Hedging a Bet

From late spring through early fall, our family farm is a popular place for gatherings, reunions, campouts, and weekend chillouts.  About 65 years ago, my father built a cabin on the creek running through the property that has served as the centerpiece of these events.  There’s just one problem: it is completely open to the elements (no AC or insulation).  So, unless we have arranged a Plan B for possible inclement weather, we simply have to cancel the event.

Hedging a bet is the popular expression often used to indicate that Plan A is backed up by Plan B, and if necessary, C, D, E, etc.  For those of us who are planners, it seems like a practical and prudent thing to do.  Since this practice accompanies most of my planning, my thinking is that God, the ultimate planner, most certainly has all the contingencies covered.

I felt that had to be the case with the Adam and Eve debacle of disobedience.  God created man because of His desire for relationship which went south when Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  She unfortunately believed the words of the serpent that said she would not die, but be enlightened with wisdom like God.  Interestingly, Adam who had personally received the prohibition about that tree from God, was standing right there and did not stop her.  Instead, he ate also.  While Eve succumbed to deception, Adam committed rebellion.  He tragically forfeited the dominion God had given him over the Earth to Satan, the author of rebellion.

Obviously, God’s plan to give man choice did not work out well.  So, was plan B the world-wide flood that forced a restart to quash the spread of evil?  If so, in only a few hundred years, most of the people had again forgotten God and were steeped in willful, sinful ways.  Thankfully, Abram stood out in his devotion to, and faith in, God.  God decided he had the character for a covenant relationship that would continue through his son, Isaac.  Enter Plan C, with Abraham and his descendants, even though many of them engaged in some of the same ungodly practices as other peoples.  Abraham’s descendants went on to suffer 400 years of slavery in Egypt, whereupon, God in mercy provided deliverance through Moses.  God additionally gave these people His Law so that they could be blessed through obedience to the Law.  But if this was Plan D, it bombed within 40 days. While Moses was on the mountain obtaining the Commandments, the people were worshipping a golden calf they had created.  So, after 900 years of continued struggle with disobedience, Israel fell under the weight of the Law.  They needed the Savior hinted at in the covenant between Abraham and God, later identified to David as a King that would always sit on David’s throne, and finally revealed as the Messiah through a prophetic word given to Isaiah.  What appeared to be Plan E, God identified as His Everlasting Covenant originating with Abraham that also included us Gentiles.

I have been gratefully surprised in the last few years to discover that God does not hedge His bets and that my idea of God’s contingency plan was all wrong.  Two scriptures are particularly revelatory.  1 Peter 1:19-20 speaks of the precious blood of Christ that has redeemed us from our participation in this world of sin; “²⁰ He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.”  Ephesians 1:4 says, “He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight.” God knew before He spoke Creation into being that He wanted a love relationship with man who He created in His image.  He also knew that true love had to be freely given.  So, God purposefully gave man the choice to reject Him.  God Who lives outside of time already knew ALL the bad choices man would make.  Therefore, in His wisdom to satisfy the justice of His character, God the Father purposed with Jesus and the Holy Spirit to do what man was unable to do for himself – to personally take the punishment.  God Who made the Covenant and set all its terms, now became the blood sacrifice of the Covenant.

As Jesus hung on the cross, He literally became a curse (Galatians 3:13) to break the curse of death brought with Adam’s rebellion and the curse of sin identified by the Law.  Plan E was actually the A plan all along, revealed step by step at exactly the right time.  Jesus did not hedge His bet with any contingency plan.  The Father’s before-time plan had Him set His face like flint to go to the cross (Isaiah 50:7) for our sakes.  Surely, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15:13)