Advent Week 4: When Love Costs Everything

I recently watched the new Fantastic Four movie with my family. Compared to some of the recent Marvel movies, this one was good, and I enjoyed it. Beyond the cinematic entertainment, the film also carries a fascinating moral dilemma worth exploring. I think I can say without spoilers that the movie’s premise revolves around one ethical decision: would you sacrifice your baby son to save the earth?

The plot is reminiscent of the old philosophical riddle about having five adults tied down on the track in front of an oncoming train, while a single baby is tied to a side track. Would you throw the switch to divert the train to save the greater number of people at the expense of one innocent life? The utilitarian philosopher argues that it is morally necessary to save the most people and do the most good; therefore, it is justified to throw the switch and kill the baby. The more classical ethicist gives a more nuanced answer, but I digress.

Again, without too many spoilers, the predictable answer in the Fantastic Four movie is that love for your baby son takes priority over all other concerns. The parents are willing to sacrifice the earth to spare their child. In terms of the movie, this makes sense. It is not morally praiseworthy to sacrifice the innocent to save the guilty. A society that would murder a child to save itself isn’t worth saving. However, I can’t help but reflect on that answer from the Christian point of view.

A similar question arises in the Old Testament in the story of Abraham and Isaac, except the stakes are not to save the earth but rather to obey God. Or put in other terms, would you “take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love” (Genesis 22:2) and submit that love beneath your love for God? If Augustine is right and all sin is just disordered love, then this becomes the pivotal question of our lives. Will we lift the love of God above the love of even those most precious to us?

In the case of Abraham, the problem is resolved when Abraham’s upward love meets God’s downward love. Abraham does not withhold his son, but neither does God accept his son (Genesis 22:10-14). Indeed, God consistently condemns child sacrifice in the Old Testament (Leviticus 18:21). If there was a god who would accept your baby in exchange for your life, it would not be a god worth worshipping. If there was a worshipper willing tao make that trade, his would not be a life worth saving. In the Law, the death penalty is placed on the act of child sacrifice, and the act itself is not only considered sin, but also “an abominable thing which the Lord hates” (Deuteronomy 12:31).

And yet …

In the New Testament, the story begins with the birth of a baby boy who will one day offer his life for the earth. Why do we call this story one of love rather than cruelty?

The powerful answer is the heart of New Testament theology—the doctrine of the incarnation. The Son of God is not a son in the ordinary sense. He is not the result of divine descent or lineage like the pagan gods of old who descended from the titans. He is the Son because He is the eternally begotten of the Father, a permanent relationship between equals. One God in three persons: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

In the Gospel story, the baby is neither being offered to God by worshippers nor offered by God to some cosmic force. The baby is God. The manger cradles the Creator. There was no baby who could be offered for the world, and God himself is not the sort of God who would accept that sacrifice from us if we found such a child. Instead, God became that baby. In due time, God sent his Son, born of a woman (Galatians 4:4), but that Son was not a child forced on an altar by a sinful world or even a cruel god. He who was God (John 1:1-3) became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). God himself offered what we could not. The child born in Bethlehem was also he “whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days” (Micah 5:2).

In the Fantastic Four movie (here comes a light spoiler), the solution to the riddle was to fight harder and avoid the problem altogether. The cosmic power demanding a child was defeated by human might and heroism. It makes for a great story, but it’s not the Gospel.

In the Gospel, no human can solve that riddle. God himself acted sacrificially—first becoming us in a barn at Bethlehem and then dying for us on a cross at Golgotha. Advent, then, is a season of waiting and hopeful expectation. It is a time when we turn our eyes to the beginning of the story of love and sacrifice, waiting for God to do what only God could do.

We are waiting for his love to save us, and our waiting is not in vain. Dr. Benjamin Williams is the Senior Minister at the Edgemere Church of Christ in Wichita Falls, TX and a regular writer at So We Speak. Check out his books The Faith of John’s Gospel and Why We Stayed or follow him on Twitter, @Benpreachin.