The Cancellation of Debt
Debt as a Way of Life
America has a consumer culture. It is easy to obtain anything you currently want but don’t yet have. With credit it can be yours today. Not waiting.
Need a house? Buy it on credit. Car? Credit. More education? Credit. Clothing? Credit.
You get the picture.
USA Today recently reported that the average U.S. household debt in these categories:
Credit cards – $16,883
Auto loans – $29,539
Student loans – $50,626
Mortgages – $182,421
In total that is $279,469. On average. Per household.
At the time of my writing this article, there are 126,220,000 households in America. If we multiply the number of American households with the total average debt, the number is astounding: 35,274,577,180,000. That is $35.2 trillion in consumer debt. Yikes.
As I write this, the current richest person in the world’s net worth is $160 billion. Nowhere near enough to pay off the debt accumulated by Americans.
This illustration can serve as a small picture of the debt accumulated by our sin. The sin debt is not owed to man. It’s not owed to institutions. It is owed to God.
Storing Up Wrath For Ourselves (Our Debt of Sin)
The Apostle Paul says in Romans 2:4-5,
“Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” (ESV)
The idea here is that every moment of every day we are accumulating debt. Storing up more and more. A debt that must be paid.
To understand our debt, let us just consider the greatest commandment. It is found in Matthew 22:37,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
Consider this: Every millisecond of your existence you have broken this commandment. Unless you love God perfectly with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength simultaneously, you have sinned. And, not just sinned but violated the greatest commandment. Again, and again, and again. Over and over. It is not enough to just love Him with all your heart. You must also love Him with all your soul, mind, and strength. Simultaneously. Perfectly.
Dwell on that for a minute. Do not let your heart deceive you. Honestly consider this truth. Wrestle with the sober truth that even 1% of your heart, 1% of your soul, 1% of your mind, or even 1% of your strength is an easy thing to give away to something less worthy that the living God. We are sinners by nature. We dwell in sinful flesh. We are consistently and constantly storing up debt on our account.
The Weight of Sin
Think of the debt you will have accumulated in your lifetime against God. And then recognize that it is far greater than what you can even imagine. Greater than you think because you do not fully understand the height of the holiness and righteousness of God nor the depth of the wickedness of man.
Unfortunately, the news gets worse before it gets better. There is no possible way for you to pay off this debt.
For “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (Romans 3:10-11).
This is part of the reason why hell is eternal. Because you will never be able to pay off the debt you owe to God for your sins.
Up to this point, we’ve really only been focusing on our individual sin debt. It’s time to think bigger. Now think of the debt accumulated by the great multitude of people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. Think of the sin debt accumulated by every man, woman, and child who has ever lived — from the beginning until the end of creation.
“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Revelation 7:9-10)
This is overwhelming. The debt accumulated by a countless number of people cannot be fathomed. It is far too great.
But there is hope.
The Glory & Greatness of Christ
While the weight of sin is great, the weight of Christ’s glory is even greater.
“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-15)
You could never pay for your own sins. Neither could I pay for my own. Suffice to say, we could likewise never even think to offer our merits to benefit another. We are too spiritually impoverished.
Yet, think of what Paul is saying in Colossians 2:13-15! God didn’t just take all our sin, ball it up, and throw it into the sea. The debt was not just canceled and forgotten. Why? Because God is just. Every ounce of debt accumulated must be paid for. It cannot be ignored. Justice demands that it is not overlooked or swept under the rug.
How then is the cancelation of our debt possible? Because God laid it upon His Son, Jesus the Christ. And crushed Him for it!
This is why Christ is so important, so necessary for our salvation. The debt we could never pay, He paid in full. The wrath that was stored up on our account was transferred to the account of another. To Christ. As He was nailed to a cross, He was being made sin on behalf of His people.
“For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
All of the sin. Of every believer. The countless multitude. The sea of people. A people so great they cannot be numbered. All of this debt was laid upon the Son. Jesus the Christ.
And He paid it all!
How can it be that one Man could pay off the debt of a countless multitude of poor wretched sinners? Have you ever thought of this? Truly considered it?
My answer is simple: I don’t know. It is a mystery. Some days I cannot even see past the hardness of my own sinful heart, let alone comprehend the sin, trespass, and iniquity of all who would believe being redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.
What I do know is that Jesus the Christ, who is both God and Man, is incredibly great. This truth, that our debts were canceled because of Him, affirms that. And while I can’t truly comprehend how Christ could be so worthy, I can affirm that He is. I can also rejoice knowing that Scripture tells us plainly why even if it leaves us to wonder at how.
I long for the day that I will see Him as He is. Then I will begin to reach the foothills of the mountain of the knowledge of the greatness of Jesus. He who is both Lord and Christ.
If you would like to learn more about this article, you can listen to the podcast here: He Paid Our Debt.