An Infinite Gift for a Finite Sinner

More than once Ellen White referred to Jesus and His death as an “infinite gift.” Other than thinking something like What a nice thought, I never pondered it much. After I again came across the image, an “infinite gift,” specific neurons and dendrites began frantically splashing neurotransmitters back and forth, and they haven’t eased up since.

“The salvation of our souls,” she wrote, “was purchased by the infinite gift of the Son of God. Jesus left heaven, laid aside His glory, left the communion and adoration of the sinless angels, and for our sake humbled Himself, even to the death of the cross.”[*]

Jesus is the infinite God, yes, and He “gave Himself for our sins” (Gal. 1:4), yes, and so the phrase makes sense. But what exactly does “infinite” mean in reference to God? Infinite in mercy, in love, in power, and in knowledge? Fine. I understand the terms mercy, love, power, and knowledge, but the modifier “infinite” embedded into them makes not only a quantitative change in each but a qualitative one as well, one that I do not pretend to understand.

Next, if Jesus is the Creator, and if “without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:3), and if “all things were created through Him and for Him” (Col. 1:16), then He created the infinite universe. (If the universe were not infinite, what’s beyond its border, and how far does that border extend?) Only an infinite God could create, and sustain (Heb. 1:3), an infinite universe, right? And yet if I can’t grasp even the idea of an infinite creation, how could I grasp the idea of an infinite Creator?

However many sins I have committed or, unfortunately, might still commit, the number will always be finite.

The mere idea of the infinite, or infinity, stymies us. Think of a line of natural positive whole numbers from 1 to infinity: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, . . . → ∞. Now think of a line with even natural positive whole numbers from 2 to infinity: 2, 4, 6, 8, . . . → ∞. The first line should contain twice as many numbers as does the second because, after all, the second has only even numbers. If the two lines were anything but infinite, of course, the first would be twice the size; but, both being infinite, both are the same size.

Yes, infinity is hard for us to deal with. In fact, when measuring mass or energy, if physicists wind up with infinity as a result, they know that they are doing something radically wrong.

Whatever I don’t understand about infinity, or the “infinite gift” of Jesus on the cross, one thing I do understand: I am anything but infinite. I am so finite, so temporal, kind of just one level of existence above–and just as contingent as—my shadow (or so it seems).

The good news, I guess, about my finitude is that I am also a finite sinner. That is, however many sins I have committed or, unfortunately, might still commit (I never underestimate this, my dismal potential), the number will always be finite. Always.

Which means for me—what? It means that no matter how convicted of sin I am, or how condemned (perhaps, justly?) I feel, I have the “infinite gift” of Jesus, who “bore our [finite] sins in His own body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).

The infinite for the finite. I am more than covered.

[*] Ellen G. White, in Signs of the Times, Dec. 22, 1890; see also Ellen G. White, in Review and Herald, May 16, 1882, and Testimonies for the Church (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1948), vol. 4, p. 418.