Imagine, if you will, that you are in debt.
I suspect most of you reading are in debt, to one lender or another, or have been, so perhaps you can identify with this little allegory personally, at least to start.
Now let's imagine that this debt is to someone powerful. Maybe the IRS. Yes, since I'm a tax lady, let's go with the IRS (although in my experience they are much nicer to work with than the State of Colorado, but that's neither here nor there).
You owe the IRS a lot of money. More money than you can pay. It is your fault, for you, perhaps, misunderstood a tax law or misreported an item or perhaps did not plan for an upcoming tax bill. Regardless, it is ultimately your responsibility, despite the additional charges brought on by penalties and interest.
Now the IRS can do several things to satisfy this debt and to punish you, the transgressor, for getting yourself into this mess in the first place. They can garnish your wages. They can put a lien on your home. And ultimately, you can be put into prison. Though not a function of the IRS, in some cultures, a debtor could even be put to death!
So imagine that the IRS has had it with you ~ had it with your failure to pay, had it with your excuses, had it with the time it has taken to pursue you to make things right ~ and they decide to take action against you, as is well within their rights according to the law.
And then, just before they come to seize you, someone steps in. Someone, perhaps you don't even know, someone who steps in and steps up to pay your debt on your behalf so that you can be free.
Such is the heart of the gospel and a picture of it that likely you have heard before, right? Although no analogy that compares God to man is ever perfect, it does help sometimes to see the transaction of propitiation that occurred when our debt to the Creator God was paid by Jesus Christ.
It is amazing in and of itself, but I want to take it a step farther, because yesterday in my quiet time God awed me with another aspect of the gospel.
Let's use the same example, only we'll call it a bank now, a very large and powerful bank. You have been a long-time customer of this bank, though not a very good customer, as, like I mentioned before, you have accumulated great debt over poor decisions in your lifetime. The time comes when the bank decides to reckon with you, to clear up all the overdrafts and bad debt that you have accumulated over the years of banking with them. It's time to pay up.
Again, the bank has methods they can use within their rights to collect from you. You are a desperate man, however, and you have no means to pay. You have just lost your job as a bakery owner, perhaps, or whatever. Your wife is ill and your children have needs that also are not being met.
Enter that someone who comes to rescue you.
Only now you stop and ask yourself, "Where did this guy come from?" and "Why would he do this for me?"
And you come to find out, that although you've been a lousy customer of this bank for years, and although the bank has been good to you despite your lack of reciprocity, and even though there comes a time when accounts must be reconciled, this bank still wants to keep its relationship with you.
Mind-boggling in and of itself, isn't it?
And then you discover, that because the bank still wants you to have a relationship with them, the CEO of the bank himself gets involved in your case personally, and he decides that the way to rescue you and keep you part of the bank's family is by calling up his own son, his only son, to step and make way for this to happen.
And he does. The son comes in, the son pays the price ~ steeper than we can imagine ~ and you are free of all your debt. And you are still a customer of the bank ~ in fact, you could say, you've even been elevated to preferred customer status ~ actually no, he puts you on the board of directors ~ because the CEO of this bank sent his son to make things right with you.
Yeah, I know ~ those of you who read this blog likely know the gospel already. But sometimes we get so familiar with things like the gospel that we become desensitized to it. It should move us every time we consider it that the price Jesus paid for us was death! And yet we read it, perhaps nod a quiet thanks in our hearts (on a spiritual day), and move on. But yesterday, considering the gospel and thinking of this bank analogy, helped me to just be amazed that not only Jesus died for me, but that this was initiated by the Father.
In a culture of Go-Fund-Mes and other crowdfunding campaigns, even before such campaigns when fundraising was (and still is) common (although it's like an F-word to me, often, honestly), many of us understand that at times there is something out there that is too big for us to accomplish on our own. Some are stubborn and dig our heels in, thinking in pride that they can accomplish it on their own. In the case of salvation, they can't, and other than the realization that they can't accomplish it on their own, even the crowdfunders and fundraisers can't be saved without Jesus, for you can't crowdfund salvation. It can't be bought. The price is too high.
But it has already been taken care of. You call the bank, perhaps, to try to make arrangements one last time. Maybe you ask, in desperation, "Can you just consider forgiving this loan?"
And the CEO says, "Already done. Someone already has settled your account. You are free and we look forward to continuing our relationship with you in the future."
I feel like this is so ineloquently said. You can't compare the Creator God with a bank CEO, really. And of course the settling of account wasn't as simple as someone stepping in to make a financial transaction on my behalf. But the point that I have been "pondering anew" as of late is that God initiated it. That is amazing. He initiated it, before I ever knew I needed it. He initiated it, even though I have nothing really to offer Him. He initiated it.
Ponder it anew.
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 esv
