A few years ago, Rick Warren penned a brief article for the Albany Chapter of the CBMC in which he encouraged his readers by reminding them that “Jesus didn’t die for junk.” He argued that we are to ground our self-worth in the amount that God was willing to pay to redeem us. Warren observes that in our economy, the value of a particular item (e.g., a home or baseball card) is determined by what someone is willing to pay for it. Follow that same logic, and Christians must conclude that their value is infinite, for God the Son gave his own life to purchase us as his treasured possession (Titus 2:14).
Biblical Logic vs. Worldly Logic
The problem with this logic, however, is that it is in direct opposition to the way Scripture describes the love of God. In Romans 5:6-10, Paul exalts the beauty of God’s love by highlighting our unworthiness, not our inherent value.
For while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
The words that Paul uses to describe our spiritual condition prior to Christ’s intervening mercy indicate that our worthiness was not a positive factor in God’s choice to send his Son. Just the opposite: we were ungodly sinners, counted as God’s enemies. To be a sinner is to possess a nature that is opposed to God’s righteousness in thought, emotion, word, and deed. To be ungodly is to be someone who exchanges the worship of God for the worship of the creation, especially the self (Rom 1:18-32). To be God’s enemy means that we were not merely passively disinterested in religion but actively antagonistic against the living God, leveraging our lives to dethrone him while secretly hoping that we could kill him so we could get what we want without his meddling.
Spiritually Worthless
Paul describes our spiritual state in lengthy detail in Romans 1-3, concluding his argument with a comprehensive description of fallen humanity:
None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.
Rom 3:10-11
What motivated God to give his infinitely valuable Son on our behalf, then, was not our inherent value. Indeed, Paul says that we, due to our rebellion, have become spiritually worthless. In our unredeemed condition, we have nothing that God could ever want, for we are wholly contrary to him and his ways. By sending his Son to die for sinners, God was exalting his own glorious grace, not our intrinsic value. He loved us despite our unworthiness and lack of value.
When we rightly see ourselves as the worst of sinners, unworthy of God’s mercy, we will see the cross as a display of God’s matchless, unparalleled love. We will not see the cross as proof of our value but as proof of God’s infinite worth. In giving us his Son, God did something utterly unlike what one might do under normal circumstances. Paul emphasizes this point when he notes that very few people would die for a good person, and far more unlikely is it that someone would die for his known enemy. Yet, that’s precisely what Christ did for us—he laid down his life to save his enemies. Who gets the glory, then? God does. When God saves unworthy sinners, his love is exalted, not our worth.
When God saves unworthy sinners, his love is exalted, not our worth.
When God saves us, however, we receive a new worth and value. We are united to God’s dear Son and therefore we are loved by God with the same love he has for Jesus (John 17:23). We are now God’s own children (1 John 3:1). We are valuable to God. But even this value is tied to Christ and to God’s work in making us like his Son. In other words, our value is not linked to who we are in and of ourselves or who we were prior to salvation, but to Christ and what he has done on our behalf.
Valuing Christ and Others
Actually, even as Christians our worth is not a central theme in Scripture. Yes, in order to encourage us to trust in God’s provision, Christ reassures us that we are “of more value” than the sparrows. Because we are created in God’s image and now united to his Son, God treasures us over all earthly possessions (1 Pet 2:9; cf. Exod 26:18). This is a glorious and encouraging truth. But overall, the New Testament exhorts us to locate our joy in valuing Christ and others, not pondering our own inherent worth. For example, when Paul considered his relation to God and other people, he said that he didn’t count his life “of any value nor precious” to himself. Rather, his aim was to “finish the course and the ministry” that Christ entrusted to him, even if that led to death (Acts 20:24).
That same apostle instructed the Philippians not to be preoccupied with their concerns but to consider how to serve the interests of other people and consider fellow believers as “more important” than themselves (Phil 2:3-4). This selfless lifestyle was to be modeled after Jesus Christ, who did not seek his joy in establishing his own worth (which he had every right to do) but rather gave up his status as God and took on the status of a servant, valuing the salvation of his people over his own comfort and glory (Phil 2:5ff).
Conclusion
It is a mistake of grand theological and practical proportions to conclude that Christ died for us because he saw us as so valuable. Such a view of God’s love exalts us, not God. Such a view of God’s love makes us the center of the universe rather than God. This view of God’s love also appeals to our flesh, for we are naturally prone to love ourselves and frame salvation in a way that draws attention to ourselves rather than to God (2 Tim 3:2). The gospel delivers us from an obsession with self by teaching us that God’s love is wonderful precisely because we had nothing to offer him and nothing to commend ourselves to him, yet he took infinite measures to secure our eternal good. Now we can live for the “praise of his glorious grace” (Eph 1:12, 14) and give ourselves in grateful service to him and his glory.
