Exchange Rate
What shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Matthew 16:26
Exchange – On every street of Sosua in the Dominican Republic you will find tiny shops that sell money. Technically they exchange your money for the Dominican peso, but, of course, there is always a little markup. The shopkeepers are in the money selling business and they depend on the exchange rate difference for profit. What you will soon discover is that the exchange rate varies from shop to shop. If you are a savvy tourist, you hunt for the shop with the best rate before you make your exchange. You want to get the most pesos for your dollars.
The exchange process is the idea behind Jesus’ question. But Jesus is thinking as a Jew so the concept of exchange is influenced by his Hebrew background. When we look at the idea of exchange in the Old Testament, we discover that the Hebrew word nathan in its oldest form is associated with “extending the hand” in order to place something into the hand of another. It is the word for both “give” and “exchange”. To give generally means to transfer permanently and completely from one party to another. The exchange is determined by the value of the giving.
So far, so good. Easily understood. But now we come to Hebrew idioms and the landscape changes.
Idioms incorporating the word nathan are used to describe the idea of surrender to Yahweh. To give into Yahweh’s hand means to become His slave by total and complete submission. It is the permanent transfer of ownership from me to Him. In this exchange, I pass the deed for my life into His possession. What I get in return is the subject of Jesus’ question.
When Jesus asks what a man will give in exchange for his soul, he is asking a question about the full, permanent and complete transfer of a possession from one party to another. But notice that the transfer is backwards. Jesus does not ask what I will exchange in order to receive my soul. He asks what I will exchange in the process of giving my soul away. I do not redeem my soul from God. That is not an option. But I can give away my soul. The question is what exchange rate I will accept for delivering my soul into the hands of another.
And here’s what we learn from the Hebrew background of nathan. The only exchange rate acceptable to God is total submission and surrender as a slave. If you thought that you could earn your life back from the Creator, you didn’t see the direction of the transaction. If you thought you could negotiate the terms of the transfer, you didn’t understand the nature of the transaction. Both the terms and the conditions are set by God, not by me. In God’s world, the exchange is always from me to Him, from self-sufficiency to utter dependence. What have you exchanged for your soul? Has it been according to God’s terms and conditions?
