C.         None was fit to give this ransom but Jesus Christ, who was God-man.

1.         He was man to undertake it in our name, and God to perform it in his own strength;

a.         a man that he might be made under the law, and humbled even to the death of the cross for our sakes;

b.         and all this was elevated beyond the worth of created actions and sufferings by the divine nature which was in him, which perfumed his humanity, and all done by it and in it.

2.         This put the stamp upon the metal, and made it current coin, imposed an infinite value upon his finite obedience and sufferings.  [Since the obedience of Jesus was the obedience of the God-man, God incarnate, the human obedience had infinite worth.]

a.         [Proof of the point] By taking human nature a price was put into his hands to lay down for us:

i.          Heb. 10:15, and his divine nature made it sufficient and responsible, for it was the blood of God:

ii.         Acts 20:28, ‘Feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood;’ and

iii.        Heb. 9:13, ‘For if the blood of bulls and goats, and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?’

b.         It was that flesh and blood which was assumed into the unity of his person—as a slip or branch grafted into a stock is the branch of the stock, and the fruit of it is the fruit of the stock.

3.         A naked creature without this union [of God and mand] could not have satisfied the justice of God for us. This made his blood a precious blood, and his obedience a precious obedience….

D.        Nothing performed by Christ could be a sufficient ransom for this end, unless he had crowned all his other actions and sufferings by laying down his life, and undergoing a bloody and violent death.

1.         [Why?]

a.         Partly to answer the types of the law, wherein no remission was represented without a bloody sacrifice;

b.         partly from the nature of the thing, and the fulness of the satisfaction required until all that was finished, John 8:20. Death was that which was threatened to sin, death was that which was feared by the sinner.

2.         [It was not just his blood per se, for any bleeding would have been sufficient then. It was the sacrificial death which matter.] ….Surely his death was necessary, or God would never have appointed it; his bloody death suited with God’s design.

3.         God’s design was to carry on our recovery in such a way as might make sin more hateful, and obedience more acceptable to us.

a.         Sin more hateful by his agonies, blood, shame, death; no less remedy would serve the turn, to procure the pardon and destruction of it….His design was for ever to leave a brand upon it, and to furnish us with a powerful mortifying argument against it, by the sin-offering and ransom for souls….

b.         To commend obedience. …. All his former actions, together with his death and sufferings, make but one entire act of eminent obedience; ….

E.         From this ransom and act of obedience there is a liberty resulting unto us, for the redeemed are let go when the ransom is paid.

1.         [Here is an interesting comment on the effect of our being freed “from the law”]

a.         Christ came not to free us from the duty of the law, but the penalty and curse thereof.

b.         To free us from the duty of the law is to promote the devil’s interest.

c.         No; he freed us from the wrath of God that we may serve him cheerfully, to establish God’s interest upon surer and more comfortable terms,

2.         [The relation of this freedom to the work of the devil] and so by consequence from the power of the devil, which is built on the curse of the law and reign of sin. Satan’s power over us doth flow from the sentence of the condemnation pronounced by the law against sinners, and consists in that dominion sin hath obtained over them. If the curse of the law be disannulled, and the power of sin broken, he is spoiled of his power. Col. 2:14-15

[a.        Another verse relevant here is Heb. 2:14-15. Christ destroyed him who had “the power of death, that is, the Devil, and deliver all those who through of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” The fear of death created by the law creates the power to enslave by sin, seems to be the idea here.]

F.         That we are not partakers of this liberty, nor of the benefit of this ransom, till we are in him, and united to him by faith, …

1.         Certainly we must be turned from Satan to God before we are capable of receiving the forgiveness of sins,

2.         We do not actually partake of the privileges of Christ’s kingdom till we be first his subjects:

3.         Man’s recovery to God is in the same method in which he fell from him. It is first brought about by a new nature, and communication of life from Christ. He regenerateth that he may pardon, and he pardoneth that he may further sanctify and make us everlastingly happy.