so nor will Matthew. Compare and contrast possible other references to Isaiah 53 in Mat 26:27-28; Mat 27:12; Mat 27:57. Note further how ‘to give His life (soul)’ parallels ‘you make his life (soul)’ (Isa 53:10).
On top of this the idea of ‘the many’ is prominent in Isa 53:11-12, and the whole chapter is involved with His giving of His life as a lifegiving sacrifice, epitomised in the guilt offering in Isa 53:10, and thus as ransom, a price paid for deliverance. The idea of God’s deliverance of His people by ransoming them is found in Isa 35:10, where it results in deliverance from the enemies of God; in Isa 43:3-4 where He gives up other peoples as a ransom on His people’s behalf; in Jer 31:11 where He ransoms and redeems His people, delivering them from a stronger than he (Jacob); in Job 33:24 where the ransom He has found delivers from the Pit; and in Hos 13:14 where He will ransom His people from the hand of the grave. In Isaiah 53 this is portrayed in terms of a sacrificial offering so that God’s righteous demands are also satisfied. We can compare with this Jesus’ words at the Last Supper ‘this is my blood of the covenant which is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins’ (Mat 26:28), where the reference is equally clearly to Isa 53:10.
‘Ransom (lutron)’ is used only here and the parallel passage (Mar 10:45), in the New Testament, although Paul uses ’antilutron in 1Ti 2:6. In secular Greek lutron was used for the ransom of a prisoner of war or of a slave. In LXX it was used of the price a man paid to redeem his life which was forfeit because his ox had gored someone to death (Exo 21:30), the price paid for the redemption of the firstborn (Num 18:15), the price paid by which the next of kin obtained the release of an enslaved relative (Lev 25:51-53) or the price paid for the redemption of a mortgaged property (Lev 25:26). It was a payment made to obtain release and freedom, paid in substitution for what was obtained. Compare 1Pe 1:18; Heb 9:12.
‘A ransom for many’ equals ‘lutron anti pollon’. This unquestionably refers to a substitutionary ransom (anti combined with the idea of ransom must be substitutionary), and thus a price paid for deliverance (compare 1Co 6:20; 1Pe 1:18-19), while the ‘guilt offering’ (‘asam) of Isa 53:10 is the sacrificial equivalent of a ransom, as can be seen from the description of the vicarious guilt offering in Leviticus 5, and note also that there ’asam also indicates a compensatory payment. And indeed the whole of Isaiah 53 is the picture of someone giving Himself for His people. It is not difficult therefore to see in it the payment of a price for their deliverance.
Thus the theme of forgiveness and salvation continues. In Mat 1:21 He was called Jesus because He would save His people from their sins. In Mat 6:12 He has taught His disciples to pray for the forgiveness of their sins. In Mat 18:23-35 He has revealed the hugeness of God’s forgiveness to the totally undeserving. In Mat 26:28 He will reveal that His blood of the covenant will be shed for the forgiveness of sins. It is in these terms that we can see the payment of the ransom, for He comes as the One Who has come as the Servant on Whom our iniquities were laid (Isa 53:6), as the guilt offering offered on our behalf (Isa 53:10), that we might be forgiven (Lev 5:10), and as the One through Whom we will be accounted righteous because He has borne our iniquities (Isa 53:11) .
It is sometimes questioned how far this idea of a ransom paid can relate to the earlier context, in that it was not something in which His disciples could follow Him. But two things must be born in mind, firstly that He wishes to give an example for His disciples to follow of supreme sacrifice, and secondly that while, of course, it is true that His disciples could not emulate His sacrifice to its fullest extent, Paul certainly saw them as participating in it to some extent as they gave themselves up to suffering and tribulation in order to expand the Kingly Rule of God and win men to Christ (Col 1:24). And there is no doubt that elsewhere also Jesus saw His own self-sacrifice as the very pattern of true Christian love, and as thus an example of the love that His disciples should have for each other (Joh 15:12-13).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Mat 20:28. Even as the Son of man “The greatness of my disciples consists in doing men all the good they possibly can, by a continual course of humble laborious services, in imitation of me your master, whose greatness consists not in being ministered to by men, but in ministering to them as a servant; by healing the sick, feeding the hungry, instructing the ignorant, and laying downmy life a ransom for the sins of many.” This being the highest dignity in Christ’s kingdom, he might well tell the two brothers, that they did not know what they were asking, when they begged the honour of filling the highest stations in it. Instead of not to be ministered unto, but to minister, Dr. Heylin reads, not to be served, but serve; and instead of let him be your servant, Mat 20:27 let him perform the meanest offices. It does not follow, that because it is said Christ gave his life a ransom for many, that Christ died not for all. The word being used in other places, where it most evidently signifies all. See Dan 12:2 compared with Joh 5:28-29. Rom 5:15 compared with 1Co 15:22.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Mat 20:28 . ] “summum exemplum,” Bengel. Comp. Phi 2:5 ; Rom 15:3 ; Polyc. Phil . 5: . Observe here the consciousness, which Jesus had from the very first, that to sacrifice himself was His great divine mission. Comp. Dorner, sndlose Vollk. Jesu , p. 44 ff.
