Day: May 25, 2012

Christianity is, of all religions, the most paradoxical. Its truths often seem to be at tension with each other. This is one of the primary reasons why those who do not read the Bible in context (and who do not yet have the eyes of the Spirit to help them apprehend it) sometimes dismiss scripture as self-contradictory. What they do not realize is that it is impossible for flawed and limited beings such as we to ever completely grasp the nature of the God of Israel. Because of this some of what may at first seem contradictory is only understandable, to the degree it can be understood at all, as divine paradox and then only to the point needful for our salvation and sanctification. Whether the subject is free will vs. pre-destination, mercy vs. justice, or any number of other conundrums posed by the Word of God, the acceptance of paradox is the only way to get past certain things we simply cannot get our human intellect around.

Of all these paradoxes perhaps the most difficult one to accept and apply to our own lives is the concept of being saved by grace through faith. In a “can’t get something for nothing” world populated by self-seeking human beings the idea of our sins being paid for by Someone other than ourselves is nearly impossible to believe. In fact it is only by the grace of God that any of us are put into the position to believe at all.

But however difficult it is to grasp the paradox of our Lord’s unconditional love making our incredibly costly salvation absolutely free to us; this paradox is the sweetest we will ever know. It really is at the Heart of Christianity, the Heart found hanging on a Roman cross 2,000 years ago.

The ironic thing is that, when it comes right down to it, all true love is gift-love. Real love is, by definition, giving. This is recognized even by people who are otherwise still caught up in the marketplace mentality of fallen human life. Further, beyond real love is perfect love. This is the kind that only God has and it is perfectly giving. Not needing anything or anyone God’s love is self-caused, infinite and free. As such it must be a love that, again by definition, we do not have to earn, that in fact we cannot earn.

Yet as free as this divine love is it still was, again in some paradoxical way, an incredibly costly love in the case of our redemption. It did cost God something to send His Son to the cross. In fact the cost to Him to make His Son, to make Himself, the payment for our sins is beyond our comprehension. For at the moment the world’s sin was put upon Christ the up to that point unbroken fellowship within the Trinity was somehow broken, if only for a ghastly moment in time. The God who loved His only begotten Son beyond what we can ever know was forced to turn away from Him. This was the incomprehensible cost to God to restore the human race to Himself. As it has often been said, in many words, our salvation was unfathomably expensive to Him, yet totally free to us.

Whenever we meditate on what happened on Good Friday we must grapple with this riddle of divine love. Hopefully we will come away unspeakably thankful to the God of paradox for the greatest paradox of all time, the gift of our eternal redemption.