Father. He was thus miraculously born perfect and sinless; and the sin from Adam did not spread to him. As a man of thirty years of age, when he got baptized in water by John the Baptist to symbolize his dedication to God to do the divine will, Jesus was the full equivalent in a human way of the sinless, perfect Adam in the garden of Eden. He was thus in a position to offer his human life or soul as a “corresponding ransom” for the release of humankind from sin and its penalty death.

42. Are the many descendants of Adam and Eve to benefit from Jesus’ “corresponding ransom,” and does this ransom not apply first to Adam and then to Eve?

⁴² That the many descendants of Adam and Eve are to benefit from this “corresponding ransom” of Jesus Christ and are to have a resurrection from Sheol or Haʹdes to an opportunity to gain human perfection on a Paradise earth, the Bible plainly teaches. But what about Adam and Eve? Since Jesus’ human body and soul corresponded exactly to that of the perfect Adam in Eden, would not the “corresponding ransom” paid by Jesus apply first of all to Adam himself and secondarily to Adam’s wife Eve? Not necessarily!

43, 44. (a) For whose benefit were the cities of refuge in Israel, and in what way? (b) What did this law say about the intentional manslayer, in Numbers 35:18-21, 30-32?

⁴³ To illustrate: In Jehovah’s law given to the nation of Israel through the prophet Moses, He made provision for six “cities of refuge,” at strategic or convenient locations throughout the land of Israel. These were for the man who became guilty of manslaughter by sheer accident. The accidental manslayer could escape the death penalty by beating the avenger of blood to the most convenient city of refuge and remaining inside until the death of the Levite who was then serving as Jehovah’s high priest. (Num. 35:9-29) But what about an intentional or deliberate manslayer, a murderer, an assassin? On this, God’s law of refuge cities says:

⁴⁴ “Without fail the murderer should be put to death. The avenger of blood is the one who will put the murderer to death. When he chances upon him he himself will put him to death. And if in hatred he was pushing [the man murdered] or he has thrown at him while lying in wait that he might die, or in enmity he has struck him with his hand that he might die, without fail the striker should be put to death. He is a murderer. The avenger of blood will put the murderer to death when he chances upon him.” “Every fatal striker of a soul should be slain as a murderer at the mouth of witnesses, and one witness may not testify against a soul for him to die. AND YOU MUST TAKE NO RANSOM FOR THE SOUL OF A MURDERER WHO IS DESERVING TO DIE, for without fail he should be put to death. And you must not take a ransom for the one [the accidental manslayer] who has fled to his city of refuge, to resume dwelling in the land before the death of the high priest.”—Num. 35:18-21, 30-32.

45. How should we view Jehovah’s refusing to accept a ransom for the willful manslayer?

⁴⁵ Jehovah God the Giver of all life was within his right and also within the limits of justice in refusing to accept a ransom for the willful manslayer and refusing to let him live on under the protective shadow of the Jewish high priest.

46, 47. (a) Concerning Adam as the responsible one, what do Romans 5:12-14 and; 1 Timothy 2:14 say? (b) Besides getting sentenced, what might Adam by his sin have killed off?

⁴⁶ Likewise in the case of God’s dealings with Adam and Eve. Concerning Adam as the main responsible one, Romans 5:12-14 says: “Through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned—. . . . Nevertheless, death ruled as king from Adam down to Moses, even over those who had not sinned after the likeness of the transgression by Adam.”

⁴⁷ Through Adam sin and its penalty death entered into the world of mankind. Adam thus became responsible for the sinfulness and death of all his descendants, with all the reproach that this has brought upon the holy name of his Maker, Jehovah God. This was not accidental on Adam’s part; “Adam was not deceived.” (1 Tim. 2:14) He knew that he was breaking God’s law against the eating from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. He knew that he was taking the course that meant his death at God’s hand, and he might have expected that his death by execution would take place on that very twenty-four-hour day before he had the opportunity to become a father. He might thus have killed all opportunity for life, or even a start in life, for all his offspring. When, by God’s undeserved kindness, Adam did start off his family, he started all of them off in sin and under the condemnation of death and with no right to life.

48. (a) What can be said about God’s refusing to accept any ransom in Adam’s behalf? (b) What about this with regard to the offspring of Adam and Eve?

⁴⁸ Because Adam, despite God’s full warning, willfully brought death upon all his offspring, he was a willful murderer, and Eve shared with him in this willful transgression. So Jehovah, acting in harmony with his later law concerning the Israelite “cities of refuge,” would refuse to accept any ransom in Adam’s behalf and in Eve’s behalf, not letting them come under the ministration of his High Priest Jesus Christ. But as regards the human family that descended from them, God could justly accept the ransom sacrifice of his High Priest Jesus Christ in their behalf, because their sinfulness that merited death was only accidental, it not being willed by them but being due only to birth from Adam.

49. What about the ransom benefits and Cain the son of Adam?

⁴⁹ In the case of Cain, the first son of Adam, God justly withholds the benefits of Christ’s ransom sacrifice from Cain because Jehovah God directly warned Cain and yet he wickedly assassinated his godly brother Abel. For Cain as well as for his parents Adam and Eve we reasonably expect no resurrection from the dead.

Our Own Twentieth-Century Generation and the Resurrection

1, 2. (a) Will all those of our twentieth-century generation come within God’s provision for a resurrection? (b) What does Jesus’ parable show regarding those likened to “goats”?

MANY persons of our twentieth-century generation are dying who come within the provision made by Jehovah God for a resurrection under the kingdom of his Son Jesus Christ.

² However, among our own generation there are many who will share the final destiny of Satan the Devil and his demons. These will be those whom Jesus Christ compared to goats. He gave a prophecy on the conclusion of this wicked system of things and closed this prophecy with his parable of the sheep and the goats. This parable or illustration is found in Matthew 25:31-46. In our generation the symbolic “goats” are people from all the present-day nations, and they are separated from the righteous class of persons whom Jesus likened to sheep. Both these “sheep” and