Friends, If life’s purpose is to glorify God, then our proper gauge is our delight, or rather, the deeply personal appreciation of God’s gift: not a payment made on our behalf. See the column below.  Blessings! Bob

-- -- --

Spirituality Column #853

March 21, 2023

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Delightful Gift, Part 2

By Bob Walters

“Delight is what distinguishes a gift from a payment.” – Ephraim Radner, First Things

 Please forgive my continuing presence on this soap box mounted last week regarding the ubiquitous presence – in modern Christian worship and doctrine – of transaction theology that says it is payment, not grace, that frees our souls.

Disagree?  Count the times in a church service – in prayer, singing, homilies, or sermons – that our salvation is somehow tied to Jesus paying a mysterious price.  Our souls were purchased at a price. Jesus paid our debt.  Jesus was punished for our sins.

No one can point to the recipient of the “payment” – Jesus is already God so He’s not paying God, and I’ll lay great trust on God not paying Satan to “free” us – but that’s our modern, earthly, mercantile, unwavering metaphor for the saving wonder of God’s love, grace, and obedience.  God simply picked up the tab by killing himself. We’re on the payroll.

That rankles me every time I hear it and I hear it a lot.  More details on that are available in last week’s opening salvo (852 – Delightful Gift, Part 1). Today I wanted to fill in some blanks, still holding the belief that my delight is the gift of Jesus, not the lingering guilt of forlorn sin and an unrepayable debt I can barely comprehend. 

Love … I understand that.  Grace frees me … in humility.  Obedience? I try.

First blank to fill … who the heck is Ephraim Radner, author of the wonderful aphorism on the top line above? He was born to a Jewish father and lapsed Catholic mother who himself joined the Episcopal Church at age 14 and is now a priest, theologian, professor, writer … and current occupant of The Back Page column – an institution in itself – of my beloved First Things, a conservative Catholic journal of theology and culture.  I read it because 17 years ago, Russ Blowers recommended it.

The Back Page column is usually the toughest thing in the magazine, if you don’t count the theology arguments in the Letters section.  Radner here (March 2023) is analyzing another philosopher, but notes this: “In a created world, delight fuels the energy of our lives and, rightly understood, marks the governing purpose. Every moment or thing of delight is the incarnate articulation of God’s glory.” 

If life’s purpose is to glorify God, then our proper gauge is our delight, or rather, the deeply personal appreciation of God’s gift: not a payment made on our behalf.

Early in my tutelage under Dr. George Bebawi – my friend, mentor, and weekly Bible study teacher at E91 from 2004 through 2017 – he emphasized the laziness of reducing the love of Jesus to a simple idea of “payment,” “purchase,” or “cost.”

Though perhaps useful as analogy and metaphor, they diminish our potential for deep love and relationship with Jesus.  I don’t remember how he said it, but I’d express it as being similar to being friends with someone to whom you owe money.  That debt is always the first thing you think of, not the love or relationship. I’ve had that experience.

Is it a “salvation issue” thinking Jesus paid a price?  Not sure … not my call.  I would say it is a quality-of-this-life and joy-in-the-here-and-now issue.  Did you ever try to pay someone who didn’t want to be paid?  Or, they try to give you your “grace” back and both parties are embarrassed?  Maybe its unintentional and well meaning, or even noble, as in, “I should pay for this.”  I think Jesus tells us, “We should love for this.”

This is why God loves a joyful giver and, I’d add, a delighted receiver. Joy and love don’t keep score, and delight sweetens life.  In Jesus, we needn’t sweat the payroll.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) years ago tried to find the “paid the price” doctrine in scripture and was convinced only that it really and truly is not there.  That’s next week.