] to be waited upon , as grandees are.
] intensive ; adding on the highest act , the culminating point in the ; but is made choice of, because the ( the soul , as the principle of the life of the body) is conceived of as ( a ransom ); for, through the shedding of the blood (Mat 26:28 ; Eph 1:7 ), it becomes the of the redemption, 1Co 6:20 ; 1Co 7:23 . Comp. note on Joh 10:11 .
] denotes substitution. That which is given as a ransom takes the place (is given instead ) of those who are to be set free in consideration thereof. The (Plat. Legg. xi. p. 919 A, Rep . p. 393 D, Thuc. vi. 5. 4) is an (1Ti 2:6 ), (Mat 16:26 ). Whether should be joined to , which is the simpler course, or connected with , is a matter of perfect indifference (in answer to Hofmann, Schriftbew . II. 1, p. 300) so far as the meaning of is concerned. In any case, that meaning is strictly and specifically defined by ( ), [6] according to which can only be understood in the sense of substitution in the act of which the ransom is presented as an equivalent to secure the deliverance of those on whose behalf it is paid, a view which is only confirmed by the fact that in other parts of the New Testament this ransom is usually spoken of as an expiatory sacrifice , Mat 26:28 ; Joh 1:29 ; 1Jn 4:10 ; Rom 3:25 ; Isa 53:10 ; 1Pe 1:18 f., 1Pe 3:18 . That which they are redeemed from is the eternal , in which, as having the wrath of God abiding upon them (Joh 3:36 ), they would remain imprisoned (Joh 3:16 ; Gal 3:13 ; 2Co 5:21 ; 1Pe 2:24 ; Col 1:14 ; Col 2:13 f.) as in a state of hopeless bondage (Heb 2:15 ), unless the guilt of their sins were expiated.
] The vicarious death of Jesus may be described as having taken place for all ( Rom 5:18 ; 1Ti 2:6 ; 1Jn 2:2 ), or for many (so also Mat 26:28 ; Heb 9:28 ), according as we regard it as an objective fact (that fact being: Jesus has given His life a ransom for all men), or look at it in relation to the subjective appropriation of its results on the part of individuals (which happens only in the case of believers). So in the present case, where, accordingly, is to be understood as meaning all who believe now and will believe hereafter (Joh 17:20 ).
[6] Ritschl, in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol . 1863, p. 222 ff., defines as meaning something given by way of equivalent in order to avert death; this, however, is not sufficient, for, throughout the Sept. also, in which is rendered by (Exo 21:30 ; Exo 30:12 ; Num 35:31 f.; Pro 6:35 ; Pro 13:8 ), pretium redemtionis is found to be the specific meaning given to the word, although the connection may sometimes admit ex adjuncto the additional idea of something given for the purpose of averting death. The Sept. likewise adheres to the same meaning in cases where other expressions are rendered by , such as (Lev 25:24 ; Lev 25:51 ), (Num 3:51 ), (Exo 21:30 ), (Isa 45:13 ). Ritschl interprets our present passage as follows: “I am come to give away my life to God in sacrifice, that I may become the substitute of those who could never hope to succeed in finding, either for themselves or others, any adequate ransom as a means of securing their exemption from death; but the substitute only of those who, through faith and self-denying devotion to my person, fulfil the condition on which alone the ransom furnished by me can procure the hoped for exemption,” p. 238.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
28 Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
Ver. 28. And to give his life a ransom ] A redemptory, a valuable rate, , for it was the blood of God wherewith the Church was purchased, Act 20:28 ; silver and gold could not do it, 1Pe 1:18-19 ; nor anything else but that ransom given by Christ, , 1Ti 2:6 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Mat 20:28 . , in Mk.; both phrases introducing reference to the summum exemplum (Bengel) in an emphatic way. lends force to = even as, observe. . . : an important instance of the use of the title. On the principle of defining by discriminating use it means: the man who makes no pretensions, asserts no claims. points to the chief end of His mission, the general character of His public life: not that of a Pretender but that of a Servant . , to give His life, to that extent does the service go. Cf. Phi 2:8 : , there also in illustration of the humility of Christ. It is implied that in some way the death of the Son of Man will be serviceable to others. It enters into the life plan of the Great Servant. , a ransom, characterises the service, another new term in the evangelic vocabulary, suggesting rather than solving a theological problem as to the significance of Christ’s death, and admitting of great variety of interpretation, from the view of Origen and other Fathers, who regarded Christ’s death as a price paid to the devil to ransom men from bondage to him, to that of Wendt, who finds in the word simply the idea that the example of Jesus in carrying the principle of service as far as to die tends by way of moral influence to deliver men’s minds from every form of spiritual bondage ( Die Lehre Jesu , ii. 510 517). It is an interesting question, What clue can be found in Christ’s own words, as hitherto reported, to the use by Him on this occasion of the term , and to the sense in which He uses it? Wendt contends that this is the best method of getting at the meaning, and suggests as the most congenial text Mat 11:28-30 . I agree with him as to method, but think a better clue may be found in Mat 17:27 , the word spoken by Jesus in reference to the Temple Tax . That word began the striking course of instruction on humility, as this word (Mat 20:28 ) ends it, and the end and the beginning touch in thought and language. The didrachmon was a (Exo 30:12 ), as the life of the Son of Man is represented to be. The tax was paid . The life is to be given . Is it too much to suppose that the Capernaum incident was present to Christ’s mind when He uttered this striking saying, and that in the earlier utterance we have the key to the psychological history of the term ? On this subject vide my book The Kingdom of God , pp. 238 241.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
The fourth announcement of His sufferings. See note on Mat 16:21.
