1 Peter 1:18-19 (NIV) “For you know that 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.”
To understand something of the cost of our redemption, I’m persuaded we have to start by knowing what sin is at its core. To get there let's first realize that every law has love as its aim. That’s why the apostle Paul writes that to love one’s neighbor as oneself sums up the entire law. That means that every one of the 613 laws in the Bible each say in one way or another, “here’s what it looks like to love God and your fellow human being.” It follows then that every sin is an act of not loving someone — God, others, or oneself.
And because God loves us and everyone we know in a manner that is incommensurable, any act of non-love is incalculably grievous. It puts us at odds with God because we are not only powerless to undo the wrong, but powerless to change our unloving selves into loving selves.
Hence the inestimable value of Christ’s shed blood to set things right and change our hearts. In some inexplicable way, he went down to the very bottom of our completely hopeless condition and opened up a way for each of us to come back with him into a brand new life of restored friendship with God that overflows with his love.
