Can anything truly be considered free?
We may be familiar with the adage, "There is no such thing as a free lunch, not even in Freetown!" This saying implies that when you receive something you did not pay for, it still came at a cost to someone. There is always an underlying expense associated with any free offering.
When someone presents a Gift, it involves the giver using their funds to acquire the gift. Therefore, though you receive the gift with no strings attached, it undoubtedly incurred an expense for the giver. Sometimes, gifts also come because of sacrifices made by someone to bring the gift to us. Whether a gift was purchased, or it came through a sacrifice, the bottom line is this: nothing in life is free. While it may be free to you, it cost someone else something!
Life and sacrifices
Indeed, life revolves around acts of sacrifice. In every situation where one benefits, there is an inherent sacrifice involved. Consider the scenario of returning home to a delightful meal. Behind this palatable experience lie sacrifices from parents, a spouse, roommates, neighbours, or friends who dedicated time to purchasing ingredients, preparing them, and presenting the delicious meal.
Parents commit to daily work to secure an income for nourishing their families, providing their children with an education, and more. Schoolteachers persevere despite their meagre pay to educate others' children, often relinquishing eight to ten hours daily that could be spent with their families.
The produce we find in stores or markets originates from poorly paid farmers and farmhands who prepared the soil, sowed seeds, nurtured crops, harvested, and cleaned their yield. This process embodies sacrifice, for we know how little farmers earn compared to those who buy their produce. Likewise, consuming meat involves the sacrifice of an animal's life to nourish us.
What of the sacrifice of someone’s life and career to bring a child into this world? Whether parents consciously chose this path or not, they abandoned singlehood and their freedom to nurture and provide for a child. Today, many parents deeply appreciate the sacrifices their parents made as they raise their own children. Can you imagine your children perceiving your sacrifices as an entitlement, devoid of any appreciation?
Jesus’ sacrifice
If we, as humans, can comprehend the sacrifices we make for our children, friends, communities, and others, how much more can we grasp the colossal sacrifice for the most priceless entity that money can never purchase—eternal life? Psalm 49:8-9 affirms:
a soul is far too precious to be ransomed by mere earthly wealth. There is not enough of it in all the earth to buy eternal life for just one soul, to keep it out of hell. (LB)
Thus, eternal life comes at a substantial price—a sacrifice for sin. In the absence of any human deemed suitable for the redemption of our souls, God chose His own Son as the perfect sacrifice. This immaculate sacrifice is profoundly treasured by God. Isaiah 59:15-16 states:
The Lord saw all the evil and was displeased to find no steps taken against sin. He saw no one was helping you and wondered that no one intervened. Therefore he himself stepped in to save you through his mighty power and justice. (LB)
Furthermore, Romans 8:32 declares:
God did not keep back his own Son, but he gave him for us. (CEV)
Isaiah prophetically encapsulates Jesus’ sacrifice as follows:
it was our grief he bore, our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, for his own sins! But he was wounded and bruised for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace; he was lashed—and we were healed! We—every one of us—have strayed away like sheep! We, who left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet God laid on him the guilt and sins of every one of us! He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he never said a word. He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter; and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he stood silent before the ones condemning him. From prison and trial they led him away to his death. But who among the people of that day realized it was their sins that he was dying for—that he was suffering their punishment? … But it was the Lord’s good plan to bruise him and fill him with grief. (Isaiah 53:4-8, 10, LB)
Fueled by a profound Love for His Father, Jesus willingly chose to relinquish the splendour He shared with Him, to embark on a mission to bring countless adopted siblings to His Father's embrace. Some people thought that Jesus died on the cross because of His guilt. No! Jesus died on the cross because of our sins. God had to pour our sins on Jesus to justify His death for sin!
Jesus is God, yet He willingly shed the trappings of His rightful glory, majesty, honour, and all the privileges of being the Son of the Living God, to descend to the earth, and then, through death, to hell, to reconcile us to His Father. What a sacrifice!
While we often emphasize God's judgment on sinners and the perfect Lamb of God who offered Himself for the remission of sins, we must never ignore the monumental cost of this sinless offering made to God on our behalf. It was this sinless offering that made the gift of salvation to humanity possible and available. And what is more? It is free!
