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which the reader will readily associate with the clause concerning forgiveness in the
"Lord's Prayer". The better to appreciate what this "forgiveness" of Eph. 1: 7 embraces,
we must acquaint ourselves with some features of the manumission of slaves that were
customary during the period prior to and during Apostolic times. Manumission
obviously means, literally "to send from the hand", where the "hand" indicates the
master, just as "the soul" and "the body" often indicate the slave. North, in his Plutarch
speaks of the act of Valerius, who desiring to recompense the bondman Vindicius for his
services "caused him not only to be manumissed by the whole grant of the people, but
made him a free man of the city besides". The force of many passages in the New
Testament is blunted because the word doulos is mostly translated "servant", whereas it
means "a bond servant" or "slave". The principal means of enlightening us to-day as to
the nature and ritual of manumission, comes from the inscriptions at Delphi, but records
are found of the Jewish practice, one dated 81A.D.:
"Among the various ways in which the manumission of a slave could take place by
ancient law, we find the solemn rite and fictitious purchase of the slave by some divinity.
The owner comes with the slave to the temple, sells him there to the god, and receives the
purchase money from the temple treasury, the slave having previously paid it in there out
of his savings. The slave is now the property of the god; not, however, a slave of the
temple, but a protégé of the god. Against all the world, especially his former master, he
is a completely free man; at the utmost a few pious obligations to his old master are
imposed upon him."
The form in which this manumission was recorded followed a traditional pattern of
which the following is a fair sample:
"Date. Apollo the Pythian bought from Sosibus . . . . . for freedom a female slave,
whose name is Nicća . . . . . with a price . . . . . the price he hath received. The purchase,
however, Nicća hath committed unto Apollo, for freedom" (Deissmann).
The reader will recognize the phrases "bought with a price" and "for freedom" which
underlie some of the Apostle's own teaching. When therefore we read "in Whom we
have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins" in Eph. 1: 7, the uppermost
thought is the "release" from bondage that this redemption has accomplished. Two
words are employed by the Apostle in Ephesians and Colossians, which are translated
"forgive" namely aphesis, the word found in Eph. 1: 7 and charizomai, the word found
in Eph. 4: 32, Col. 2: 13 and 3: 13. "And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you" (Eph. 4: 32).
Charizomai is obviously derived from charis "grace", and only in the New Testament
does it denote that particular exhibition of grace that issues in the forgiveness of sins; in
classical Greek it went no further than expressing a favour, being agreeable and pleasing,
but when charis was endowed by the New Testament usage with the higher and richer
qualities of Gospel "grace", charizomai took upon it the Christian grace of forgiveness.
In some passages it still retains its simple meaning of "giving" as in Luke 7: 21 and
Gal. 3: 18, but the requirement of the context at times, compelled the translators to say
"freely give" as in Rom. 8: 32, but in the majority of cases, the word is rendered
"forgive". It will be observed that whereas aphesis "forgive' in Eph. 1: 7 is never used
of the forgiveness extended by man to man, that charizomai is used of both God and man.
In this dispensation of grace God alone can "set free" from sin and its consequences,