Hope for the Hopeless

In Charles Dickens' book, A Tale of Two Cities, Sydney Carton saves the life of Charles Darnay by exchanging places with him in prison. The strategy works because Carton is a free man and Darnay looks like Carton. But consider for a moment what would have happened had they both been prisoners. They could have done little more than exchange cells. And if they had both been condemned to die on the guillotine, they would have done no more than exchange times of execution. Carton had to be free and uncondemned for the plot to free Darnay to succeed.

As we have seen, we are all prisoners of sin (Galatians 3:22), and we are all on death row (Romans 6:23). No friend can set us free by exchanging places with us because every friend we have is also a prisoner. No friend can save us from the death penalty because every friend we have is also condemned to die.

Although our condition seems hopeless, it is not. Jesus, God's son, has "appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin" (1 John 3:5 NIV). Jesus is sinless, so he is free and uncondemned. He is not a prisoner, and he is not on death row. God sent his sinless son to this world to set us free and give us life.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
-- John 3:16-17 NIV