Mark 10:45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

A ‘ransom’ is the price paid for delivering someone or some thing from bondage.

Redemption is costly.  The price paid for our salvation is Christ’s own death (Rom 3:24f; Eph 1:7).

But many of the ancient theologians (such as Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory the Great, and Peter Lombard) pushed this idea by enquiring as to whom the ransom was paid.

Barclay (Daily Study Bible on the above passage) characteristically underplays the theology. However, he has a point when he asks,

‘Suppose we say, “Sorrow is the price of love,” we mean that love cannot exist without the possibility of sorrow, but we never even think of trying to explain to whom that price is paid. Suppose we say that freedom can be obtained only at the price of blood, toil, tears and sweat, we never think of investigating to whom that price is paid. This saying of Jesus is a simple and pictorial way of saying that it cost the life of Jesus to bring men back from their sin into the love of God. It means that the cost of our salvation was the Cross of Christ. Beyond that we cannot go, and beyond that we do not need to go. We know only that something happened on the Cross which opened for us the way to God.’ (DSB)

Origen (quoted by Bolt, The Cross from a Distance: Atonement in Mark’s Gospel, p74):

‘If therefore we were ‘bought with a price’, as Paul agrees [1 Cor 6:20; 7:23], then without a doubt we were bought from someone whose slaves we were, and who demanded whatever price he wished in order to release from his power those whom he held. Now it was the devil, to whom we had been sold by our sins, who held us. He demanded therefore as our price the blood of Christ.’

According to the Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology,

‘The New Testament…speaks of the costliness of our redemption. (1 Pet 1:18-19) Jesus speaks of the Son of Man giving himself “as a ransom for many,” (Mt 20:28; Mk 10:45) and Paul can speak of our being “bought at a price” (1 Cor 6:20; 7:23; cf. Acts 20:28; Rev 5:9 14:4), although the metaphor is never pressed to the point of to whom the price was paid.’

Lyon (EDT) notes that although the idea of the payment of a price is inherent in the usage of the word ‘ransom’ when referring to the release of slaves of prisoners, when it is used to refer to the deliverance of God’s people at the time of the Exodus, or from the exile,

‘the focus is no longer on the price paid but on the deliverance achieved and the freedom obtained.’

Lyon continues:

‘When the NT, therefore, speaks of ransom with reference to the work of Christ, the idea is not one of transaction, as though a deal is arranged and a price paid. Rather the focus is on the power (1 Cor. 1:18) of the cross to save. In the famous ransom saying of Mark 10:45, Jesus speaks of his coming death as the means of release for many. The contrast is between his own solitary death and the deliverance of the many. In the NT the terms of ransom and purchase, which in other contexts suggest an economic or financial exchange, speak of the consequences or results (cf. 1 Cor. 7:23). The release is from judgment (Rom. 3:25–26), sin (Eph. 1:7), and death (Rom. 8:2).’

Finally,

‘There is no need, then, to ask the question posed so often in the past: To whom was the ransom paid? It is not possible to consider payment to Satan as though God were obligated to meet Satan’s demands or “asking price.” And since the texts speak always of the activity of God in Christ, we cannot speak of God paying himself. While the sacrifice of Christ is rooted in the holiness and justice of God, it is not to be seen against the background of law only but more especially of covenant. In Christ, God takes upon himself the freedom, the release from bondage, of his people. He meets the demands of his own being.’