to be ministered unto = to be served.
to minister = to serve.
life = soul.
ransom = redemption price. Reference to Pentateuch (Num 35:31). App-117.1.
for = in the stead of. Greek. anti. App-104.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Mat 20:28. , …, even as, etc.) The greatest example which could be adduced or imagined.-, to minister, to serve) See Rom 15:8.-, …, and, etc.) An ascending climax.- , His soul) i.e. Himself; see Gal 1:4; Gal 2:20.-, a ransom. , for many) A great ministry, and one of vast condescension. That for which a price is given, is in some sort more an object of desire to him who gives the price than the price itself. And the Redeemer spends Himself for many, not only taken as a whole, but also as individuals.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Son of man (See Scofield “Mat 8:20”) Also, Php 2:7
ransom See, Isa 53:10; Isa 53:11.
Mat 20:22 “cup,” margin ref: (See Scofield “Mat 20:22”); Exo 14:30; Isa 59:20; Rom 3:24
(See Scofield “Exo 14:30”) See Scofield “Isa 59:20” See Scofield “Rom 3:24”
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
The Ministering Master
Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.Mat 20:28.
The whole scope of the teaching and example of Jesus from the beginning went to show that greatness in the Kingdom of Heaven is a different thing from that which is accounted greatness among men. The pagan ideal of life, the semi-barbaric and old Roman conception, finds the dignity and serviceableness of life in the influence of one man over another. From the days of Nimrod it has crowned the men of strong will. As Jesus said, They that wield authority over the nations have been hailed as their benefactors. In the form of military or physical mastership, or in the less brutal form of intellectual rule, rule by law, or the assertion of brain-power over feebler races and feebler men, this ideal of human life has played a great part in history and is destined still to play a great part. The ages of blood and iron, of the domination of the strong over the weak, and of ruling over subject peoples, are not yet done.
The Christian ideal is the precise contrast. Christ came, not to be ministered unto, but to minister; not to enrich Himself, either with nobler or with baser wealth, but to impoverish Himself that He might make many rich. With Him first, and with His followers in proportion as they actually do follow Him, self is subordinated into a minister to others; while the good of others and the honour of God in others good become the end, the centre, the dominant and rewarding goal, towards which, in labour or in endurance, the whole life tends.
Louis XIV., in his spirit of tyranny, could say, I am the state. This was the pagan view. Frederick the Great, of Prussia, gave fine expression to the modern and Christian view in that noble utterance, It is the business of the king to be the chief of the servants of the state! This is the new standard, and has taken firm hold of the thought and life of Christian civilization, and today, without argument, he is conceded to be the greatest who is greatest in service to the cause of human progress and the advancement of the Kingdom of God.1 [Note: W. F. Anderson.]
I
The Pattern of Service
The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
1. The Master here finds occasion to teach His disciples the profound lesson that the way to spiritual greatness is by service. It seemed an inversion of the ordinary rule by which princes exercise dominion and the worlds great men exercise authority. For here it is the oppositewhosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. He takes Himself as an illustration of the law; for even the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister. The lesson is that we should follow in His steps, and make our religion not merely a getting but a giving, the service of Christ and of the brethren.
The notion of rank in the world is like a pyramid; the higher you go up, the fewer there are who have to serve those above them, and who are served more than those underneath them. All who are under serve those who are above, until you come to the apex, and there stands some one who has to do no service, but whom all the others have to serve. Something like that is the notion of position, of social standing and rank. And if it be so in an intellectual way,to say nothing of mere bodily serviceif any man works to a position that others shall all look up to him and that he may have to look up to nobody, he has just put himself precisely into the same condition as the people of whom our Lord speaks,as those who exercise dominion and authority,and really he thinks it a fine thing to be served. But it is not so in the Kingdom of Heaven. The figure there is entirely reversed. As you may see a pyramid reflected in the water, just so, in a reversed way altogether, is the thing to be found in the Kingdom of God. It is in this way: the Son of Man lies at the inverted apex of the pyramid; He upholds, and serves, and ministers unto all, and they who would be high in His Kingdom must go near to Him at the bottom, to uphold and minister to all that they may or can uphold and minister unto.1 [Note: George MacDonald, A Dish of Orts, 299.]
