Insights through questions
By Jerry Batson, Th.D.
Special to The Alabama Baptist
One day Jesus put to His disciples a two-part question: “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matt. 16:26) The implication in these questions is that a human life is more valuable than the whole world, thus no price would suffice as an exchange for a single human life.
Almost every day attests that many count human life as a cheap commodity as we read or hear about the shocking ease with which a life is snuffed out. The news bombards us with an awful array of shootings, stabbings, terrorist attacks and abandoned lifeless bodies in trash bags, in the woods or beside a road.
Eternity of the soul
What truths undergird the value or worth of a single human life? We have often heard about value or cost being in direct relation to supply and demand. The greater the demand or the more limited the supply serves to drive up the price.
In our better moments we are keenly aware that each of us is supplied only one life. Furthermore, each life is unique. Something about being one of a kind puts enhanced value upon an object. The resultant value of each life is beyond estimation.
Another factor in the worth of human life is the eternity of the human soul. The only commodity on this present earth that will endure through an endless eternity is the human soul. That fact alone should drive up the value we place on each life.
Bearing the image and likeness of God also puts human life in a category all by itself. No other of God’s creatures mirrors His image. Furthermore, we humans can experience the life of God as nothing else of all He created does.
Loving God
This added value attached to each human life cannot be found in any other creature in all creation. When we recognize that a human life is unique it sets each person apart as inexpressibly valuable.
As we once again move through the annual remembrance of Palm Sunday and the cross that bore God’s only Son later in the week, we are driven to the conviction that a human soul is worth salvaging and saving. At least our loving God thought so.
Christ’s two questions serve as a reminder that the value of the whole world does not exceed the value of a person’s soul and that no exchange exists which equals the worth of a human life.
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