A Corresponding Ransom

10. Why could animal sacrifices not adequately cover mankind’s sins?

¹⁰ The foregoing illustrates that a ransom must be the equivalent of that for which it substitutes, or covers. The animal sacrifices that men of faith from Abel onward offered up could not really cover men’s sins, since humans are superior to brute beasts. (Psalm 8:4-8) Paul could thus write that “it is not possible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take sins away.” Such sacrifices could serve simply as a pictorial, or symbolic, covering in anticipation of the ransom that was to come.​—Hebrews 10:1-4.

11, 12. (a) Why did thousands of millions of humans not have to die sacrificial deaths to cover mankind’s sinfulness? (b) Who alone could serve as “a corresponding ransom,” and what purpose does his death serve?

¹¹ This foreshadowed ransom had to be the exact equivalent of Adam, since the death penalty that God justly applied to Adam resulted in the condemnation of the human race. “In Adam all are dying,” says 1 Corinthians 15:22. So it was not necessary for thousands of millions of individual humans to die sacrificial deaths to correspond to each individual of Adam’s progeny. “Through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world and death through sin.” (Romans 5:12) And “since death is through a man,” redemption of mankind could also come “through a man.”​—1 Corinthians 15:21.

¹² The man who could be the ransom had to be a perfect human of flesh and blood​—the exact equal of Adam. (Romans 5:14) A spirit creature or a “God-man” would not balance the scales of justice. Only a perfect human, someone not under the Adamic death sentence, could offer “a corresponding ransom,” one corresponding perfectly to Adam. (1 Timothy 2:6)a By voluntarily sacrificing his life, this “last Adam” could pay the wage for the sin of the “first man Adam.”​—1 Corinthians 15:45; Romans 6:23.