2. Now in order to appreciate the significance of that life of service, we must take into account the introductory words, The Son of man came. They declare His pre-existence, His voluntary entrance into the conditions of humanity, and His denuding Himself of the glory which He had with the Father before the world was. We shall never understand the Servant-Christ until we understand that He is the Eternal Son of the Father. His service began long before any of His acts of sympathetic and self-forgetting lowliness rendered help to the miserable here upon earth. His service began when He laid aside, not the garments of earth, but the vesture of the heavens, and girded Himself, not with the cincture woven in mans looms, but with the flesh of our humanity, and being found in fashion as a man, bowed Himself to enter into the conditions of earth. This was the first, the chief, of all His acts of service, and the sanctity and awfulness of it run through the list of all His deeds and make them unspeakably great. It was much that His hands should heal, that His lips should comfort, that His heart should bleed with sympathy for sorrow. But it was more that He had hands to touch, lips to speak to human hearts, and the heart of a man and a brother to feel with as well as for us. The Son of man came.
Scientists tell us that, by the arrangement of particles of sand upon plates of glass, there can be made, as it were, perceptible to the eye, the sweetness of musical sounds; and each note when struck will fling the particles into varying forms of beauty. The life of Jesus Christ presents in shapes of loveliness and symmetry the else invisible music of a Divine love. He lets us see the rhythm of the Fathers heart. The source from which His ministrations have flowed is the pure source of a perfect love. Ancient legends consolidated the sunbeams into the bright figure of the far-darting god of light. And so the sunbeams of the Divine love have, as it were, drawn themselves together and shaped themselves into the human form of the Son of Man who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.2 [Note: A. Maclaren, Christs Musts, 57.]
Sir Walter Scott says that the most beautiful scenery in Scotland is where the Highlands and the Lowlands meet. Not in the Highlands, nor yet in the Lowlands, but at the meeting of the two. And it is as true in the spiritual kingdom, when the beaten track becomes the highway of God, and the heavenly places in Christ Jesus are connected with the common duties and everyday business of life.1 [Note: L. A. Banks.]
3. He came to minister. His service was to be utterly unstinted. He would go the whole length with it. He saw that we should demand from Him all that He had; that we should use up His very life; that our needs and necessities would press upon Him so sorely, so urgently, that He would spend Himself, and be spent, in this hard service; that we should never let Him stop, or stay, or rest, while we saw a chance of draining His succouring stores. He foresaw no light and easy giving, no grateful and pleasant ministry; He saw that it would cost Him His very life. And yet He came: even that He would lay down for our profit; even that He would surrender at our demands. And just because the work of the faithful service would indeed involve this surrender of life, which is the final and utter proof of all loyal and unselfish devotion, He had found it a joy and gladness to enter a world that would ask so much of Him. In this hope He came. The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister; yes, and so to minister, so to serve, that He would give his life a ransom for many.
Christ had always found His happiness and His honour in serving others and doing them good; but the supreme illustration of the principle on which He conducted His life was still to comeHis final service was to consist in giving His life a ransom for many. This image of a ransom does not appeal to our minds as forcibly as it would to those of the disciples, because the experience of being ransomed, in the natural sense, is much rarer in modern than it was in ancient times. In the British Isles at present there do not probably exist a hundred persons who have ever been ransomed, whereas in the ancient world there would be such wherever two or three were met together. War was never a rare experience to the countrymen of Jesus, and in war the process of ransoming was occurring continually, when prisoners were exchanged for prisoners, or captives were released on the payment by themselves or their relatives of a sum of money. Similarly, slavery was a universal institution, and in connexion with it the process of ransoming was common, when, for a price paid, slaves received their liberty. The Jews had, besides, numerous forms of ransoming peculiar to their own laws and customs. For example, the firstborn male of every household was, in theory, liable to be a priest, but was redeemed by a payment of so many shekels to the actual priesthood, which belonged exclusively to a single tribe. A person whose ox had gored a man to death was in theory guilty of murder, but was released from the liability to expiate his guilt with his life by a payment to the relatives of the dead man. Such cases show clearly what ransoming was: it was the deliverance of a person from some misery or liability through the payment, either by himself or by another on his behalf, of a sum of money or any other equivalent which the person in whose power he was might be willing to accept as a condition of his release. It was a triangular transaction, involving three partiesfirst the person to be ransomed, secondly the giver, and thirdly the receiver of the ransom.1 [Note: J. Stalker, The Christology of Jesus, 179.]
