Ransomed

Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice.
PSALM 49:7-8
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Ransomed
Those who trust in their own strength and in riches are such that even a brother who is still extremely kind to his brother cannot ransom him before God. . .. But if, somehow, he does redeem, it is a man who redeems (that is, as a man he can redeem in a temporal sense with regard to this life). But our redemption is from God. . .. If man redeems, and not God, then it follows that he shall not give to God his ransom, to whom it should be given most of all, if we are to be redeemed; but he gives it to a man as the price of the redemption of his body, but not of the soul. . .. Even as one redeemed in this way, he will still be in captivity and labor forever. And he will continue to live perpetually the worst kind of life, for he has not died with Christ, that he might live with Him.

From First Lectures on the Psalms (Luther's Works 10:226-27)
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