A good illustration of the progressive nature of theology is found in
the doctrine of the atonement. All of the apostles taught distinctly
that Christ died for our sins. The early Christians did not attempt to
go behind that fact, but by and by men began to attempt explanations.
In the second century a man by the name of Irenaeus seized upon the
word "ransom" in the sentence, "The Son of man is come to give his
life a ransom for many," and found in that word "ransom" the key-word
of the whole problem. The explanation of Irenaeus was taken up in the
third century by a distinguished preacher, Origen. And in the fourth
century the teaching of Origen was elaborated by Gregory of Nyssa.

According to the interpretation of these men, Jesus was the price paid
for the redemption of men. Paul frequently used the word redemption,
and the word had definite meanings to people who lived in the first
four centuries of the Christian era. If Christ was indeed a ransom,
the question naturally arose, who paid the price? The answer was, God.
A ransom must be paid to somebody--to whom was this ransom paid? The
answer was, the devil. According to Origen and to Gregory, God paid
the devil the life of Jesus in order that the devil might let humanity
go free. The devil, by deceit, had tricked man, and man had become his
slave--God now plays a trick upon the devil, and by offering him the
life of Jesus, secures the release of man. That was the interpretation
held by many theologians for almost a thousand years, but in the
eleventh century there arose a man who was not satisfied with the
old interpretation. The world had outgrown it. To many it seemed
ridiculous, to some it seemed blasphemous. There was an Italian by the
name of Anselm who was an earnest student of the Scriptures, and he
seized upon the word "debt" as the key-word of the problem. He wrote
a book, one of the epoch-making books of Christendom, which he called