Topic: Faith
Theologians have long sought a satisfactory answer to a slightly misunderstood question. When Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins, how, and to whom was the payment made? The Father commanded that Jesus should go to the cross because our sin presented such an affront that only a perfect sacrifice could suffice to offset the offensiveness before a holy God. So why and how did God receive an acceptable settlement for our sin from what must also have been a sacrifice on His part, namely watching His only-begotten son die a criminal’s death for the unworthy creation He loved.
This query cannot be answered within this limited frame of reference because the question is flawed by the lack of context. Fortunately, we can better understand the question and thereby perceive the answer by examining God’s economy. We can do that by borrowing the first of three economic principles written by Adam Smith. Smith informs us that money has no intrinsic value. He wrote that the only value that can be assigned to money, or to any other good or service is the value of a person’s labor. Now we can see that paper money is worth only the value assigned to it by hourly wage as easily as we witness inflation. Adam Smith assures us that the same is true of silver and gold. Gold is only worth its weight in gold unless someone is willing to work for it.
So how does labor-assigned value relate to the atonement made by Jesus on the cross? When Jesus died on the cross he did not simply pay for our sins, more importantly, he set the price. His labor of sacrifice established inestimable, unmistakable, and permanent value. Let us examine those things to which his death assigned this unprecedented value.
First, Jesus’ death showed the inestimable and permanent value of a right relationship with God the Father. By remaining obedient to his Father, Jesus demonstrated that his relationship with his Father was worth his very life. That was what he traded in obeying the wishes of his Father. Jesus made a distinct impression on the apostles in so doing. Like him, most of them also exchanged their lives to obey God, their heavenly Father. Subsequently, unnumbered martyrs have followed his example when their lives were required in obedience to the God they loved. Even today in some parts of the world Christians still forfeit their lives rather than disobey or disavow the God who loves them.
Second, his death unmistakably set the price of sin. Finally people could see that sin required more than just the death of the offending sinner. Now we know that sin is so antithetical to God’s holiness that it requires a perfect sacrifice. The payment for our sin imposed on a perfect person a sacrifice so terrible that the most abject sinner and the most plebian sinner must take notice and begin to understand how great a debtor they must be.
Third, Jesus’ death declared the inestimable value that God places on each of us. The love which God shows to us in exchanging Jesus’ life to offer us a right relationship with Him cannot be compared to any earthly love. John 3:16 and 17 tells us everything we need to know about this rate of exchange.
Now, as any wise shopper will tell you, no price is truly set by a tag or a manufacturer’s recommendation. People do not consider full price the true value if some bargain hunter still thinks they can find a discount somewhere, it’s just part of our human nature. Some Old Testament followers openly showed their desire to stay on the cheaper annual installment plan when it came to paying for sin. Jesus knew the Father’s answer about paying the full price when he asked about letting the cup pass. In order to set a price as a known quantity, someone must pay the price.
So when someone asks how God was recompensed for the cost of your sin by accepting the death of His son on the cross, the answer is simpler than you might think. Remember John 3:16 and recall that you were bought with a price. God asked the price, and Jesus paid it, not simply because it was due, but because it had to become set. This imponderable and incomparable price has become permanently, inestimably and unmistakably set for all people by Jesus’ own labor of love. It is the labor of love that no one else could undertake. His obedient labor established forever the values which only God could assign.
