Lessons from Edmund

What do 1 Timothy 2:5-6 and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe have in common? 

Being a pastor is quite an adventure. It is filled with some of the highest of highs life has to offer, and some of the lowest of lows as well. You meet strangers who end up becoming closer than family. You also run into some incredible con artists. 

Some people whole-heartedly receive the Gospel and continue to develop deep roots in the faith by intentionally pursuing discipleship relationships. Others attend gatherings when there’s going to be food served. In my 11 years in ministry, I've been prayed for at just the right time by folks who couldn't have known what I was going through. I've also been cussed out a couple of times and challenged to a fist-fight by attenders of the churches I've been at.

There are so many varying personalities that make up a standard gathering of the saints. Shepherding all of them faithfully can be a tall order. Knowing this, the apostle Paul wrote these powerful words to Timothy, a young pastor at Ephesus, “For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all (1 Tim. 2:5-6).” When Jesus died as a ransom for all people, He leveled the playing field. Perhaps like Timothy, I need to be reminded from time to time that we are all beggars at the foot of God’s door.

But let’s get back to that word ‘ransom’. A ransom is a price paid for the redemption of a prisoner, slave, or kidnapped person to the kidnapper, slave-owner or captor. So why does Paul say that Jesus is our ransom, and who or what were we ransomed from?

C.S. Lewis beautifully answers this question in his book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. In the story, Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy discovered a wardrobe that led them into a new world named Narnia. While there, Edmund met the evil White Witch, who befriended him and offered him Turkish delight if he brought his siblings back to her. She also promised Edmund that if he accomplished that task, he would rule over his siblings. Edmund went back to his siblings, lied to them, and manipulated them, but he didn’t succeed in convincing them to follow him.

So Edmund left them and went back to the White Witch. However, according to the rules of Narnia, all traitors belong to the White Witch. He now became her slave. Eventually, the other children met Aslan the lion, the king of Narnia, and formed an army to fight the army of the White Witch. But before the battle, the Witch went to Aslan’s tent and reminded him of the rules. He couldn’t just take Edmund back, for she had the right to execute every traitor. 

Aslan persuaded her to renounce her claim on Edmund’s life by bargaining to exchange his life for Edmund’s. He negotiated a ransom. Aslan was tortured that night and finally executed so Edmund could be set free. But in the morning, Aslan was resurrected!

This is a beautiful depiction of the Gospel. We are all like Edmund, for when we sin, we choose Satan as our master—and nothing in our power can free us from his grasp. Only by the blood of Jesus can we be ransomed, redeemed, and born again into the kingdom of God. However, even after Aslan did all that was necessary for Edmund’s redemption, he didn’t force Edmund to choose life. By Jesus’ work on the cross and through His resurrection, the doors of Satan’s kingdom are now wide open for anyone on spiritual death row to go free. But they must choose to give their lives to Jesus by grace through faith in Him.

You might be thinking, “But Phil, was that really the orthodox belief of the early Church? God paid a ransom price to the devil to set us free?” Actually, yes. This is the orthodox position Christians held before the time of Constantine and until Anselm of Canterbury’s Satisfaction Theory of Atonement became popular around 1100CE.

Wikipedia shows the Ransom Theory tracing back to Origen in the 3rd century CE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ransom_theory_of_atonement
However, check out these 2nd century CE writings of Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons and disciple of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, who was the disciple of the Apostle John:

“For at the first Adam became a vessel in his (Satan’s) possession, whom he did also hold under his power, that is, by bringing sin on him. … We —who were but lately created by the only best and good Being, … who is perfect in all things, as the mighty Word, and very man, who, redeeming us by His own blood in a manner consonant to reason, gave Himself as a redemption for those who had been led into captivity. And since the apostasy tyrannized over us unjustly … the Word of God, powerful in all things, and not defective with regard to His own justice, did righteously turn against that apostasy, and redeem from it His own property; not by violent means, as the [apostasy] had obtained dominion over us at the beginning, when it insatiably snatched away what was not its own. … The Lord thus has redeemed us through His own blood, giving His soul for our souls, and His flesh for our flesh.” (Irenaeus, Vol. 1 p. 759, 884 [CD-ROM])

Oh, to what lengths our Savior went to ransom all of us out of the domain of darkness! This insight really challenges me to be a better under-shepherd of the flock in my care. I am like Edmund, and so is everyone else. However, as a pastor, I am called to act like Aslan. I need to be more compassionate and humble like Jesus, for, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28).”

