Love and Redemption
February 27, 2019
Two weeks ago, I went antiquing with some good friends here at Grace. We had a blast looking at old furniture (made of real wood!), collectibles that had to be at least one hundred years old, and odds and ends. My favorite finding was an old, suspended, wooden telephone—the kind that existed before rotary phones. As an aside, have you ever noticed how these kinds of telephones had the appearance of a face—two eyes, a nose, and a mouth?
Along the way, one of my friends found a couple mint, sealed Hot Wheels cars that sparked particular interest. Quickly checking Amazon, he found that these cars in hand were an excellent deal and that they would fit perfectly in his collection. He had loved these two models as a kid, and so buying these cars was a no-brainer—it had to be done!
Now, compare that experience of blissful purchasing power to buying groceries when your fridge is on the empty side. At least for us men, this experience is nothing like the former! The difference? Love. A strong and compelling desire that leads you to sacrifice of your own wealth for the further enjoyment of something new.
Humanly speaking, this is a small picture of how love compels us to redeem or buy things for our own personal enjoyment.
Thinking of the Divine, we know from Scripture that God relates to us through the theological term “Covenant.” A covenant, in biblical terms, is the promise of life based upon certain conditions. God related to mankind in Creation before the Fall through what is called the Covenant of Works, or in other words, the promise of life based upon the obedience of man toward God (Gen 2:17; cf. Hosea 6:7). And after man failed to uphold the Covenant of Works, the Covenant of Grace is what God promised to Adam and Eve in the first telling of the gospel in Genesis 3:15. The promise? That Christ would come through the line of Eve and crush the head of the serpent, the Enemy of God’s people who had deceived and tempted them to sin.
But what’s important to note is that the Covenant of Grace is made both with and by means of a Covenant Mediator: Christ. Much like the giving away of money to procure something desirable, God the Father sent his one and only Son, Jesus, to save and redeem his people from their sins. And like the buying of something desirable—unlike that which is needed—redemption is rooted in love and stems from love. We know from John 3:16 that God loved the world in this way: that he sent his only Son. God certainly didn’t need us, as if he lacked anything, for how can an entirely self-sufficient God be lacking in anything? But he wanted us for his own, to have us and to cherish us, even while we were yet still sinners. Truly astounding, isn’t it? And God put action to his love toward us in this way, that “while we were still weak, Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom 5:6; cf. Gal 4:4–7).
Now, before we think too highly of ourselves, notice that we could not and did not force God’s hand in any way to buy us or redeem us. We were rebels who had sinned against Almighty God and his law, forsaking him for our own vain pleasures. But in this is love: “not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). In Christ who is our propitiation, the wrath of God that we ourselves have heaped up against us is met with full and complete satisfaction to the uttermost. And because our sins have been forgiven by Christ’s sacrifice and all of Christ’s righteousness has been attributed to us by his active obedience, we now have the freedom to enjoy fellowship with God—our Maker, Redeemer, and Lover of our souls.
There’s a difference between buying goods to fill a need and buying that for which you long and desire deeply. We have this kind of love-based, love-bound, and love-motivated redemption from God our Father. And yet it is so much richer than a mere analogy could ever describe.
He cares for us more profoundly than we could ever imagine. And we have the joy as Christians, those chosen in Christ before the world’s foundation, to walk freely in his love.
“Ever since by faith I saw the stream thy flowing wounds supplied, Redeeming Love has been my theme, and shall be ’til I die.”