4. His life was a continued ministry. And it was such by its own necessity. Not as though He chose it should be so, as though He debated with Himself whether He would serve His fellow-men or not, go forth to meet persecution and contumely or lead a quiet and peaceful life, speak the truth that was in Him or withhold it; but simply because there was that in Him which must needs find expression, because feelings so deep and tender must assert themselves, because sympathies so broad and generous cannot confine themselves within the heart, because the great power of blessing or capacity of action is its own incentive to beneficence or action. He would not be ministered to. He saw too many souls about Him to be aided, too many sorrows to be comforted, too many doubts to be answered, too much spiritual darkness to be illumined, for Him to wait for others ministering. To see such needs was to long to supply them. To feel within Him the power to serve was to put forth that power. To know the truth for which other souls were waiting was to utter it. To minister was the Divine necessity of His being. It was His souls great prerogative, which could not be put aside.
Some can be touched by personal sympathy; they have heart, but they cannot take a comprehensive view and embrace a noble causethey fail in mind. Others have their imagination fired by a cause, but they cannot sympathize with a wounded heart. We have narrow good men, and we have iron-hearted philanthropists. Christ takes in the tender heart and comprehensive thoughtthe person and the causethe womans way of looking at it and the mans. Or take another feature of it. He sympathizes with suffering and sorrowa bruised heart; and He weeps over sina blinded heart. Christianity alone has set these two forth,it is our glory and our dutyand in One Person; the tenderness of the human with the comprehensiveness of the Divine.1 [Note: J. Ker, Thoughts for Heart and Life, 148.]
5. The virtue of His costliest service extended to all. He says here a ransom for many. Now that word is not used here in contradistinction to all, nor in contradistinction to few. It is distinctly employed as emphasizing the contrast between the single death and the wide extent of its benefits: and in terms which, rigidly taken, simply express indefiniteness, it expresses universality. Many is a vague word, and in it we see the dim crowds stretching away beyond vision, for whom that death was to be the means of salvation. The words of the text may have an allusion to words in the great prophecy in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, in which we read, By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Calvin says, The word many here is not put definitely for a certain number, but for a large number, for the Saviour contrasts Himself with all the rest of mankind. The New Testament meaning of many is all. Ye are of more value than many sparrows. Surely this means than all the sparrows. If through the offence of one many be dead (that is, all be dead), much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. That he (the Son) might be the firstborn among many brethrenthat is, among all the brethren. In the ministry of His life He drew no distinctions; in the ministry of His death He encompasses the wide world. He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. If in His life His ministry was, of necessity, confined within geographical bounds, on His cross He stretched out His hands, mighty to save, to the whole world.
The word ransom, though not rare in the Old Testament, is used in the New Testament, only in this context; and the English phrase, a ransom for many, is not likely to be misunderstood. It means a ransom by means of which many are set freefrom bondage, or captivity, or penalties, or sentence of death. But the Greek phrase might be misunderstood; a ransom instead of many might be thought to mean that many ought to have paid ransom, but that He paid it instead of them; which is not the meaning. And the indefinite many does not mean that there were some whom He did not intend to redeem; that He did not die for all. Many is in opposition to one; it was not for His own personal advantage that He sacrificed His life, but one life was a ransom for many lives. Here, where Christ for the first time reveals that His death is to benefit mankind, He does not reveal the whole truth. Compare 1Ti 2:6 and 1Jn 2:2, where the more comprehensive truth is stated.1 [Note: A. Plummer.]
When prisoners were bartered at the conclusion of a war, the exchange was not always simply man for man. An officer was of more value than a common soldier, and several soldiers might be redeemed by the surrender of one officer. For a woman of high rank or extraordinary beauty a still greater number of prisoners might be exchanged; and by the giving up of a kings son many might be redeemed. So the sense of His own unique dignity and His peculiar relation to God is implied in the statement that Christs life would redeem the lives of many. St. Paul expresses the truth still more boldly when he says that Jesus gave His life a ransom for all; but the two phrases come to the same thing; because the many spoken of by Jesus really include all who are willing to avail themselves of the opportunity.2 [Note: J. Stalker, The Christology of Jesus, 184.]
II
The Obligation of Service
Even as the Son of man came.
1. He came as a servant, and He has the right to ask service of us. We must give Him what He asks; not only because reason says that His claim is just, not only because conscience tells us there can be no peace till we take up His yoke and follow in His steps, but also because we are bound to the King by ties of gratitude: The love of Christ constraineth us, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again.
Long ago Lord Wolseley wrote in his Soldiers Pocket-Book a sentence which deserves to liveThe officers must try to get killed. The matter could not be more conclusively put. Not in the battlefield alone, but everywhere and always, except among the few lost souls of whom men do not speak, has that great rule won simple unthinking obedience. Every physician goes by it to the haunt of contagion. John Richard Green wrote his beloved history when the pains of death gat hold upon him; Archbishop Temples father made provision for his widow and family by taking a government appointment in a deadly climate and leaving them a pension after two years service. Undistinguished men and women are spending their slender capital of health and life with but a plain idea of doing right by those they love, and with no talk of sacrifice. So vast and lovely are mans possibilities when he turns his face to Rightwhich is God!1 [Note: W. S. Hackett, The Land of Your Sojournings, 126.]
