The Price of a Free Gift

Priceless: having a value beyond all price.

I'm sure you've all seen those Mastercard commercials before: they run through the cost of certain items and then end with something that you cannot put a price on (such as seeing the smile on the face of your child). The slogan "the best things in life are free" comes into play here, and for everything else, there's Mastercard.

I've been thinking a lot about a statement I heard this past weekend as someone thanked God for the "priceless gift of Salvation". What struck me was that there was a price. Hebrews 9:22b says, "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins." That payment to receive forgiveness was mine -- my blood was the debt that I stood in with God. My sin separated me from God; He's holy (complete, perfect, other) and in myself, I am not. To stand in His presence, there had to be blood. In the Old Testament, the priests made blood sacrifices on behalf of all the people. But God didn't stop there.

Twice in 1 Corinthians the phrase, "you were bought with a price" is used (6:20 and 7:23).

"And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross." -- Colossians 2:13-14

For Him, salvation wasn't free. Salvation costed God the Father His Son and Christ His life. But for us, He gives us salvation for free!

"For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God." --Ephesians 2:8

So the question is, so what? Why does this effect me? Salvation was won at the cross, it's not something that we work for today. The forgiveness that God offers was given at the cross. At the cross it was finished. This is something that we -- as human beings -- don't understand. Because everything has a price.

But with salvation, that price is not our's!