Friday, August 31, 2012

Things that are Free

“Sometimes the things that are free are those that cost the most.”

- Dr. Parker

What is given away freely to others is often obtained at a high price. The most notable example that comes to mind is the gift of salvation. Although Christ enrobes whomever He chooses with His “robe of righteousness” (Is 61:10), it cost Him everything to part with it. On that blood-stained cross, Jesus did not just undergo the pains of death by cross. He felt the full brunt force of the hell-fire wrath of His Father. On that day Jesus Christ stood in the place of millions. To first understand the enormity of the debt that Jesus paid, one must first realize that God and His Law are infinitely good, and our rebellion against them are just as enormous.
            
Jesus said that His Father is perfect, or infinitely good (Mt 5:48), and this Infinitely Good King has made a Law. The Law is basically a reflection of Himself. The reason the Law says, for example, “Don’t be a false witness,” (Ex 20:16) is because God cannot be so. It’s the same thing with stealing, murdering, being faithless, etc. And this Law, because it’s a reflection of God, is just as infinite as He is. The problem, therefore, is that everyone has broken every single law (Jas 2:10), and everyone in his own nature is wholly corrupt and perfectly evil (Rom 3:10-12). It’s as if a man was lying beneath a giant anvil infinitely bigger and heavier than he was, which is only suspended by a thin cord, but the man continues to have someone add more and more weight to it. Then the rope is cut.

Now King Jesus sets aside His robe of Glory in Heaven, and adds onto His eternal nature the nature of man (Phil 2:6-8). He is thus born of a virgin, lives utterly obediently, and is called to be executed on the cross. In this hour-most-dark, God the Father legally treats Jesus as sin itself. So Jesus, in the hour of His death on the cross, was legally declared to be the sin of the elect (2 Cor 5:21). In so doing He set aside His robe of righteousness to put on the filthy rags (Is 64:6) of believers’ sins. And then God cut the rope holding the massive anvil of the world’s sin over Jesus. And it fell from Heaven and crushed Him (Is 53:5, 10). And blood was spilt at the foot of the cross.

The one who was delivered over to death for our sins arose again to justify us.” (Rom 4:25). This Christ, who paid for His church with His own blood, rose again as Champion of God. And this Champion now picked up that robe He shed at the cross and with it clothes whomever He wishes. This robe is Christ’s perfection. It is His blood. It is Salvation and Justification. And Christ bestows it freely, without cost. So it is certainly true, “Those things which are free are those which often cost the most.” 

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