2. The soul finds its life only in action, in going forth out of itself. Neither mind nor heart matures, however fine its training or abundant its resources, if it simply appropriates to itself, giving nothing out. Its strength and power come as it begins to react upon the world. Self-culture, however noble an aim, is never the noblest. Good for our earlier years, it must be replaced in later life by some great purpose beyondthe love of truth for its own sake, the desire for power, or the pure longing to serve humanity. Between the life spent in such intellectual pursuits as will simply gratify the tastes, stimulate the mind, or kill time, and the life spent in some actual service to society is all the distance between the dilettante and the man. The advantage of great qualities of mind or heart lies not half so much in what they directly bring to us as in the larger strength and capacity which we gain through their exercise. The more keenly we learn to realize others wants and desires, as though they were our own, the wider the sympathies by which we act, the further away from ourselves our affections are turned, so much the larger and more vigorous does the soul become. The morbid nature, as you sometimes encounter it, at home only with its own griefs, or dwelling solely in its own past, or in love with its own fastidiousness, or finding nothing beautiful save in its own tastes and nothing great or good save in its own ideals, or pursuing any thoughts which circle round and round the little centre of self, becomes the sure abode of weakness and discontent. Its egotism can end only in insufferable weariness and intellectual death.
3. In one of the most beautiful of his little poems, Whittier speaks about the dear delight of doing good. He who has not tasted of that delight has been living upon the husks of things. They who spend their lives for others are ever living upon the royal wine of heaven. When God called Abraham to go into a far country He gave him a casket containing seven promises: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. Thou shalt be a blessingthis was the jewel in the casket. The man who has not tasted the luxury of being a blessing, who has not felt a vital personal relation to some good cause, and that he is of service to his fellow-men, has not yet sounded the deeps of life. This must have been in the mind of Browning when he spoke of the wild joys of living.
Dr. Henry van Dyke has given strong setting to this truth in his suggestive little poem, The Toiling of Felix. In 1897 a piece of papyrus leaf was found at Oxyrhynchus, near the Nile. It bore the fragments of several sayings supposed to be the lost sayings of our Lord. The clearest and most distinct was:
Raise the stone, and thou shalt find me; cleave the wood, and there am I.
Dr. van Dyke has made the historic incident the occasion of the writing of a very significant little poem which exalts the dignity of labour. Felix, a young Egyptian, very early in his life is mastered by a longing for a revelation of the Divine glory. In quest of it he goes to the libraries, takes down the volumes which contain the creeds, studies them long and patiently in hope that, while he studies, the Divine glory will burst from out the sacred page. But after weary months of experimenting he concludes that he has not adopted the right method.
Now he turns away from the libraries and frequents the sacred temples where men are wont to gather for worship. In the early morning and in the evening twilight he becomes a suppliant before the throne of heaven, at the altar of many a sacred fane.
Hear me, O thou mighty Master, from the altar step he cried;
Let my one desire be granted, let my hope be satisfied!
But after other weary months of seeking he is again disappointed.
Now he is told that yonder in the desert is a monastery, and in that monastery is an aged saint who has meditated long and patiently on the deepest problems of life; that once a year the aged saint comes from out his lonely dwelling and gives his blessing to the individual whom he happens to meet. Felix places himself at the outer wall. One morning he sees the gate open. He presents himself as a suppliant and entreats the blessing of the aged one, who looks at him earnestly but only in silence. He takes a token, however, from his garments and handing it to Felix retires within the monastery. Felix is again disappointed. But as he turns away it occurs to him that there may be something upon this token. He opens and reads:
Raise the stone, and thou shalt find me; cleave the wood, and there am I.
As he wonders what it all means he hears the echo of the hammers of the workmen who are engaged in quarrying out the stone in a stone quarry near at hand. Meantime an inner voice begins to plead with him and to suggest that he must become one of those workmen, and that by the rugged road of toil he will find his way to a vision of the Divine glory. The voice pleads so earnestly that at last he heeds it and presents himself, is accepted, and begins to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. At the end of the first day a new zest has come into his life. This grows on him as the days come and go. He is sure now he is on the right road. One day a fellow-workman is overcome by the burning rays of the noonday sun. In natural compassion Felix shelters his head with a palm leaf, and while doing so it seems to him he catches the vision of a face of wondrous beauty. Another day they are transporting some building material across a stream of water; the workman who stands by his side loses his footing and falls into the stream. In a moment Felix has plunged in after him. Firmly grappling him in one arm, he makes his way to shore with the other, and while he struggles toward the place of safety it seems to him that he sees a form walking on the surface of the water like unto the Divine form of the Son of God. Thus he finds the way to a fellowship with his Lord that is deep and rich, sweet and glorious and divine.
