You are infinitely precious

You are not your own; you were bought at a price. 1 Corinthians 6:20

Bought at a price.

Four little words (only two, in fact, in Paul’s Greek), but what a wealth of meaning they convey! You could print them on a tee-shirt, or stick them on the fridge door as a kind of motto to sum up what it means to be a Christian.

We are freed slaves, liberated from the bondage of sin and death. And the price that has been paid is, of course, Christ’s death on the cross. As Paul put it during a tear-jerking farewell talk to the leaders of the church in Ephesus, we are those “whom he bought with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). That is how much God loves us.

Peter echoes and amplifies the same thought: “You know it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

The Jewish people were well familiar with the idea of blood sacrifice, offered routinely at their temple in Jerusalem. Well, the blood sacrifice offered nearby on the hill of Golgotha was the final one, the one to end all those sacrifices, leaving no need for more. And so, set free from that “empty way of life”, we now enjoy a whole new existence – what the Bible calls “eternal” life, starting in the here and now and finding completion beyond the grave.

In 1 Corinthians Paul uses this pithy little phrase twice.

Here in chapter 6:20 it is in the context of sexual purity. Paul is talking about our bodies: they are the gift of God, “temples of the Holy Spirit”, and we are to regard them as sacred. This doesn’t only apply in the area of sex, of course: it applies also to gluttony and drunkenness, to name just two of the many forms of abuse which may tempt us.

But in the sex-mad world in which, very likely, we live, it’s not bad to be reminded of this truth: sex is designed for marriage as a covenant of love between one man and one woman until parted by death. Let’s not be embarrassed to uphold this ideal, even while we show understanding and compassion to those who have fallen short.

Then in 7:23 Paul uses the same expression in the context of our life-situation. Throughout the chapter he is insisting that while our “place in life” is obviously very important - married or single, slave or free - it isn’t the key thing. No, what really matters is how we go about it – we are to live like those “bought at a price”.

There are perhaps two main situations in day-to-day living when it’s especially important to keep this in mind.

First, when I’m tempted by sin.

How easily we excuse our sins! How readily we allow the tempter to convince us they don’t really matter that much! And by “sins” I’m not only talking about gross ones such as sexual laxity or other forms of self-indulgence. No; every spiteful thought, every yielding to jealousy, every slump into laziness, every flicker of pride, every callous indifference to the needs of others, every failure to do the good we know the Spirit is prompting us to do – all these are sin.

Jesus made it clear that it is “what comes out of a person that defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come…” (Mark 7:20-23). Oh yes, we may be able to tidy up our outward behaviour; but God sees our hearts – and he is perfectly holy. Somebody famously said about God, “Forgiveness? Oh, that’s his business”, as if we can just take it for granted. But how wrong can you be…

The battle against sin is a daily, even a minute-by-minute, business. Reminding myself of these great words, bought at a price, is no magic fix, but at least it can keep us in touch with reality.

The second situation where these words can strengthen us is when I’m discouraged.

You don’t have to be a Christian long in order to discover that it can be just plain hard. There are times when our prayers seem not to be answered; times when the things we attempt, including for God, fall flat; times we read the Bible and find it puzzling and dead; times bad things happen in our lives through no fault of our own. Our heads can go down and our shoulders can droop.

Again, just reciting to ourselves four little words is no guarantee of an immediate change of mood. But it can remind us that behind the scenes “God is working his purpose out”, and our business is to grit our teeth and hang on.

I love Graham Kendrick’s song (I take the liberty of adapting some of the words): The price is paid,/ Come let me enter in/ To all that Jesus died to make my own./ For every sin/ More than enough he gave,/ And bought my freedom/ From each guilty stain.

Yes – slavery to Jesus is the meaning of perfect freedom: freedom to be the person God always intended me to be.

The price is paid. Alleluia!

Heavenly Father, thank you for that wonderful price Jesus paid even for me. Please help me to remember constantly that I have been bought at a price, and may this be both a safeguard in times of temptation and an encouragement when the way seems just too hard. Amen.