Did Jesus give his life as a ransom for many or for all?

‘Many’ in Jesus’ saying is widely taken as a Semitic way of saying ‘the multitude’. It contrasts the one who dies with the great number who benefit, and need not mean ‘many but not all’. The saying echoes Isaiah 53, where the Servant will “justify many” and “bare the sin of many” (53:11-12). Paul uses ‘many’ and ‘all men’ side by side for the same people in Romans 5:18-19. In 1 Timothy 2 his ‘all’ picks up the context: prayers are to be made “for all men”, because God “will have all men to be saved” (2:1, 4). Paul’s word antilytron (Strong’s G487) is a strengthened form of Jesus’ lytron anti, ‘a ransom in place of’ (G3083), and many scholars think he is echoing Jesus’ own saying. So the two describe the same death from two sides: one life given for the multitude, and offered for all.

Proverbs 21:18 is not about Christ or atonement at all. It is a proverb about God’s providence: the trouble that threatened the upright falls on the wicked instead. Proverbs 11:8 says the same thing plainly: “The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead.” ‘Ransom’ (kopher) is used loosely there, as in Isaiah 43:3, where God gives Egypt as Israel’s ransom. Gill explains the proverb this way, giving the example of Haman, who met the fate he had planned for Mordecai. Different uses of the word ‘ransom’ do not contradict one another.

Particular redemption

Reformed theology teaches that Christ died to secure the salvation of the elect, the ‘many’, and reads ‘all’ in 1 Timothy 2:6 as all kinds of people; Gill takes this view.

Sufficient for all

Others, including Lutherans, Arminians and some Reformed writers, hold that Christ’s death was for every person and sufficient for all, though it saves only those who believe; Adam Clarke takes ‘all’ as every human soul.

For whom Christ died, the extent of the atonement, is debated among Christians; both sides agree that ‘many’ and ‘all’ here do not contradict each other.