The uniqueness of the work of Christ
“My sin – O the bliss of this glorious thought – my sin – not in part but in whole is nailed to the cross; and I bear it no more; praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul.” (Horatio G. Spafford)
It is certainly unfair and probably uncharitable to claim – as many evangelicals do – that Christianity is the only system that offers redemption. It may come in many forms and have many names; release from sin, from slavery, from the material world, from the ‘self’, from being unhappy, from being poor, from the body, from guilt… but redemption is the basic currency of the whole of metaphysics. It is not an invention of Christianity; rather, it has always been around and it has always been central.
That said, the fact that we have always felt the need for redemption does not mean that this need has ever been met. Why else would we still be looking? The problem with redemption is not that it is not being offered; ‘everyone’ is offering it. The problem is that it has never been offered in a complete form.
We must confess that, in contrast to the writer above, we do not find bliss in our own religion; instead we tend to find anxiety and failure coupled with exhortations to do better. If we are honest with ourselves, we ‘all’ find this to be the case regardless of whether our philosophy is theistic in nature or even completely secular.
This is what makes the work of Christ in history so astounding… and so glorious.
Being redeemed a little gives some relief, for sure. It may even bring some genuine hope for a season… but it always ends with despair. Why? Because being redeemed a little is not a gift, it is a curse – it is a curse to do the rest yourself. It lifts you up to imagine that you have what it takes and then dashes you to pieces as you realise that you can never do it. It is the sort of humiliation that inflates rather than neuters your pride, much like the harlot who leads a man on, then denies him the very thing she has led him to believe is his; the thing in which he has been led to invest his very soul. In doing so, she has turned him into a beast, wandering the moors like a cursed-animal, never able to accept being denied that which he had no right to claim in the first place.
This is what man-made religion does to us. It is an unfulfilled promise and it curses us to such an existence.
In stark contrast to this, the work of Jesus Christ fills us with bliss because it is a completed work that offers full – not in part but in whole – the redemption that we so crave. If redemption is the currency of metaphysics then Christ’s work, credited to us, makes Bill Gates (in analogous terms) look like a pauper compared to the Christian believer. Yet, please note in closing that the bliss does not come from the currency/redemption itself, as if this were a new source of pride, but from the Lord who gave it.
Considering Christ – his person and his work – fills a person with bliss of untold depth as they come to understand, and know, the glorious gift they have received by his grace. Consider Christ today. O the bliss of this glorious thought.
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