The Ransom

God paid a heavy ransom for the souls of the Believing. 

Some people erroneously believe that God CREATED Jesus right before He sent Him to earth to pay for our sins, as if God said, "I need to send someone down there, and it's not gonna be me, so I am going to create a multiple of me and call him my Son."  

This is far from true.  

In face, Jesus is the CREATING Word found in Genesis, part of the Trinity.

Understanding the Trinity is a mind-blowing task, and for me it requires charts and visual aids.   I like this one.



Understanding that God IS all three entities and yet is not interchangeable in nature and function is crucial.  Once it is understood that GOD AS TRINITY exists as both one and three parts; it really defines love.  Love always reflects off of another.



Understanding that God the Father shared love and infinite time with His Son Jesus BEFORE sending Him to Earth really defines the sacrifice that was made. 

I have known my oldest daughter for 3 years.

God knew and loved Jesus for infinity, and then He gave Him to us so that we could spit on Him and nail Him to a tree...

He willingly came and paid for the sins of the believing on the Cross 

ultimately for His own glory.  

That was God's ransom for His children.

I think of the price of parenthood a lot now.  

Adoption is obscenely expensive.  It's hard to swallow paying for your child.  It mirrors a ransom.  It doesn't really matter who gets the money, if they deserve it, if adoption SHOULD be cheaper. It is a ransom to bring our child home, and it is the symbolic price of something bigger.  It makes us uneasy.  It makes us know that we are not, in this process, guaranteed a life of comfort, especially in following Jesus and taking up our own crosses.   

How much would I pay for Lilly?  For Daisy?  

I would pay with my life.  All true mothers would.  

And yet God still loves us more than that...

Jesus had a father on earth, too.

Jesus was adopted by Joseph.  Joseph didn't just "accept" Jesus, he gave Jesus the training of his trade; a Jewish tradition of the times, and a birthright of sorts.  I picture Joseph in that woodshop, working side by side with his Son, Boy Jesus.  Teaching Jesus to hammer.  Teaching Jesus to take the time and patience that a skilled carpenter needs, and finding his boy already filled with patience.  Men, would you have walked away?  Would you have believed?  Would you have accepted this boy that was not of your own as your own? 

 

Adoption on this earth is a demonstration of what God does for us. 

He picks us up out of our mess, cleans us off, makes us His own, and gives us full biological hereditary rights to His kingdom. 

  "While we were still sinners,
Christ died for us."