Volume 32, No. 5
February 3, 2007
When God Delivers
In the mid-1830s, England’s mail
system was in chaos but Rowland Hill came up with a clever innovation
that soon had the problem licked: the postage stamp.
At the time, the cost of delivering a
letter was paid by the recipient, not the sender. If the intended
recipient refused to pay, the letter was taken back to the Post Office
and thrown on a mountain of “dead letters” that were eventually returned
to the sender, free of charge. It was common to put some kind of code
on the outside of the envelope so the receiver could read it without
paying postage. Literally thousands of dead letters piled up every
year.
Since the Post Office had to deliver
that mail twice — without getting anything for it — costs were
incredibly high. The expense was passed on to the public by calculating
postage by the mile. As a result, sending a letter across England could
cost as much as a day’s wages.
After studying the situation, educator
Rowland Hill made a series of revolutionary recommendations to the
British Post Office in 1837. They included having the sender pay for
postal; making mail delivery more efficient and less expensive; and
charging a flat rate of a penny a letter, no matter how far it had to
travel.
To make sure delivery really had been
paid for in advance, Hill recommended the Post Office mark each envelope
with an ink-covered rubber stamp, and sell pre-stamped envelopes that
customers could simply drop in the mailbox. For people who wanted to
use their own stationary, he proposed the Post Office sell “a bit of
paper just large enough to bear the stamp,” complete with gum on the
back that couldbe moistened to attach the tiny square to an envelope.
The postage stamp was born.
By 1839, the British Parliament had
adopted all of Hill’s suggestions and, thanks to “the penny post,” mail
delivery was finally affordable for everybody. His system was so
efficient that 30 countries around the world soon embraced his
ingenuity.
In spiritual terms, there was a
similar revolution in the delivery of salvation. “Once you were dead,”
wrote the apostle Paul, “doomed because of your many sins.” (Eph. 1:2).
Our spiritual lives were like dead letters because the only way to be
made right in God’s eyes was to follow the Old Testament laws perfectly.
But nobody could do that (Romans 3:20.) Simply put, the onus was on us
to pay the price and few of us were willing, let alone able. Even when
we tried to beat the system, our spirituality couldn’t deliver.
Jesus, on the other hand, not only
lived a sinless life, He died on the cross to take the penalty for our
sins, washing us clean with his blood and making us perfect in God’s
sight. So, “God can always point to us as examples of the incredible
wealth of his favour and kindness toward us, as shown in all He’s done
for us through Christ Jesus.” (v. 7) In other words, on the cross, the
full cost of our salvation is borne by the Sender.
Under this radical new arrangement,
the Price is the same, no matter how far we have to go to reach our
spiritual destination. Grace and forgiveness are available to
everybody. As Paul says in Romans 3:22, “We’re made right in God’s
sight when we trust in Jesus Christ to take away our sins. And we can
all be saved in this same way, no matter who we are or what we’ve
done.”
We, too, have a seal — a stamp — that
demonstrates the price for our salvation has already been paid. That
seal is a loving relationship, the kind that’s foreshadowed by Solomon:
“Place me like a seal over your heart,”he writes. “For love is as
strong as death.” (Song of Solomon 8:6) We’re told that “God... set his
seal of ownership on us and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit,
guaranteeing what is to come.” (2 Corinthians 1:22)
That seal is affixed with a faith that
makes it adhere to the heart, assuring that — no matter what — when God
makes a promise, He delivers. All we must do is bear his stamp.
By Rick Gamble. Published in Cross
Current, the weekly newsletter of the followers of Christ congregation
in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Reprint at will in not-for-profit
publications. To subscribe to this free weekly article, send a note to
Rick at
sgamble@bfree.on.ca