By Herbert E. Douglass
A Commentary on the Sabbath School Lesson for March 24–30, 2001, "Prayers of Praise: Revelation"
When God contemplated creating intelligent beings, whether angels or inhabitants of other worlds, he made one basic decision that I do not think any one of us would have dared to make: He decided to give all created intelligences, freedom. At that point, that mysterious Bible text kicks in that describes Jesus as being "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8).
As soon as God, in his unfathomable love, decided to give freedom to his created intelligences, the giving began. He immediately began to pay the cost of that freedom. Just think about what that gift of freedom meant to God who saw in advance how his created intelligences would abuse it! So why did he go ahead? He knew there was no other way to have a loving universe. Angels and human beings can't love unless they have freedom to choose.
Does anyone think that I have been forced to love my wife, Norma, all these years? That somehow we have been programmed to play this game called love and we really did not have any choice in the matter? What kind of quiet satisfaction does love's freedom give us day and night?
The freedom to choose, however, has a down-side. Sometimes the person you love does not choose to love you back. Then what? It hurts! Parents never get over the anguish of watching their children go down dead-end roads, suffering the painful consequences, sooner or later. So the question: If parents saw it all in advance, would they want children?
God saw it all in advance! He paid the cost as soon as he gave the gift, and he has been paying ever since. If we want to get a peek at how much freedom has cost God, watch Jesus die. But the Cross is only a peek! The Cross is forever the symbol of what has been happening to God since the foundation of all creation.
How much has God given to this world? Just for starters–God gave us a lot of divine heartache when he gave us freedom. Measure his heartache by thousands of Holocausts, such as reflected in the Jewish experience in Germany. Think of the agony wrapped in thousands of tornadoes, earthquakes, and zillions of wars. How many parents have seen their children die first, many with awful diseases or accidents! What was their anguish? Multiply it by billions. God saw and felt it all and still thought freedom was worth it! And that you and I were worth it! Worth all that anguish, even as it has piled up from the foundation of the world!
Indeed he is the Lamb…and the Lion (Rev. 5). Because he chose to be the "slain Lamb," because he considered freedom worth the price he would pay, he became the Lion for all those who called him Lord. Those who have found him to be exactly what a weak sinner needs, both pardon and power, breathing "worthy is the Lamb," moment by moment, is their highest joy.
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