The word “ransom” appears in our English New Testament 3 times: Matthew 20:28, Mark 10:45, 1 Timothy 2:6. But the Greek in each case is not the same. In Matthew 20:28 and Mark 10:45, the word rendered “ransom” is lutron, followed with the word anti. But in Timothy the Greek is one word, antilutron. Why this difference?

There is a slightly different thought in each place. The basic word lutron means “lit., a means of loosing (from luo, to loose), occurs frequently in the Septuagint, where it is always used to signify equivalence. Thus it is used of the ransom for a life, e.g. Ex. 21:30, of the redemption price of a slave, e.g. Lev. 19:20, of land, 25:24, or the price of a captive, Isa. 45:13.” (Vine, Expository Dictionary)

The derivation of the word is helpful. “Lu” is from Luo, as Vine comments, meaning “to loose.” Tron is not a word of itself, but its meaning in other words is exemplified in some English words using that Greek suffix, like “electron,” and “positron.” An electron is that (particle) which has an electric charge, a positron that (particle) which has a positive charge. Lu-tron therefore is “that which looses”- the basis of loosing, the price of release.

Anti can appear either compounded in a word, or as a word by itself. “The basic idea of anti is ‘facing.’ This may be a matter of opposition, unfriendliness or antagonism, or of agreement…  antiparerchomai in Luke 10:31, 32, where the verb is rendered ‘passed by on the other side,’ i e., of the road, but facing the wounded man; antiballo in Luke 24:17, where the anti suggests that the two disciples, in exchanging words (see R.V. marg.), turned to face one another, indicating the earnest nature of their conversation. The idea of antagonism is seen in antidikos, an adversary, Matt.5:25, antichristos, antichrist, 1 John 4:3, etc.

“There is no instance of the uncompounded preposition signifying ‘against.’ … the idea is that of ‘in the place of,’ ‘instead of,’ or of exchange…”

Examples listed by Vine (“for” = anti):

• “an eye for an eye” (Matthew 5:38)
• “evil for evil” (Romans 12:17, 1 Thess. 5:15, 1 Peter 3:9)
• “railing for railing” (1 Peter 3:9)  “for a fish a serpent” (Luke 11:11)
• “for one mess of meat… his own birthright” (Heb.12:16)
• “a shekel…. for thee and Me” (Matt. 17:27) (“That is to say, the exchange is that of the coin for the tax demanded from Christ and Peter, rather than for the persons themselves.”)
• “for a covering” (1 Cor. 11:15) (“Where the hair is a substitute for the covering.”)
• “The substitutionary meaning is exemplified in Jas.4:15, where the A.V. and R.V. render the anti ‘for that’ (R.V. mar. ‘instead of).”

(“In Heb. 12:2, ‘for (anti) the joy that was set before Him endured the cross,’ neither the thought of exchange nor that of substitution is conveyed; here the basic idea of facing is present. The cross and the joy faced each other in the mind of Christ and He chose the one with the other in view.”)

So our Lord states that his human life was to be given a lutron, “price of release,” anti, “in the place of, or instead of,” many.

Paul’s expression in 1 Timothy 2:6 is different. The word for “ransom” is not lutron, but antilutron, and his word for “for” is not anti, but huper. Antilutron means a “corresponding price of release,” or as Vine puts it, “a substitutionary ransom … there the preposition is huper, on behalf of… ”

To summarize:

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