SINCE THE time of our Lord’s First Advent, nearly two thousand years ago, Christians have prayed for the establishment of God’s Kingdom on the earth – the Millennial Reign of Christ and His Church. By the end of that thousand years, restored mankind will perform God’s will on earth as perfectly as spirit beings perform it in heaven (Matthew 6: 10).

The Kingdom’s Foundation

Our text indicates the foundation upon which God’s coming Kingdom on earth is based – “the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all.” The word Ransom is the translation of the Greek word antilutron which means a price that corresponds. The Scriptural thought is that our Lord Jesus gave Himself a Ransom, a Corresponding-price, for all mankind. There was one man who sinned – Adam, who brought the death penalty upon all his posterity; and there was one man who died, the Just for the unjust – Christ Jesus. “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinthians 15: 21).

Our text differentiates between God and Christ Jesus. Other Scriptures indicate that our Lord Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus Himself declared that He was “the firstborn of every creature” (Colossians 1: 15) and “the beginning of the creation of God” (Revelation 3: 14). Our text refers to “the man Christ Jesus.” The thought contained in the word Ransom does not call for a God to redeem a man, nor could a spirit being do so; for there is no correspondency between them. Whoever would redeem man must himself be a man – the full equivalent of the man who sinned. This enables us to understand why it was necessary for our Lord to leave the heavenly glory and become a man (John 1: 14; 2 Corinthians 8: 9; Philippians 2: 6-11).

The Economy of the Divine Plan 

As a child we often wondered why God did not give all mankind the same opportunity that He gave Adam. But when we came to understand the beauty of the philosophy of the Ransom, everything became clear. For example, suppose that God had placed one hundred perfect human beings on trial in Eden in the beginning, and that one half of them had sinned – fifty sinners and an equal number that remained perfect; and suppose that God provided a Paradise for the perfect ones and the cursed condition for the sinners. What confusion there would be! Then when it came to the redemption of the sinners, God’s Justice would require the fifty perfect human beings to die for the fifty sinners. Where would the matter have ended then?

But the economical feature of the Divine Plan highlights God’s Wisdom, for by one man’s disobedience God permitted the results of that transgression to affect all of Adam’s children. All mankind were involved under the original sin of the one man. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Romans 5: 12). God arranged that the sin of the one man, Adam, would be met by the Man Christ Jesus. Therefore Adam will in due time be freed from the death penalty; and all of his children, who have inherited death as well as weakness and imperfection through him, will also experience redemption – the one Ransom-price was sufficient for Adam and all his posterity (Romans 5: 17-19).

The Ransom as Far-Reaching as the Curse

Our text declares that our Lord gave Himself a Ransom-price for all, for eventually its benefits will extend to every member of Adam’s race. The mere giving up of His life did not extend a blessing to all mankind; but it was the basis upon which God will permit Him in due time to establish His Millennial Kingdom and to bring in the blessings of Restitution for the whole race during His Reign. Had it not been for the Ransom, there could be no Restitution.

Our Lord has not yet applied His sacrifice to all, for God’s due time for blessing all men has not yet come. Meantime Adam, who fell asleep thousands of years ago, and others of his posterity can await in sleep for that glorious Day when He who redeemed them shall place the merit of His sacrifice on behalf of Adam and all his race – shall pay it over to Divine Justice, and then take over mankind as His purchased possession. Our Lord surrendered Himself to death, which was the basis upon which He might become the great Mediator between God and men, the great Restorer of mankind, the long-promised Seed of Abraham, who will bless all the families of the earth.

Why the Long Delay?

Someone might ask, Why did our Lord not purchase the world following His resurrection and ascension? Why this long delay of nearly two thousand years before He begins His work of blessing the world? We reply, If the Church had not been included in God’s Plan, when our Lord ascended on High to appear in the presence of God, He doubtless would have purchased the whole world of mankind, and at once would have taken over the Adamic race and begun His reign for their blessing. But such was not the Divine Plan, therefore our Lord appeared in the presence of God for the CHURCH, and not for the world at all (Hebrews 9: 24). He has not yet appeared for the world.

But the Father had given the Church to our Lord, so meantime He was dealing with His Church, consecrated believers all down throughout the Gospel Age. The Divine purpose was that this class would be gathered out of the world under certain conditions, that they might be associated with our Lord during His Millennial Reign. This work with the Church thus begun would continue until the full number of the Elect would have been called, chosen and found faithful.

The Glorious Superstructure

When the selection and completion of the Church shall have been accomplished, our Lord will then ask the Father for the world, and the Father will grant His request – “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession” (Psalm 2: 8). Our Lord will appear in the presence of God and apply His Ransom-price on behalf of the sins of the whole world. In essence He will say, “Father, I now appropriate for the world of mankind this value of My death as the offset of Father Adam’s death. I now apply it to Adam and all his children, as their Purchase-price; And now I ask for them. I ask Thee to give them to Me according to Thy promise to give me the world of mankind.” The Father will then turn them over to our Lord as His own.

Christ as Mediator

Christ will act as the Mediator between God and the world – the unbelief class – during His Reign. A mediator is one who attempts to make two parties involved in a conflict come to an agreement; a go-between. The conflict between God and the unbelief class is that God, knowing that fallen man cannot obey His law perfectly, distrusts the promise that the unbelief class is willing to make in the covenant; and the unbelief class, because of its unbelief, does not believe that God will keep His proposed covenant promise. 

As Mediator, Christ will guarantee man to God and God to man. This Christ will do: (1) by giving His merit to God, making good all the unbelief class’s Adamic blemishes, and by His promise to bring the willing of the unbelief class up to perfect obedience and to destroy the unwilling among them. These two things will guarantee the unbelief class to God. (2) He will guarantee God to the unbelief class by giving the willingly obedient restitution to human perfection. 

The fact that He who redeemed the race of Adam is to be the One to give them their trial for everlasting life during the thousand years of His Reign is the very best guarantee that mankind will have a fair, full, complete trial; a just, reasonable, loving trial at the hands of a loving Redeemer, who will do everything proper to be done to help them out of their weaknesses and imperfections and to bring them back to the full perfection of human nature, lost through Father Adam’s original sin in Eden, but died for by our Lord at Calvary. By the end of those thousand years, the Ransom work which began at our Lord’s First Advent, will have been gloriously and successfully accomplished. 

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