No Strings Attached Gospel

By Martijn van Tilborgh

God found Himself in a dilemma.

What does a good God do when His creation is self-destructing, when humanity has chosen a road that leads to ruin?

Blinded by our own delusion, we failed to recognize the unchanging goodness of God that had been present from the very beginning.

Not because it disappeared, but because we could no longer see it.

So we told ourselves a story. We decided that someone had to pay to make things right. That forgiveness required a transaction. That God demanded payment, preferably in blood, before He could forgive.

Then God intervened.

There was a lot of cleanup to do, but He had to start somewhere.

That somewhere became someone.

His name was Abram.

In Genesis 15, we read the account of the day God made a covenant with Abram.

A covenant that would eventually make him and his descendants a light to all nations. A light meant to dispel the darkness from our thinking once and for all. A light meant to reveal the goodness of God for everyone to see.

Not that it had ever left us. We simply could not see it.

There is something crucial in this story that often gets overlooked.

When God makes this covenant, Abram is in a deep sleep.

He is surrounded by thick and dreadful darkness.

That detail matters.

Because Abram does nothing.

He does not pray.

He does not negotiate.

He does not sign anything.

He does not even believe until after the covenant is already established.

There is nothing Abram does to activate the promise.

No conditions.

No requirements.

No strings attached.

God initiates the covenant entirely on His own, while Abram lies unconscious in darkness.

Even more startling, God assumes responsibility for both sides of the agreement.

Which raises an important question.

What if the Easter story is not about Jesus paying off an angry God so we can finally be forgiven?

What if forgiveness is actually free?

Imagine that.

What if, just like with Abram, the story is about God entering into our darkness, submitting Himself to our deepest sleep, and meeting us at our worst in order to wake us up from our delusion?

What if forgiveness does not need to be purchased at all?

Not because we deserve it, but because God is genuinely good.

What if God offers radical forgiveness to all of humanity?

Not to judge the world, but to save the world.

Could that be what Easter is really about?

Yes, Jesus paid a price.

But not because His Father demanded payment.

He paid it because He willingly entered the darkness of the human condition to reach us where we were most lost.

And yes, our worst got Him killed.

But that was not the end of the story.

It was only the beginning.