---
title: Hebrews 2:14
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/hebrews-2-14/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/hebrews-2-14.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Hebrews 2:14
testament: NT
section: Letters
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Hebrews 2:14

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Now since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil,

## JW Usage

JWs cite Hebrews 2:14 as support for the "corresponding ransom" doctrine. Jesus "shared in flesh and blood" — took on truly human nature equivalent to Adam's — so that his death could serve as an exact equivalent for Adam's forfeited perfect human life. The verse is used to anchor the Watchtower's claim that the ransom required only a perfect man, not a divine person.

## Protestant Usage

Hebrews 2:14 confirms the humanity of Christ — which Protestant Christology has always affirmed. Jesus really did share in flesh and blood. The Watchtower reading only becomes problematic at the exclusion: "ONLY a perfect man" is never stated in the verse. Hebrews 2:14 is a hypostatic-union text when read alongside 2:10 (the one through whom all things exist) and 1:3 (the exact representation of God's being). The one who shared in flesh and blood is the one through whom creation exists. He is truly human without ceasing to be truly God — and that is precisely why his sacrifice has infinite reach (1 John 2:2: "the propitiation for the sins of the whole world"), not merely one-for-one coverage of Adam. Pair with Romans 5:15-20 — Paul repeatedly says the gift is "not like" the trespass, "much more," "abounded still more." A strictly equivalent sacrifice would match, not abound.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Corresponding Ransom Chain](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/ransom-chain.md) — Romans 5 — Not Like the Trespass [Salvation]
- ['Satan Also Blesses' — Common Grace vs Demonic Conspiracy](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/satan-blesses-worldly-success.md) — Matthew 5:45 — He sends rain on the just and the unjust [Epistemology]
- [Satan Is Not Omnipresent — Locomotion, Not Ubiquity](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/satan-functional-omnipresence.md) — Job 1:7 — Going to and fro on the earth [Holy Spirit]
- [If Jesus Is God, Who Raised Him?](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/god-cannot-die-jw-closing.md) — Acts 20:28 / 1 Corinthians 2:8 — the two natures of the one Person [Deity of Christ]
- [Two Verbs, Two Categories](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/en-vs-egeneto-john-1-tense.md) — John 1 — the Word 'was' (ēn), creation 'came to be' (egeneto) [Deity of Christ]