Spirituality Column #804

April 12, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Infinite Possibilities

By Bob Walters

“Now there are also many other things that Jesus did.  Were every one of them to be written, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” – John 21:25, the final verse of the Fourth Gospel.

During Holy Week our Christian thoughts are focused on the singularly great work of Christ: His death on the Cross.

What did Jesus do?  He died for my sins; He paid the price for my salvation.

And then what happened?  Jesus was resurrected from the tomb – celebrated in Christianity as Easter or Resurrection Day – proving His promise that with faith in Him sins were forgiven, trespasses were covered, that a groaning universe could stop groaning, and that our life eternal in restored relationship with God in Heaven was set.

Jesus survived death for all eternity.  Now, so will we.  Hallelujah!

But … sadly, narrowly, and – let me suggest – joylessly, for far too many souls in the world, including many lightly confessing Christians, that’s where Sunday School adjourns until next year: “Jesus paid the price for my sins. I’m saved.  Now, let’s worry about something else.”  In other words, “I’ll do what I want; it’s paid for.”  Uh … no.

Yes, Jesus provided a Cosmic one-two punch to Satan’s reign of evil on Earth, and even those of the lightest faith in Christ can recite that story.  But that story, big as it is, is often missing true relationship with Jesus and appreciation for His infinite works.

Jesus is Lord of the seen and unseen; nothing was made without Him.  The “seen” we can sense, but the “unseen” is as big as the universe and as small as an atom; it is the unseen component of love, relationship, turmoil, peace, and works of Jesus.  That’s how far “beyond definition” Christ is.  The work of His love can never be contained in a cost equation of some finite “price being paid” for all He did.

John makes it sound like there is a whole lot more to it than that if “the whole world” could not contain the written record of Christ’s work.  Oh my … so much more.

Let’s not minimize the accomplishment of “death and resurrection.” But neither should we limit our Christian attentions to Holy Week’s miraculous but reportable story, nor should we imagine we can quantify anything about the infinite works of Christ.

Paul writes (Romans 5:15-20) that we can gauge and quantify our own trespasses, but we cannot quantify God’s grace or forgiveness (v15): “[God’s] gift is not like the trespass.”  The Bible throughout, in fact, assures that we really cannot fathom many things about God’s Kingdom and Christ, whether it is time (Psalm 90:4, 2 Peter 3:8), money (Matthew 18:24-25), love (Ephesians 3:17-21, esp. v18), grace (Romans 5:15-20, 2 Cor. 12:9), mercy (Ephesian 2:4), patience (2 Peter 3:9), forgiveness (Matthew 7:22), kindness (Ephesians 2:7), or even God’s creativity (Genesis 22:17).

Yes, we can count on God’s love, but there is no way we can do the math.  We benefit when we spend more time searching our hearts and minds for faith and truth in Jesus and less time trying to work out the equation of what Jesus paid for my sins.

Jesus did more than we can imagine, and He did it with infinite love, not money. When our faith connects us to that relationship with Jesus, our possibilities are endless.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) prays for the peace of God and faith in Christ to be your constant companion during this Holy Week … and always.