He spoke the world into existence knowing the cost. He came in the flesh knowing the cost. Jesus knew the cost when he made the promise with the Father and the Spirit before the world began. He didn’t come to save nice things or nice people. He didn’t make a promise to redeem nice, low maintenance Christians.

 
“It costs God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things; but to convert rebellious wills costs Him crucifixion.” —C.S. Lewis

This quote was given for part of the morning reflection before worship. So as I was sitting in my seat I was thinking about how often we try to be or think we already are “the nice things.” Whether it’s in my friendships, vocations, or my relationship with God, I don’t really want to be that high maintenance person. I want to be easy to befriend, easy to serve alongside, and easy to save.

And so my life echos the adage, “I don’t want to be a burden.” I want to be a nice thing that God created: delightful, pleasant, good, and low maintenance. But sin is not low maintenance. What did it cost God to create nice things “in the beginning”?

In one sense, we can say with Lewis that it cost him nothing. There was no apparent sacrifice in speaking creation into existence. He created a holy temple garden with a righteous couple to carry out his mandate. But there is a condescension on God’s part to enter into a covenantal relationship with man. So even though God created the world and man and called it good, the Westminster Confession explains:

The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God’s part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant. (WCF 7.1)

In another sense, we know that there was an intratrinitarian covenant made between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit before time:

It pleased God, in his eternal purpose, to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, his only begotten Son, to be the Mediator between God and man, the Prophet, Priest, and King, the Head and Savior of his church, the Heir of all things, and Judge of the world: unto whom he did from all eternity give a people, to be his seed, and to be by him in time redeemed, called, justified, sanctified, and glorified. (WCF 8.1)

With that in mind, there was already a presupposed cost determined in eternity to convert rebellious wills. And so as God created the world through the Son (Heb. 1:2), he already knew what it was going to cost. He already knew that we would be a burden. And we have a great illustration of the weight of this burden in Matthew when we read about Jesus falling on his face to pray to the Father for any possibility to not drink the cup of his wrath (26:39).

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