The penalty for breaking the law of God is proportionate to the price paid to redeem its transgressors. {FLB 354.5} Jesus paid an infinite price to redeem the world, and the race was given into His hands; they became His property. {3T 372.1} At infinite suffering, the sinless for the sinful, the price was paid that was to redeem the human family from the power of the destroyer and restore them again to the image of God. {9T 283.3}

"Ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Cor. 6:19, 20). What a price was paid to redeem the fallen race! {TDG 255.3} Every man and woman has had the ransom money paid by Jesus Christ. "Ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price"--even the precious blood of the Son of God. {OHC 42.2} Our ransom has been paid by our Saviour. No one need be enslaved by Satan. . . We have been bought with a price that it is impossible to compute. {6BC 1074.5}

The enemy is buying souls today very cheap. "Ye have sold yourselves for nought," is the language of Scripture. One is selling his soul for the world's applause, another for money; one to gratify base passions, another for worldly amusement. Such bargains are made daily. Satan is bidding for the purchase of Christ's blood and buying them cheap, notwithstanding the infinite price which has been paid to ransom them. {5T 133.4}

"Know ye not that . . . ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price." 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20. What a price has been paid for us! Behold the cross, and the Victim uplifted upon it. Look at those hands, pierced with the cruel nails. Look at His feet, fastened with spikes to the tree. Christ bore our sins in His own body. That suffering, that agony, is the price of your redemption. The word of command was given: "Deliver them from going down to perish eternally. I have found a ransom." {6T 479.2}

This parable [the pearl of great price] has a double significance, and applies not only to man seeking the kingdom of heaven, but to Christ seeking His lost inheritance. Through transgression man lost his holy innocence, and mortgaged himself to Satan. Christ, the only begotten Son of God, pledged Himself for the redemption of man, and paid the price of his ransom on the cross of Calvary. {TMK 84.3}

The Son of God passed through the portals of the tomb, that "through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." Heb. 2:14. {GC 503.3} He died on the cross to destroy him who had the power of death and to take away the sin of every believing soul. {HP 33.5} The blood of the innocent had been shed for the guilty. By the life that He gave, man was ransomed from eternal death, and the doom of him who had the power of death was sealed. {RC 60.2}

Death entered the world because of transgression. But Christ gave His life that man should have another trial. He did not die on the cross to abolish the law of God, but to secure for man a second probation. He did not die to make sin an immortal attribute; He died to secure the right to destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. {FLB 179.5}

When Satan was triumphing as the prince of the world, when he claimed the world as his kingdom, when we were all marred and corrupted with sin, God sent His messenger from heaven, even His only begotten Son, to proclaim to all the inhabitants of the world, "I have found a ransom. I have made a way of escape for all the perishing. I have your emancipation papers provided for you, sealed by the Lord of heaven and earth." {OHC 38.3}

When man was doomed to death by transgression of the law of God, the Father, looking upon His Son, said to the sinner, "Live: I have found a ransom." {PP 154.1} Transgression placed the whole world in jeopardy, under the death sentence. But in heaven there was heard a voice saying, "I have found a ransom" (Letter 22, 1900). {6BC 1076.3}

God will soon vindicate His justice before the universe. His justice requires that sin shall be punished; His mercy grants that sin shall be pardoned through repentance and confession. Pardon can come only through His only begotten Son; Christ alone can expiate sin--and then only when sin is repented of and forsaken. Man has severed his connection with God, and his soul has become palsied and strengthless by the deadly poison of sin. But there was a time when the proclamation sounded through the heavenly courts, I have found a ransom! A divine life is given as man's ransom; One equal with the Father has become man's substitute. {UL 49.5}

According to the law Christ Himself gave, the forfeited inheritance was ransomed by the nearest of kin. Jesus Christ laid off His royal robe, His kingly crown, and clothed His divinity with humanity, in order to become a substitute and surety for humanity, that dying in humanity He might by His death destroy him who had the power of death. He could not have done this as God, but by coming as man Christ could die. By death He overcame death. The death of Christ bore to the death him who had the power of death, and opened the gates of the tomb for all who receive Him as their personal Saviour. {7BC 925.6}

In the wilderness of temptation, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and on the cross, our Saviour measured weapons with the prince of darkness. His wounds became the trophies of His victory in behalf of the race. When Christ hung in agony upon the cross, while evil spirits rejoiced and evil men reviled, then indeed His heel was bruised by Satan. But that very act was crushing the serpent's head. Through death He destroyed "him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." Hebrews 2:14. This act decided the destiny of the rebel chief, and made forever sure the plan of salvation. In death He gained the victory over its power; in rising again, He opened the gates of the grave to all His followers. In that last great contest we see fulfilled the prophecy, "It shall bruise thy head, and thou shall bruise his heel." Genesis 3:15. {PK 701.3}

Satan did not then exult as he had done. He had hoped that he could break up the plan of salvation; but it was laid too deep. And now by Jesus' death, he knew that he must finally die, and his kingdom be taken away and given to Jesus. He held a council with his angels. He had prevailed nothing against the Son of God, and now they must increase their efforts, and with their cunning and power turn to Jesus' followers. They must prevent all they could from receiving salvation purchased for them by Jesus. By so doing Satan could still work against the government of God. Also it would be for his own interest to keep from Jesus all he could. For the sins of those who are redeemed by the blood of Christ, and overcome, at last will be rolled back upon the originator of sin, the Devil, and he will have to bear their sins, while those who do not accept salvation through Jesus will bear their own sins. {1SG 61.1}

Jesus changed the mother's grief to joy when He gave back her son; yet the youth was but called forth to this earthly life, to endure its sorrows, its toils, and its perils, and to pass again under the power of death. But Jesus comforts our sorrow for the dead with a message of infinite hope: "I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, . . . and have the keys of hell and of death." "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Rev. 1:18; Heb. 2:14, 15. {DA 320.1}

With a holy sadness Jesus comforted and cheered the angels and informed them that hereafter those whom He should redeem would be with Him, and that by His death He should ransom many and destroy him who had the power of death. And His Father would give Him the kingdom and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, and He would possess it forever and ever. Satan and sinners would be destroyed, nevermore to disturb heaven or the purified new earth. Jesus bade the heavenly host be reconciled to the plan that His Father had accepted and rejoice that through His death fallen man could again be exalted to obtain favor with God and enjoy heaven. {EW 151.1}

These inspired passages make it clear that Jesus gave His life on the cross as the ransom price required to purchase the fallen race. The human race came under the dominion of sin and death when A&E sinned. At the time, the Devil possessed the power of death, therefore, as sinners, the fallen race became, by default, the subjects of Satan. But all that ended when Jesus became the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. By laying down His life and taking it up Jesus wrested from the Devil the keys of hell and of death. The fallen race is now the purchased possession of Jesus.