What Was Required to Provide for Man’s Salvation?

Answer: A ransom or corresponding price was needed to take Adam’s place under the penalty of death. Job expressed this in Job 33:24 (NASB): “Deliver him from going down to the pit [death], I have found a ransom.” A ransom for Adam would be a perfect man. However, since Adam’s fall, all men were imperfect. Therefore, as Psa. 49:7 (NASB) says, “No man can by any means redeem his brother Or give to God a ransom for him.” No descendant of Adam could redeem or provide a ransom for his brother because all were fallen and imperfect. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. ” (Rom. 3:23 NASB)

But this could not stop God’s plan of salvation because He planned to provide a ransom for Adam. Hosea says in Hos. 13:14: “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction.”

God sent His only begotten son, our Lord Jesus, to be man’s ransom. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (17) For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” (John 3:16,17) “Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20:28 NASB)

Our Lord could not provide a ransom as spirit being.  He had to be made flesh, a perfect man, to provide the ransom. “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.” (Heb. 2:9 NASB) “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, (5) To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” (Gal. 4:5,6)

It was the perfect man Christ Jesus who provided the ransom for Adam and thus, took his place under the penalty freeing Adam to be released from the death penalty. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; (6) Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.” (1 Tim. 2:5,6)

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