If grace is free, is it worth anything?

In his parable of the pearl, Jesus wants us to think very deeply about what is precious to us.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. - Matthew 13 v 45-46

Imagine a merchant. His business is perhaps the sale of fine jewels and luxury goods. And he’s in search of fine pearls. Why? Because he is a merchant. He’s a businessman, looking to make a profit.

And make no mistake, pearls were the most precious jewel of the ancient world. The historian Suetonius, wrote that the Roman general Vitellius, emperor for eight months in 69 AD, financed an entire military campaign by selling just one of his mother’s pearl earrings.

So this merchant is after the kind of goods that might make him a very tidy profit, if he plays it right. That’s his business. But then he makes a surprising discovery: a single pearl of immense value. And, on finding this one pearl of very great value, he does something rather odd: he goes out and sells everything he has to buy it.

What has enticed him?

It is the pearl. This single fine pearl has hooked him.

He reminds me of the creature Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. The merchant’s pearl is his “precious”. We would think of him as unbalanced—a man who has lost interest in everything except this one beautiful thing. But the point of Jesus’ story is to commend the man as wise. The person who does not treat the Kingdom of God like this is the one who has lost his mind. Why? Because the pearl is worth it. Because the kingdom of heaven is worth it. Free, but not cheap.

Now, that should make us think carefully. Notice that Jesus didn’t say that the kingdom of heaven is like the pearl of great value, but that it is like the merchant seeking the pearl of great value, and his actions when he finds it. Jesus is directing our attention not simply to the pearl but to the response the pearl gets from the one who recognises its beauty.

But the complication of the parable for me is this:
God’s grace comes for free,
but it costs everything
you have to get it.

How can this be?

Well, we need to recognise the limits of the illustration. The merchant buys the pearl. It is expensive. A poor man would simply not have a chance in this story. It seems he would be priced out of the kingdom of heaven.

But that’s not what Jesus is saying here. Rather, he is saying: The grace of God is free, but it is not cheap. We tend to think of those things that don’t cost us anything as not really worth having at all—as somewhat disposable. I know of instances where people have put a ticket price on an event they were organising just to give the impression it was worth coming to—as a kind of mental trick.

But the kingdom of heaven is not disposable, or even recyclable. It is not made of plastic. It is, like the pearl, unique and beautiful. It is utterly compelling—and to such a degree that if you grasp it the right way, it will take over your life. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and theologian who was executed by the Nazis for his part in a plot to kill Hitler, said: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die”.

It is striking to me that Jesus’ parables of grace aren’t simply about telling us that God freely forgives: they always point us to the fact that truly grasping free forgiveness means having an utterly altered life. We are not meant simply to be believers, but followers; or, better, being a believer means being a follower.

Michael Jensen pastors St Mark's Church, Darling Point in Sydney Australia. This is an edited extract from his newly released book in our Questions Christians Ask series entitled: Is forgiveness really free? And other questions about grace, the law and being saved.