Ain’t No Bargainin’ With God

Everyone loves a good bargain. I for one, love a bargain as much as the next man. Whether it’s finding a good deal or engaging in actual negotiations, everyone loves the feeling of paying less than full price. My clothes shopping motto is, “never pay full price.” It makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I’m a good shopper. We all have this bargaining nature in us. It’s in our DNA to negotiate.

As is expected, our bargaining nature spills over into every part of our lives – not just our shopping habits. We always want to get the best deal possible of whatever scenario befalls us. Many of our jobs involve negotiating to some degree. Politics are full of bargaining. We bargain (a.k.a. make compromises) in nearly all of our relationships – family, friends, and loved ones. Life is full of bargaining, compromising, negotiating – whatever you’d like to call it.

Our bargaining even spills over into our religion. The way that we view God is filtered with our bargaining nature. We view God as just another relationship in which some compromising needs to happen to “make it work.” We offer God our goods, such as money, in order that he might pay us back more. We offer to God our services, so that he might accept them and in turn accept us. We bargain with God our time or our talents, or whatever else in hopes that he’ll make some sort of deal with us.

While the way of bargains and compromises might very well be the way in which most humans relate to each other, it is not the way that God relates to humanity. God is not a bargainer; He is a “reconciler.” God does not offer us deals; he offers us sovereign grace.

2 Corinthians 5v17&18 says this, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold,the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself…”

Verse 17 begins by describing what happens in our salvation. We are a new creation in Christ. Verse 18 begins by saying, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.” So we could say that our salvation is entirely from God, through Christ who does the work of reconciliation. Christ reconciles sinful humans to God.

Now, when we think of two people being reconciled to one another, we often think of them sitting down with a mediator and working out some sort of compromise – coming to a deal. But this is not the way in which humans are reconciled to God.

The reason there is distance and friction in our relationship to God, is because we humans are the offenders. We are the ones who have fractured this relationship; the sole party at fault. We are sinners who have sinned against a holy God. So, in effect, we are at the mercy of God. It is not as if we sat in some negotiating room with God and bargained, compromised and worked out some sort of deal in order to achieve reconciliation. In fact, because we are the sole offenders – sinners at the hands of a merciful God – we are in no position to negotiate and have no leverage to bargain.

For those of us who attempt to bargain with God, we fail to realize that there is no bargaining to be had. With God, it is either full price or free. We will either spend eternity paying the full price of our sin, or we will receive free, no-strings-attached, sovereignly-given grace.

It is quite a measure of grace that God will not bargain with us, and in effect, bargain his grace away. God is too gracious to bargain with sinners. We can see this when we realize there is no bargaining to be made when it comes to our reconciliation to God, there is only death to be paid. God says, “I will not come to the bargaining table with you, I will sacrifice my Son on the cross to pay the death price of reconciliation.”

God strikes no deal with mankind, he takes no coupons or trade offers – he just gives and gives and gives. Grace upon grace. There ain’t no bargainin’ with God.