JESUS PAID IT ALL

“Jesus paid a debt He did not owe, because we owed a debt we could not pay.” – Unknown.

Have you ever been a victim? Maybe somebody cheated you, or a crime was committed against you, or you have been accused of something you didn’t do. There are certainly people who have been victimized, but the biggest victim in all of history is God. Everyone has sinned against God, and God has sinned against no one. Rather than making us pay, God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to pay our debt to God. This was necessary because the debt owed to God for sin is payable only by death.

The only person who has ever walked the earth and has never sinned or accrued any spiritual debt is Jesus Christ. He lived a life we have not lived, died the death we should have died, and paid the price we could not pay.

Most who are reading this are in some form of financial debt. Most of us owe money on a car, a home, a student loan, or something similar. Although it can be burdensome, most of us can at least see a light at the end of the tunnel. We are energized by the hope that it will be paid in full one day and freed from any further obligation. But to be burdened with a debt from which you will never be set free is psychologically devastating.

Such was the reality of our spiritual indebtedness to God until Jesus paid it all. Paul tells us in Colossians 2:13-14: “You were dead, because you were sinful and were not God’s people. But God let Christ make you alive, when he forgave all our sins.God wiped out the charges that were against us for disobeying the Law of Moses. He took them away and nailed them to the cross. Jesus canceled the IOU of our spiritual obligation by “nailing it to the cross.”

Sometimes, people try to discount the necessity of the crucifixion. They believe there are other ways to be righteous in God’s eyes. But after Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, He concluded that the cross was the Father’s unavoidable will for Him:” Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine” (Luke 22:42). And on the road to Emmaus, Jesus asked two disciples, “Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?” (Luke 24:26). Jesus bore our sins on the cross so that we could live holy lives.

We are no longer in default on the debt because Jesus paid it all. Whatever we owed, He paid. Whatever penalty we incurred, He endured. He paid it all.

Discussion Questions:

1. Why is it so important that Jesus paid our debt?