Meditation on the Text of the Week

Can God be Bought?

With what shall I come to the Lord and bow myself before the God on high? Shall I come to Him with burnt offerings, with yearling calves? Does the Lord take delight in thousands of rams; in ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I present my first-born for my rebellious acts; the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 6: 6—8

Ever since the Fall, God has remained on the fringes of human consciousness. He has not gone away. But He has become intimidating and threatening. Adam and Eve, you recall, hid from God after the Fall. They did not want to face Him. In that one act of hiding, our first parents constructed the paradigm of all human history and consciousness, apart from the inbreaking of the life-giving, healing Spirit.

Human history, apart from the redeemed people of God, can be characterised as life and culture lived so as to hide from God. Part of the hiding charade is a life lived to “buy God off.” When an enemy confronts, it is often politic to buy him off in some way. Gifts open the way to the king. Bribes can get things done.

So, we have done a few things wrong. Or, we have a few challenges and needs. Let's do a few religious works. Maybe a sacrifice or two. A kind deed. Maybe if things are really stretched, I would be prepared to impress God by offering up my first born. Let's get a bit of insurance in the bank. Manipulate God. Buy Him off. Bargain with Him. That is sinful religion in a nutshell.

All men practise this kind of religion, apart from those whose hearts have been transformed by God's Spirit. But the Lord hates it. How can the Lord, Who created all things of nothing, and to Whom belongs all things, be bought off? How can He be bargained with? Imagine the consequences of appearing before a High King to plead for clemency, offering up a gift which consisted of goods stolen the day before from that same king. What dishonour. What an insult to the king. It is to act as if the king were just as much a cheat, just as much on the lam, as the briber. It is to imply that the king were stupid, blind, and obtuse.

How much more with respect to the Living God. Anything we might do, anything we would bring to Him, belongs to Him already. He cannot be bought off. To attempt to do so, to think for one moment that He can be so manipulated, is to offer deadly insult to Him.

For those whose eyes have been opened the truth is almost self-evident. God cannot be manipulated. If there is to be atonement, it can only be one which He provides. The only appropriate response—the non-manipulating response—is to humble oneself before Him, gratefully accepting His decree and counsel and provision. There can be no buying off, only faith and trust. This humble acceptance of God leads us to strive to do whatever He commands. It leads us to act according to the standards of His justice—as summarized in the Ten Commandments. It leads us to live in loyalty and lovingkindness toward God and His people.

That is what the Lord requires of us. Not bargaining. Not actions attempting to buy God off. Not manipulation. What the Lord requires is a reverent submission to His rule, His provision, His command. This is what the Bible, in other places, calls faith. Without this faith it is impossible to please Him.

Of course faith, like any other duty or obligation, can also be distorted and perverted into an attempt to buy God off. And many have made it so. But the instant it is so perverted it ceases to be a humble walk before God. It has become instead a negotiating tool, a bargaining chip. The Lord abhors and hates such things.

Genuine faith, however, submits humbly to God, and gratefully accepts His covenant, in which, through His beloved Son, atonement comes to us. No longer do we need to attempt to hide from God, or assuage His anger. We can walk and live as His beloved sons and daughters, able to love and serve Him freely from the heart. Every obedience is no longer a crass or crude attempt to manipulate the Lord, but a blessed act of thankfulness.