Read Psalm 49:11–15

Truly no man can ransom another or give to God the price of his life. (Ps. 49:7)

How much is your life worth to you?

Once, when Julius Caesar was a young man, some pirates captured him and took him to a little island called Pharmacusa. They told him that they were going to demand twenty talents of gold as ransom money before they would set him free. Julius Caesar was not the kind of person to be easily intimidated. He said, “Go ahead and ask for ransom money, but you’d better demand fifty talents of gold because I am worth a lot more than twenty talents!” Obviously, he thought quite highly of himself.

But what about you? Do you think you are worth as much as Julius Caesar? Perhaps you hesitate because somehow it does not feel right to put a dollar figure on human life. Isn’t life worth more than money? In fact, it becomes even more difficult when we ask how much it costs for someone to be ransomed from death and instead to live on forever. Yet that is the topic that the sons of Korah sing about in this psalm.

One part of the answer is perfectly clear: “No man can ransom another or give to God the price of his life . . . that he should live on forever and never see the pit” (vv. 7, 9). In other words, even a multibillionaire cannot pay his way into the eternal house not made by human hands (2 Cor. 5.1). Whenever man tries to ransom himself or someone else from death the end result is an absolute failure.

There is a different result, though, when the direction is reversed and the ransom comes from God to man rather than from man to God. In verse 15 we confess, “But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol.” That raises the question, “How will God do this?” The full answer comes in 1 Peter 1:18–19, where we read: “You were ransomed . . . with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.” Blood, not money, is God’s way to ransom us, and not just any blood either—only the blood of the unique Lamb of God will suffice.

Pause for a moment and consider how much it cost God’s only begotten Son to ransom your life from eternal death. The more you meditate on that truth the more thankful you should become.