Mark 10:45
Mark 10:4545For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”
A central verse for the Watchtower's doctrine of the ransom. Jesus, a perfect man, gave a life exactly corresponding to what Adam lost — a ransom in exchange, balancing the scales. The correspondence is precise on this reading, which is why Jesus must be a perfect human and not God: an infinite being would not be an equivalent exchange.
The ransom language is real and Christians hold it too. The question is what the exchange required. Take the Watchtower's own logic seriously for a moment: a perfect human life corresponds to what Adam forfeited. But Adam forfeited perfection for the whole race, across all history — and Mark says the ransom is "in exchange for many." A single created life balancing the guilt of billions is not an equivalent exchange in any ordinary sense. Hebrews puts the weight on who the offerer was. It contrasts Christ's single offering with the endless repetition of animal sacrifices, and grounds its sufficiency in his person: the one who is the exact representation of God's very being (1:3), who offered himself (9:14), once for all time (9:28). And note what this verse does not say. It does not say the Son of Man was given; it says he came to give. The initiative is his — as at , where he says no one takes his life from him and he has authority to take it up again. Compare , , .