An Excerpt from Ch. 13 of New: Wineskins and the Simple Words of Christ

In Luke 24, the risen Christ appears to two of His disciples as they are walking to Emmaus, but He conceals His identity. The disciples are quite disheartened, because they thought Jesus was the Messiah, but He was killed. Also, they say it is the third day, the day He said He would rise from the dead. To their knowledge He hasn’t come back to life, though some of the female disciples said they saw Him earlier that day.

Jesus responds, “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into His glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (verses 25-27). Later that day, Jesus appears to the remaining disciples and says, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (verse 44). Jesus opens their minds to under- stand the Scriptures and says, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (verses 46-47).

I believe the most important lesson Jesus is revealing is that all the Old Testament is designed to point to Him—that no matter what section of the first 39 books of the Bible we study, there will always be something to direct us to Christ. To illustrate my point, let’s consider the first nine chapters of Genesis:

  

    Genesis 1: Jesus is the life that comes out of the ground on the third day.

    Genesis 2: He is killed on the tree with which we sinned so one day we can again eat from the tree of life.

    Genesis 3: He is the seed of the woman who crushes the head of the serpent. 

    Genesis 4: He is the better Abel who is murdered out of envy, and thus becomes the perfect offering for the sins of the world.

    Genesis 5: Jesus is the better Seth, the true image-bearer of the Father, and the better Enoch, the one who walked with God without sinning all the days of His life.

    Genesis 6: He is the better Noah, the true preacher of righteousness, who proclaims the way of salvation.

    Genesis 7: He is the true ark to whom the humble will run and the true door we must enter through to escape the flood of judgment.

    Genesis 8: He is the true dove who declares peace to the world.

    Genesis 9: He is the covenant-establishing God who gives His life to keep His covenant of love with humanity. 

Irenaeus on Authentic Communion & John 3:18-21 Around 180CE

Communion with God is life and light, and the enjoyment of all the benefits which He has in store. But on as many as, according to their own choice, depart from God, He inflicts that separation from Himself which they have chosen of their own accord. But separation from God is death, and separation from light is darkness; and separation from God consists in the loss of all the benefits which He has in store. …

Now, good things are eternal and without end with God, and therefore the loss of these is also eternal and never-ending. It is in this matter just as occurs in the case of a flood of light: those who have blinded themselves, or have been blinded by others, are for ever deprived of the enjoyment of light. It is not, [however], that the light has inflicted upon them the penalty of blindness, but it is that the blindness itself has brought calamity upon them: and therefore the Lord declared, “He that believes in Me is not condemned,” that is, is not separated from God, for he is united to God through faith.

On the other hand, He says, “He that does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God;” that is, he separated himself from God of his own accord. “For this is the judgment, that light is come into this world, and men have loved darkness rather than light. For every one who does evil hates the light, and does not come into the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he that does truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be made manifested as having been wrought in God.”

Irenaeus, Vol. 1, p. 935

Excerpt from Chapter 8 of New: Wineskins and the Simple Words of Christ

Now, if we really want to know God’s purpose for our lives, or what we should do in any situation, we should look at what Jesus did. Instead of wrist-bands with WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?), maybe we should make some saying WDJD (What Did Jesus Do). This is the real question we should be asking, for we are called to walk as Jesus walked by the power of the Holy Spirit. So, what works did Jesus do? He loved His enemies. Healed the sick. Blessed His persecutors. Expelled demons. Turned the other cheek. Raised the dead. Extended forgiveness to undeserving sinners. Loosed the chains of injustice. Defended the powerless. Proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God. Prophesied. Walked humbly with God. Called for racial reconciliation. Prayed. Memorized Scripture. Performed various miracles. Fasted. Resisted the devil. Made disciples who made disciples.

You get the point. And if you don’t think these things are possible for us, or that Jesus doesn’t expect us to do them, just read the book of Acts. It is filled with fantastic encouragement for believers because it proves that Jesus kept His promise from John 14:12, and His promise is still valid today. Whoever believes in Jesus can be like Him and do what He did through the gift of the Holy Spirit. So, the real question is how determined you are to be like Him and do what He did.

Bible teacher Ray Vander Laan, in his message The Dust of the Rabbi, explains what Jesus’s followers understood Him to be saying when He called them to be disciples who made more disciples: “A disciple is not someone who wants to know what the teacher knows. . . .[or] even someone who wants to know what God knows. . . . A disciple is someone who, more than anything else in the whole world, wants to be what the teacher is. . . . How badly do you want to be like Jesus?”2

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