(Hosea 13:14) This promise of Jehovah to ransom the human
race must be carried out, because God is unchangeable. Having made the
promise, he will perform it.--Malachi 3:6; James 1:17.
[198]It is very important, then, that we understand the meaning of
ransom; hence we here define it. _Ransom_ means something to loosen
with; that is, a redemptive price. It is the means or price or value
which can be used in loosening or releasing something that is in bondage
or in restraint or imprisoned. Necessarily the ransom price must be
exactly equivalent to, or corresponding with, that which justice
requires of the thing or being that is in bondage or imprisonment. Hence
we say that ransom means an exact corresponding price. A perfect man
sinned and was sentenced to death; hence an exact corresponding price
would be the death of another perfect man and the value of that life
presented in place of the one who first sinned and was held in bondage.
[199]_Sin-offering_ means the presentation and use of the ransom-price.
On the atonement day performed by the Jews in type, the blood of the
bullock represented the poured-out life; and therefore it stood for the
ransom-price or value of the life. The carrying of the blood into the
Most Holy and sprinkling it there pictured the sin-offering, that is, a
presentation in the Most Holy (which represented heaven itself) of the
value or merit of the perfect life.
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