The spirit or the teaching of the little poem is thus beautifully summed up by the author:
This is the gospel of labourring it ye bells of the kirk
The Lord of Love came down from above, to live with the men who work.
This is the rose that He planted, here in the thorn-cursed soil
Heaven is blest with perfect rest, but the blessing of Earth is toil.1 [Note: W. F. Anderson.]
The Ministering Master
Literature
Anderson (W. F.), in Drew Sermons on the Golden Texts for 1910, 199.
Banks (L. A.), Sermons which have Won Souls, 365.
Barry (A.), The Atonement of Christ, 39.
Benson (R. M.), The Final Passover, i. 50.
Black (H.), Christs Service of Love, 23.
Burrows (H. W.), Parochial Sermons, 12.
Hackett (W. S.), The Land of Your Sojournings, 121.
Hall (E. H.), Discourses, 14.
Hallock (G. B. F.), The Teaching of Jesus, 145.
Holland (H. S.), Logic and Life, 225.
Hughes (H. P.), Ethical Christianity, 95.
MacDonald (G.), A Dish of Orts, 298.
Maclaren (A.), Christs Musts, 55.
Marsh (F. E.), Christs Atonement, 73.
Murray (W. H.), The Fruits of the Spirit, 441.
Rashdall (H.), Doctrine and Development, 128.
Ridgeway (C. T.), The King and His Kingdom, 50.
Robertson (A. T.), Keywords in the Teaching of Jesus, 41.
Smith (G. S.), Victory over Sin and Death, 28.
Wells (J.), Christ in the Present Age, 171.
Williams (W. W.), Resources and Responsibilities, 71.
Christian World Pulpit, xvii. 339 (A. Scott); xxiii. 82 (H. W. Beecher); xlix. 226 (L. Abbott); lii. 285 (C. J. Ridgeway).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
came: Luk 22:27, Joh 13:4-17, Phi 2:4-8, Heb 5:8
and to: Job 33:24, Psa 49:7, Isa 53:5, Isa 53:8, Isa 53:10, Isa 53:11, Dan 9:24-26, Joh 10:15, Joh 11:50-52, Rom 3:24-26, Gal 3:13, Eph 1:7, Eph 5:2, 1Ti 2:6, Tit 2:14, Heb 9:28, 1Pe 1:18, 1Pe 1:19, 1Pe 2:24, 1Pe 3:18, Rev 1:5, Rev 5:8, Rev 5:9
for: Mat 26:28, Mar 14:24, Rom 5:15-19, Heb 9:28, 1Jo 2:2
Reciprocal: Exo 30:12 – a ransom Lev 4:21 – a sin offering Lev 17:11 – I have Num 3:41 – General Num 3:50 – General Num 7:15 – General Deu 12:23 – the blood is Psa 85:13 – shall set Isa 35:10 – the ransomed Isa 49:7 – to a Jer 31:11 – redeemed Eze 45:22 – the prince Mat 16:21 – began Mat 27:50 – yielded Mar 9:31 – The Son Mar 10:45 – came Luk 7:6 – Jesus Luk 9:56 – the Son Luk 10:37 – He that Joh 1:29 – which Joh 6:38 – not Joh 6:51 – my flesh Joh 10:10 – I am Joh 11:51 – that Jesus Joh 12:47 – for Joh 19:30 – and he Rom 4:25 – Who was Rom 8:34 – It is Christ Rom 15:8 – Jesus 2Co 5:14 – one 2Co 8:9 – he became Gal 1:4 – gave Gal 2:20 – who Gal 4:5 – redeem Eph 5:25 – loved Phi 2:7 – the form Col 1:14 – whom 1Th 5:10 – died 1Ti 1:15 – that 1Ti 3:13 – used Heb 9:14 – offered Heb 12:2 – endured 1Pe 4:10 – minister 1Jo 3:16 – perceive
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
A PATTERN OF MINISTRY
The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.
Mat 20:28
It is true not only of the first beginnings of our Lords reign on earth, when He was the despised and rejected of men, but all through.
I. To whom did He minister?To all men, and to the whole man, body, soul, and spirit; no one, nothing, was outside the sphere of His ministration.
II. Why did He minister?Because He would help the helpless; For us men and for our salvation He came down from Heaven. He came to give the glorious liberty of the children of God in place of sins slavery; to replace the tyranny of evil by the freedom of Divine Grace.
III. Through what channel did He minister?Through the channel of a common humanity. He was made like unto His brethren. He was and is the Son of man.
IV. In what spirit did He minister?A spirit of humility, self-sacrifice, patient endurance, and toil.
V. How did He minister?Through the law of association. He did not only deliver a message and proclaim a Gospel, but He built a Church, a city of God, where they might go in and out and find safety, a Kingdom, a concrete fact, a visible reality, in which all men might be gathered in.
