31 Oct Jesus Paid Our Debt
Romans 6:19-23 – I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Mark 10:45 – For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
God is the biggest victim in all of history. 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 (or wage) owed to God for sin is payable only by death. The Bible uses the term ransom to explain our spiritual debt to God.
Most religions have some concept of human failure and a debt to be paid. This is because God made us with a conscience, and even if we do not know how good God is, we do know how bad we are. In basically every religion except Christianity you have to pay back your debt. Hinduism teaches that you need to reincarnate and suffer to pay off your debt to karma. In Islam, your good works need to outweigh your bad works so that you can pay off your debt to God.
The only person who has ever walked the earth that 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.
If you belong to Jesus Christ, you are totally, completely, and eternally forgiven for all of your sin in the past, present, and future. Jesus paid the highest price for you and forgives your debt to God as a free gift called grace.
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