Debt

Cross Series

“Debt”

“And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;”

Col. 2:13-14

Imagine owning a debt that consumed every dollar you ever earned and could never be paid for… in a million life times.  The bondage that financial debt brings consumes most every facet of our lives: financial, emotion, relational and even physical. For many today, only their own death will ever relieve them of financial debt that has been created by their own greediness. Now imagine that burden being eliminated, in one single payment… forever.  The joy and relief that just the thought of financial free brings is worth the pursuit of making it a reality. 

For most, the same emotion that financial freedom brings can be felt in their spiritual life as well. In other words, many in this world fight to alleviate their spiritual debt in the same way they fight to eliminate their financial debt: by working themselves out of debt.  In the end they discover that their good deeds could never out weigh their bad deeds and all their effort was in vain.  Perhaps the greatest misnomer of humanity is believing that eternity depends on our goodness.  Hundreds of thousands perish yearly hoping that their good deeds will somehow persuade a just God to allow them into His Kingdom.  So far, this has never happened!

Why won’t our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds?

There are two reasons why God does not base our eternal hope on our good works:

1)    Even our good deeds are ill prompted. In other words, rarely does even a Christian perform a deed that is not (at least) partially self-centered. And never is the good deed of a sinner prompted by the notion of glorifying a righteous God. Read 1 Peter 4:11; 1Cor. 10:31

2)    This was never God’s way of providing grace to sinners. According to our opening text, our records “handwriting of ordinances” do actually play a factor in God’s decision as to whether or not He will allow us into heaven- but not on the basis of their weight, but rather on whether or not the records exist.  In other words, if any record of sin exists whatsoever, we will not be granted access in God’s Kingdom.  Notice, the sin records against us were not outweighed by Christ’s death, but rather, our records were blotted out. Praise be to the name of God!

Never could we depend on our own strength to merit our righteousness… and never will God require our goodness to merit our righteousness.  Our only hope was for the Just to die for the unjust… and this is what took place on Calvary’s cross.  Literally, our sin debt was paid by Christ, and literally, our sin debt was nailed to the cross. Jesus was His own payment for our debt and Jesus was literally nailed to the cross.  This is why we can now sing, “Jesus paid it all, and all to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, Jesus washed it white as snow.”