Dean Ridgeway.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
0:28
As a proof that the kingdom of Heaven was to be different from others, Jesus cited his own example of condescension. Although he was to be its king, he came among men as the greatest of servants, and crowned that service by giving his life.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Mat 20:28. Even at the Son of man. What He asked of them was what He did Himself.
Came. His appearing in the world was not to be ministered unto, not to be personally served by others, nor to exercise an external authority for His own external interest, but to minister, to serve others, as His whole ministry showed. Christs example enforces the lesson of humility, but a deeper truth is now for the first time declared
And to give his life. The crowning act of His ministering to others.
A ransom for many. Ransom may mean only the payment for a life destroyed (Exo 21:20), the price paid for the redemption of a slave (Lev 25:5). As however it also means propitiation (Pro 13:7), and the word translated for means in the place of, this passage affirms that our Lords death was vicarious; by His death as a ransom-price the many are to be redeemed from the guilt and power of sin. As soon as the disciples could bear it, they were taught this central truth of the gospel, to which they gave such prominence, after the Holy Ghost came upon them. This tender rebuke of their ambition bases the cardinal grace of humility upon the cardinal doctrine of the Atonement.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
To encourage his disciples to the forementioned condescending humility one towards another, our Saviour propounds to them his own instructive example, I am not to be ministered unto, says Christ, but to minister to the wants and necessities of others, both for soul and body. “O what a sight will it be, as if our Lord had said, to behold an humble God, and a proud creature; an humble Saviour, and an haughty sinner!”
Yea, our Lord urges his example farther, that as he laid down his life for us, so should we be ready to lay down our lives for one another. Did Christ lay down his life for us, and shall we not lay down a lust for him? our pride, our ambition, our affectation of dignity and superiority over others?
Note here two things; 1. Whereas it is said that Christ gave his life for a ransom for many; it is elsewhere affirmed, that he tasted death for every man, even for them that denied the Lord who brought them. The word many in other places of scripture, is not exclusive of some, but inclusive of all.
Thus Many that sleep in the dust shall arise Dan 12:2 : answer, All that sleep in the grave shall hear his voice Joh 5:28-29. Thus, Through the offence of one many died Rom 1:15; answer, In Adam all died 1Co 15:22.
There is a virtual sufficiency in the death of Christ for the salvation of mankind, and an actual efficacy for the salvation of them that repent, and believe, and obey the gospel.
Note, 2. From these words, He gave his life a ransom. That Christ suffered in our stead, and died in our place, and gave his life instead of ours. It was the constant opinion both of the Jews and Gentiles, that their piacular victims were ransoms for the life of the offender, and that he who gave his life for another, suffered in his stead, to preserve him from death.
And who can reasonably suppose, but that our Lord intended by saying he gave himself a ransom, that he gave his life instead of the lives of those for whom he suffered? Vain are the Socinians, when they say, this price was to be paid to Satan, because he detained us captive.
True; the price is to be paid to him that detains the captive, when he doth this for gain to make money of him, as the Turks detain the Christians captive at Algiers; but when a man is detained in custody for violation of a law, then it is not the gaoler, but the legislator, to whom the price of redemption must be paid, or satisfaction be made.
Accordingly this price was paid to God; for Christ became our ransom, as he offered up his life and blood for us: now he offered himself without spot to God, Heb 9:14. he therefore paid the price of our redemption to God.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Jesus presented Himself, the Son of Man, as the supreme example of a slave of others. He would even lay down His life in the service of others, not just to help them but in their place (cf. Isaiah 53). As Messiah, Jesus had every right to expect service from others, but instead He served others.
"To be great is to be the servant (diakonos) of many; to be first is to be the bond-servant (doulos) of many; to be supreme is to give one’s life for many." [Note: Plummer, p. 280.]
The Greek word lytron ("ransom") was a term used frequently in non-biblical Greek to describe the purchase price for freeing a slave. [Note: Deissmann, pp. 331-32; A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, 1:163.] This word connotes a purchase price whenever it occurs in the New Testament. [Note: Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, pp. 29-38.] "For" (Gr. anti) indicates the substitute nature of Jesus’ death. [Note: Robertson, A Grammar . . ., p. 573.] The "many" for whom He would die could be the elect or all mankind (cf. Isa_52:13 to Isa_53:12).
"A theology of ’limited atonement’ is far from the intention of the passage and would be anachronistic in this context." [Note: France, The Gospel . . ., p. 763.]
Other passages seem to favor the interpretation that by His death Jesus made all people savable. However only the elect experience salvation and enter the kingdom (e.g., Joh 3:16; Eph 1:4-7). Only one would die, but many would profit from His death. This is one of the great Christological and soteriological verses in the Bible. It is also the first time that Jesus explained the reason He would die to His disciples.
"The implication of the cumulative evidence is that Jesus explicitly referred to himself as Isaiah’s Suffering Servant . . . and interpreted his own death in that light . . ." [Note: Carson, "Matthew," p. 434.]