The value of God’s gift of salvation
Oftentimes, our spouses, friends, and others gauge our love for them by the value of our gifts or the sacrifices we make to nurture these relationships. God's sacrifice is profoundly valuable because He gave up His only begotten Son as an offering to atone for the sins of humanity. The Bible captures a parallel instance of such sacrifice:
After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, 'Abraham!' And he said, 'Here I am.' Then He said, 'Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.' So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son; and he split the wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. (Genesis 22:1-3, NKJV)
Although we are informed in these verses that God was testing Abraham, Abraham was unaware that God was trying him. God directed Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, his beloved son, in his old age; at a time when it would have been impossible to have another child by Sarah to replace Isaac! Additionally, God's instruction to Abraham came “after” he had sent Ishmael—his son by Hagar—and Hagar away, leaving Isaac as his “only son”! Abraham had to relinquish his cherished son and readily obeyed God (Hebrews 11:17-18).
Interestingly, Isaac himself willingly submitted to his father as a sacrifice. It is written:
When they came to the place where God told them to go, Abraham built an altar. He carefully laid the wood on the altar. Then he tied up his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. (Genesis 22:9, ERV)
At this time, Isaac was a youth with the strength to resist his aged father. Yet, he willingly submitted himself to his father for sacrifice! Of course, we know that God intervened just in time, providing a ram caught in the thicket as a substitute for Isaac (Genesis 22:10-13).
Abraham’s act was a divine demonstration of what God was going to do for humanity. Thus, when God offered up His only begotten Son, Jesus, as a sacrifice for our sins, He willingly submitted to His Father.
Jesus surrendered His heavenly throne to save mortal sinners from eternal damnation. He died for our sins, redeeming us from Satan’s clutches and reuniting us with the Father. Without God's love for humanity, Jesus would not have come to die on our behalf, as Jesus proclaimed in the renowned John 3:16:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (NKJV)
Jesus' love for us compelled Him to descend to earth and endure mistreatment from those He had created. He declared in John 15:13:
"the greatest love is shown when a person lays down his life for his friends" (LB)
Hence, the value of God's gift is rooted in His profound love for humanity and the excruciating death of His sinless only begotten Son on the cross at Calvary, to atone for our sins. Jesus' crucifixion serves as a testament to both His and the Father’s love for us, as affirmed in Romans 5:8:
God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. (LB)
The gift of salvation from God holds immense value because it emanated from the very heart of God—a gift of love bestowed upon us when we were deeply immersed in sin. God did not require us to repent or change before offering Himself for us! Such powerful love! It was indeed remarkable for God to have created humans in His image and likeness, but most astonishing for Him to willingly sacrifice Himself for us when we had gone astray and were unable to help ourselves!
Why is God’s salvation called a "free gift"?
The words "free" and "gift" are synonymous, as a gift is meant to be free, with no strings attached. While it might appear that God does not grasp the nuances of the English language, in reality, He does. God’s intention is for those who read portions of Scripture where the term "free gift" is used in any English Bible version, to understand that the term is not employed redundantly. Instead, the word “free” serves to emphasize the quality, value, and character of the "gift": it is a gift initiated and implemented by a Benefactor—God—out of His unconditional love and bestowed on an undeserving beneficiary—sinful humans—; and it is completely and unconditionally free!
This emphasis, "free gift", bears particular significance considering prevailing doctrines that suggest prerequisites before one can accept God’s gift of salvation! God desires us to internalize the fact that His salvation, rooted in love, is genuinely free—with no strings attached! He wants us to realise that salvation requires nothing from us—no payment or actions are necessary, other than to receive it from God. What an extraordinary gift! What a profound blessing!
Of course, before accepting any gift, you would naturally want to be certain that it is not deceptive! And this is where faith in God through Jesus Christ comes into play. If you do not trust the sincerity of a person, you would not accept their gift, regardless of how appealing it may be. Indeed, alarm bells will be ringing, chiming, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”
However, in this case, we have full confidence in the blessing and outcome of God’s free gift of salvation—eternal life! We trust that God’s love and Jesus’ sacrificial death for our sins provide more than enough evidence to prove that God’s free gift of salvation bears no resemblance to the infamous Trojan horse! Therefore, let us eagerly receive, welcome, and accept it, and take it in!
Shalom!
In our next instalment, we would see responses to God’s free gift of salvation and how we should respond to such an amazing gift being offered to us by God.
