by Pastor Gavin Linderman
Have you ever given a gift to someone only for them to turn and express remorse for not getting you something? They confess, “oh, you shouldn’t have—I didn’t get you anything,” as you then sit there awkwardly expressing that you didn’t expect anything in return.
In the midst of Holy Week, Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are on full display in such a concentrated way. As trivial as it may sound, “gift” is the most direct term I can think of to adequately express the meaning of it all. But I can’t help but think of the various ways we relate to this gift of His perfect life, the crucifixion, and the empty tomb. Is it all just a recipe for our salvation? Is it just an exchange of services? How we understand Easter morning must leave us not with the burden of doing our part, but with the humble posture of receiving.
A great deal of our life with God is understood in terms of calculations. Have we done enough? At what point have I exhausted His forgiveness? Even words like “forgiveness” connote debts to be paid or actions that are owed. The starting point of our relationship with God is established in our minds as a transaction. If I do this, He will do that—the quid pro quo of Easter morning. While it would be easy to blame this association on a culture under the spell of capitalism, some scripture leans on these analogies as well. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life...” (Romans 6:23). The issue here, though, is not whether this lens of viewing our life with God is good, but whether it is sufficient for understanding the dynamics of our relationship with God or the fullness of life post-Easter morning. For if we allow this worldview to color the whole of our understanding or even more, our experience of God, it is, in fact, a problem. The gift may no longer be a gift at all.
Let’s go back to the passage in Romans. Here in this statement, we see that sin is linked to death. The “wages of sin” simply means that death is sin’s payout. Sin is the enemy of life. We all know this innately. That which sin produces on its own accord and the fruit that it bears is death. Say it however you want to—sin and death are synonymous and even quantifiable. But the “gift of God is eternal life,” not the “wages” or “earnings,” but the “gift.” Two different worldviews. One appropriately limited to its intrinsic value and the other to the extrinsic value of God’s love. A gift cannot be quantified any more than eternity or God’s love can be. So do we experience our life with God through the perspective of our sin or God’s gift? Do we experience and even interpret Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection through the eyes of transaction or the eyes of God?
When discussing the victory of Christ on Easter morning and the forgiveness that it freely offers, we are left to battle between the compulsion to justify the gift with a deserving response or to surrender to the nakedness of receiving that which we don’t deserve. Will we use the hermeneutic of the gift of God or the wages of sin? The truth is found in both, but one has limitations. For the wages of sin is overcome by the unquantifiable gift of God (Hebrews 10:14). Death is awash in the ocean of eternity. Forgiveness through the eyes of benevolence is not a quid pro quo. If it was it would not be a gift. A gift eliminates the burden of economics. It is not payment to something, it is pardon from something. It is pardon because Jesus has conquered death—not paid for it—and He has done so through His life against the transactional worldview of Satan and death. The only thing that “pays” is sin and sin pays in full, but Jesus has conquered what sin has paid for. Jesus did die and suffer in our place because He desires a relationship free from the obligation of transactions (1 John 1:7). After all, what’s a relationship if you have to pay for it?
Friends, my hope is that this Easter we might step out of the shadow of death and step into the kindness of our victorious God in Christ. Might we leave the tomb of transaction and rest freely in the gift of our glorious God.