To purchase the freedom of [to redeem, to ransom..] those who were subject to the Law, that we might be adopted and have sonship conferred upon us [and be recognized as God’s sons].
He came and subjected Himself to the law we chose, came into our legal, performance-based situation, and freed us from it, that we might be recognized as what we truly are, God's sons (not slaves having to earn our way by keeping the rules, but beloved sons and heirs by birth)!
Here is another thought I had about the law and why it came about in history..I am realizing that the law way was never, ever God's way or His nature or His preferred way of relating to us. Yes, perfection describes Him. But in relating to us, He always relates by love and acceptance, never by perfect standards to measure up to, never by performance. He is completely self-sharing, self-giving love. He is Daddy, Lover, and Friend and not Employer, Judge or Punisher! Back in the garden, there were two trees. And Adam and Eve chose the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree of law, the tree of judging right and wrong, the tree of self-judging (judging oneself deficient or 'not good enough', measuring oneself, passing judgment on oneself). God was the Life tree all along, the tree of grace, acceptance, unconditional love and life! But because we chose the tree of judging and self-improvement to try to meet a standard, a way of performance where we earn our way and 'get what we deserve' (either having to earn rewards or getting punished for failures).
God is all love. God is always with us, for us, on our side. God knew we had been lied to by the enemy and had believed lies of inferiority, being made to think we were not already 'like God' and thus needed to 'do' something to 'become like God.' He knew the frustration and sense of unworth, the failure and sense of alienation this would bring. He knew this path was a dead end, a path that would unravel our lives, bringing decay and death. He knew this way would distort our understanding of God Himself and cause us to withdraw from Him in fear and shame, thus missing out on the intimate love relationship that was our right as His created children. He was not going to leave us in such despair, no! He was going to rescue us from this mental death trap of lies and shame! Yet this was the way we were thinking now, we were infected with this law/performance/self-judgment virus...so He chose to enter into our ways of thinking, enter into our 'good and evil' perspective...He chose to speak our language of rewards and punishment and performance - law - choosing to relate to us on our level, in a way we'd understand..not to validate that way of living but to turn it on its head, show us that it was only ministering death to us, and deliver us out of it!!!
He came down and spoke our law dialect in order to rescue us from its grip! He related to us by law for a little while because that is what we wanted and that is what we understood, so that He could show us the culprit in our problems was the enemy's lies that made us think we needed law to 'become' or to 'get close' to Him, when the reality was that we already WERE complete and like God, never needing to earn our way but already perfect to Him, accepted and loved and lovable.... and already WERE in union with Him, God being the very deepest part of our very being and our spiritual DNA, our life-source that was holding up our existence and had never left us for a moment!! Jesus then entered into our way of thinking in an ultimate and radical way...He actually took on flesh and became human!! He entered into our world in the most radical way, by becoming one of us! Christ came to show us who the Father is and who we really are - we can see the truth of God's nature and our own by looking into the face of Christ, the God-man!! He came to remove the lies of inferiority, shame, alienation, and judgment by a 'harsh God' off of us for good so we could be free of this law perspective and enjoy the life tree that was our heritage all along!
God's way was never law, was it! His way was always love and grace! We can see everything in history, in scripture, and in our lives from the foundation of love, union, acceptance, and grace!! It is all about a relationship of just BEING with our Father, not a performance system of earning/being judged by our DOING....It really is all about love, not law! His wider story has always been a love story with us..the smaller story of the fall, the failure to keep the law, the cross and redemption from sin's hold, that is a wonderful story, but the story it tells - of fallen people being rescued from sin and lies - does not tell the wider truth about us, that we are the perfect and lovely beloveds of God, the sons of God who had rights to the full inheritance all along! God's reference point has always been something outside of our history here on planet earth. Our smaller stories have always been wrapped up in His larger story: the story of a Papa loving His perfect children, a Lover overwhelmed by His beautiful Beloved, A Friend sharing life with His equal!
God has truly and in the deepest way NEVER really related to us through law and performance! He has ALWAYS related to us from a place of perfect innocence, acceptance, union, and love! That is where He has had us since before time began, no matter what our smaller stories were saying here on earth! Nothing we think, say, do or even believe could ever change that! He has kept us safely in innocence and love in His heart and mind, In Christ Himself, (the logos or original thought/word of God) all along! His original thought about us has always been love and acceptance, union and relationship! We were found in Christ, located in Him before we were ever 'lost' here on earth, and so, to God, we were never really 'lost,' were we? He always had us in His heart of love, no matter what played out here on earth! He has ALWAYS been grace and love, not grace sometimes, law sometimes! God didn't change in character or attitude from one covenant to the other..what changed was our perception of Him and ourselves and our relationship!! God showed us through Jesus that our relationship has always and ever been based on unconditional love and forgiveness, not ever truly on law and performance! WOW! It is blowing my mind and coming real to me in such a new way, a deeper way, that He has always been about love and grace! It is so good to see everything through the eyes of God’s love! To see it through the lens of relationship and romance and friendship, and not ever performance!