A self-donation

2. God's gift of himself by sacrifice: "Self-donation"

Perhaps the most famous verse in the Bible is John 3:16:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him, will not perish but have eternal life.

It's another verse about God's love; and what God's love caused him to do for the world that was the object of his love. The key word is gave. He gave his son, his only son in order to save the world.

It's a sacrifice, isn't it? You sacrifice something when you give it up, usually for some other purpose. And God sacrifices his son for our sins. 1 John 4:10 says:

In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

See the connection between love and sacrifice? What we learn here is that God's love involves a cost. Out of love he gives his Son. Out of love he sacrifices his Son. The most fulsome expression of God's love is the sending of his only Son to become a human being, to live in the realm of sin and death, and ultimately to be treated as weak and crucified. Some gift.

But when we speak of the sacrifice of sons, we are on dangerous turf: can a father really sacrifice a son? Shouldn't the love of a father for a son take priority over his love for others? Wouldn't it be unthinkable for a dad to offer the life of his boy in exchange for anyone else? I have two sons. I don't think anything could convince me to offer one of them for sacrifice, not even if it meant saving the lives of many others. It would be outrageous and immoral of me to do this.

But God the Father and the Son are much closer than me and my sons. Their relationship of love binds them together so that they are a unity. What they do, they do out of a shared purpose. They act together; they always did. The Son is not some innocent third party caught up in his Father's problems; as truly God, Jesus himself is right in the thick of it. And he wills what his Father wills. He both is given and gives himself. He both offers himself and is offered by his Father. He is sacrificed and lays down his own life. He is sent, and comes willingly.

So God does not just give his Son: God gives himself. His gift to us is him, slumming it with us and as human being, achieving what humanity could never achieve in reconciling the irreconcilable. One writer calls it God's "self-donation". At the same time that God welcomes his enemies in, he gives himself.