@Deputy Dog:
My point is that there is a giant difference between the WT ransom and the atonement of Christ in Christianity.
What difference is there?
@cofty
I know; that was the whole theme of the article and the reason I became a christian
There are many that may have heard the good news and that claim to be Christians, but their sins have not been pardoned because they fail to exercise faith in Jesus.
As I said above...
I was not implying that anything in addition to Jesus' death was necessary.
Well, there should have been such an implication, since Jesus' death was the payment of the ransom price that was needed to satisfy justice. Something in addition to Jesus' death is definitely necessary for salvation.
Adam had squandered away his right to live through his disobedience, which made him a murderer in that he killed all mankind -- both you and me -- that were yet unborn in his loins when he elected to sin against God, and there was absolutely no way that God could pardon his unpardonable, deliberate sin since Adam was a perfect man. But God's love for the world (as yet unborn) prompted him to take the extraordinary action he did in sending his only-begotten son from heaven to be born here on earth as Adam's perfect brother to redeem Adam's debt, which his offspring incurred so that we were all sold into bondage to sin and death that we had come to inherit from our father, Adam, who forfeited his right to live, so that he could not be redeemed in that he had to die for his wilful sin committed against God.
Just as Adam's sin led to all of his offspring incurring his debt for sin, which debt we would never be able to satisfy, our "uncle" Jesus' death redeemed the sins of all of us, his nieces and nephews, thus effecting a release that lifted the curse of sin from all of Adam's children. By making this provision of the ransom possible in having Jesus step in as Adam's brother to redeem us, this became God's gift to us, since what God did was an undeserved kindness to us, and there was really no other way that we could have been redeemed, except through the payment of this precious ransom price that no other human the equal of Adam would ever have been able to pay to God in satisfaction of justice. But this release does not grant a pardon to anyone.
Now God, being the epitome of righteousness, could not just pardon our sins without there being a legitimate basis, in fact, for his granting such a pardon to us, and he made it possible for our sins to be pardoned by having his son -- our uncle -- pay the ransom, one perfect life for another perfect life. However, because Jehovah, being our proverbial grandfather, so to speak, is willing to become reconciled with only those of Adam's redeemed children that prove to be obedient to all of the things that Jesus taught, so mankind's salvation comes with one condition, namely, that we exercise faith in Jesus, for only those exercising faith in Jesus will gain eternal life, whereas those that refuse to exercise faith in Jesus will not see life at all. Jesus, therefore, became a ransom, not in exchange for all of Adam's descendants, but in exchange for many, in exchange for those that would obediently put faith in Jesus, who would thus become inevitably our prophetic "Eternal Father," becoming for us what Adam did not become for us.
Anyone that should claim to be saved ought to be putting faith in Jesus, but anyone that is not doing the will of the Father will not be granted a pardon since salvation is conditioned upon our putting faith in the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ, whose ransom is actually what laid the basis for our being given the opportunity to inherit eternal life in the first place, but it is our acceptance in faith of the ransom paid by Jesus Christ that permits God to pardon our sins and grant salvation to us.
@djeggnog