The Time Traveler

You do not delight in sacrfice and offerings; You open my ears to listen. You do not ask for a whole burnt offering or sin offering.
Then I said, "See, I have come; it is written about me in the volume of the scroll. I delight to do Your will, my God. Your instruction resides within me." — Psalm 40:6-8

In his book The End of Christianity, William Dembski states: In a fallen world, the only currency of love is suffering. Indeed, the only way to tell how much one person loves another is by what that person is willing to suffer for the other. We know we love another by what we are willing to endure on his or her behalf — what we are willing to give up, to sacrifice.

We all know what a sacrifice is, don't we? If I go down to Burger King and give the person at the counter some money, is that a sacrifice? Of course it is not, since I expect, in a very short time, to get a Whopper in return. (Eating a Whopper might be a sacrifice of another type, but we don't care about that right now.) Is it a sacrifice if, instead of buying a burger for myself, I buy one for someone else — my wife or another family member, for example? What if I buy a meal for someone I don't know, the person in line behind me, a bum on the street?

The question is if I expect to "get something out of it", even if it's just a good feeling, am I really sacrificing anything? Can a person who believes that God rewards our good deeds ever really be said to be making a sacrifice? Philip Henry said, "He is no fool who parts with that which he cannot keep, when he is sure to be recompensed with that which he cannot lose." The more famous variation is from the martyred missionary Jim Eliot: He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.

There are people without whom I cannot imagine heaven being heaven. I am sure such a thought is at least some small part of the reason loving and thoughtful people like George MacDonald and Hannah Whitall Smith are so sympathetic to forms of Universalism. The flip side is, though, that there are some people with whom I can't imagine it being heaven if they are present. And I'm sure there are those who feel that way about me. Still, I would sacrifice a great deal to be assured that those I love will be spared suffering.

While we are imagining things, let's imagine that the Lord came up to me one day and said, "Mushroom, My old pal. You've been doing well lately. I'm going to give you whatever you want. Just ask, and it's yours." If He asked me that today I might say that I want my grandchildren to have happy, healthy, prosperous lives filled with all of His blessings, and, at the end of a long, full life without suffering and trial, that they be welcomed into His Presence for eternity. Suppose the Lord looked at me, and said, "Mush, I can do that, but it won't be cheap. In fact, it will cost you everything you have in this life, and you will have to lose your soul, suffering in hell for eternity." I'd like to think I wouldn't hesitate.

The thing is God will never make an offer like that. You can get a similar deal from less reputable trader, but, as Faust and many others have learned or will learn, it doesn't work out well in the end.

In the vast view of eternity where it is always now, God saw those He loved with His infinite and divine love. He saw them falling. He saw them suffering and lost. He said, "I can save them, but it won't be cheap. I'll have to lay aside everything that I AM, become one of them, lose everything and suffer in their place."

There is an argument among some theologians and teachers about whether or not Jesus died "spiritually". Some believe that He so identified with us that He, for a time, lost His soul and went to hell in our place, bearing our sin. Others say that, though He suffered and died as Man, He did not die spiritually and to suggest otherwise is heresy.

I don't know, and I suspect the argument misses the obvious point. What I do know is that our little frame does not show the whole picture. A severe beating and torture and six horrible hours hanging on a cross are what we see. What we don't see is "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world". We don't see the Lamb of Revelation "looking as if He had been slain". God is eternal. What the Lord Jesus suffered He suffered in eternity — where there is only now.