Jesus Paid Our Debt?

[holyrokker]

If you have nothing to say, it's best to say nothing.

Perhaps you're correct.

 

[FriendlyJosh]

not sure I agree with you guys. In the book i've been reading called "The way to divine love" Jesus talks a lot about his love and other things. In the book it always seemed like Jesus was in pain, because he was trying to save souls that turned away from him. My understanding is Hell is God the fathers wrath, and Justice(and ofcourse Jesus's as he's God aswell), because the only power the devil has comes from God the father, and Jesus in his love and mercy sacrificed himself to pay the debt of mans sins to God the father, not the devil... so that any that follow and believe in him, shall have life after death. Following him involves repentance and putting yourself in his hands, I don't fully understand yet, but what I do understand is we belong to God, not the devil, and the only way we can get a pardon from the Justice and punishment of our sins, which we deserve is through Jesus's love and mercy. We don't achieve this through pride, hatefulness or arrogance though, we achieve this through being humble, through sacrifice, love and accepting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Without Gods love we are nothing, but with it, there's nothing we can't do! I love God and am so thankful for his blessings, and his never tiring mercy and forgiveness!

to quote Jesus abit from this book

"See, Josefa, one of those two souls has last given Me what she had long refused Me, but the other is very near being lost unless she suceeds in seeing her utter nothingness..."

"A soul will profit even after the greatest sins, if she humbles herself. It is pride that provokes My Father's wrath, and it is loathed by Him with infinite hatred."

"Then glancing heavenwards, He said: "Pride blinds her... she forgets that I am her God and that without Me she can do nothing. Why does want to rise in this world? I want you often to fall down in adorating before My Father, and to offer Him the humility of My Heart. Do not forget that without Me a soul is nothing more than an abyss of wretchedness...I will raise up the humble, and make little of their frailties, and even of their falls, provided they have humility and love"

so yeah, this book is amazing, i'm only about 104 pages in it, theres close to 400.

 

[Kathy H.]

Holyrokker, you are correct. Your thinking is reasonable and logical. (Remember that God told us in Isaiah 1 to reason together with Him.) The idea of Jesus paying a debt is not in the Bible. What people seem to do, I've noticed, is to take what they've been taught and try to fit the Bible passages to match that, rather than looking at what the Bible says and getting their theology from the Holy Bible itself.

This teaching about debt (which came from Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1098) has always bothered me, so I have been researching in the Bible what happened at the Cross of Jesus Christ. I've been studying this for the past six months, as I'm not working right not and have good time to spend on it. The idea of Jesus paying our debt is just not in there. Paying a debt to Satan sounds blasphemous. We don't owe the devil anything. Jesus didn't pay the devil anything. He took our sins away from us. (John proclaims that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.)

When the Bible talks about debt in the Old Testament, all debts are canceled (not paid) every sabbath year and in the year of jubilee. In the New Testament parable of a debtor owing a king, the king forgave the debt. He didn't require it to be paid. No one paid it.

I do not understand why people confuse the terms "pay" and "cancel", but they do. Jesus cancel all of the things that were hostile to us. Jesus removed our sins from us. Jesus draws us to Himself. Jesus reconciles us to God. (Jesus is God.) Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (not pay for them). Jesus ransomed us from our captivity, our bondage, to Satan. Jesus saves us from the future wrath of God when the devil and all of those who follow him are thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone.

God's main quality is Love. It's not justice and penalty. It's not exacting debt from sinners. It's Love. It's forgiveness and mercy and grace and peace and kindness and so on. Jesus sacrificed His equality with God in order to remove our sins from us, to destroy the works of the devil, to reconcile us back to Himself, to give us eternal life with Him, and so on.

Amen!

 

[Ttalkkugjil]

Jesus, gave himself as a ransom for all.

The Mediator Jesus, God and human in one person, is one; the redemption is one. There's no varying power-degree for the people in the world, as if the atonement weren't as full for the gross sinner as for the self-righteous moralist.

Jesus' redemption is there for all in the same degree. He's the Mediator between God and humanity, for his atonement has come in between God and the world and has restored the relation which should obtain between God and humanity.

By becoming a man, by taking upon himself humanity's sin, he has made satisfaction for all; as the Advocate of all. He can step before God and demand acknowledgment from justice for his satisfaction, for his redemption's work.

Jesus paid the price to deliver all, and salvation is now prepared before all's face, to be attested to by the gospel's ministers and by Christians in fulfillment's age.

 

[SamuelF]

Hey Holyrokker,

I appreciate very much your interest and persistence in this important question.

I’m studying the Greek text of the New Testament since maybe two years, and my understanding of a lot of things have quite changed. I agree with your believe for now that Jesus has not come to pay any debt, neither to God nor to satan. I can find biblical arguments that very well support that view but I simply found personal proof for it in being a father to my almost three years old son. Since we are made in the image of God I take almost always my experience to underline affirm the truth Jesus gave us. So the other day I looked at my son, after he did again, what hurts our relationship. I thought, I really don’t want him to be a robot and to do what I want him to do, and to function towards my expectations. Yet I would like him to know he is my son, and that my only desire is for us to be in relationship, by his free choice. That’s why God made us, and why my wife and I have a child; for relationship. My son doesn’t owe me right behavior, because I did not make him for the purpose of behaving right. He himself did not even have a choice in that, so it would be kind of selfish to create him and expect him to except that he owed me something only I myself as his creator can fully pay it back? There is a lot more to say, but maybe you get my point. Don’t know if that is really the truth or not, but it makes me love god even more and be more liberated and got rid of self condemnation(my prison). Surly I will discipline my son and show him what the right behavior of love, faithfulness and justice is so he can learn to represent Gods kingdom here on earth with me together. And everything about God is relationship. But if he wants to follow on purpose the misrepresentations of the “διαβολος/Devil=Accuser, Slanderer”, that’s hard but okay with me, it’s his decision. I’ll just keep inviting him even if it means to die for him. My responsibility, as was Jesus’ too, is to represent that love of the father well. That’s what disciples are called to do. Jesus say to his disciples: You are the light of the world (Mt 5:14). So I believe at the moment, that Jesus did not come to pay anything, but to remind us what we where made for in the beginning, and that reminder or full revelation has cost him the price of his own life. What a high price/sacrifice to pay for bringing us back to our purpose.

 

[barefeetonholyground]

I've often heard people claim that Jesus paid our debt, but I haven't been able to find any reference to it in the Bible.

Where did this idea come from?

What debt did we owe? Who was our creditor?


The closest analogy I can find is in Matthew 18:23-27
“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
“At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go."

But even here, no debt was paid. The debt was forgiven.

Supposed you owe Jim $10,000,000 but can't even begin to pay even the interest on the loan.

Then imagine that Jack pays Jim the entire balance (plus interest).

Did Jim forgive you? No. The bill has been paid in full.Jim has his money back. It has cost him nothing.

But suppose (as in Matthew 18) Jim says "Forget about it" and cancels the debt. Now you've been forgiven.

A debt that has been paid is not forgiveness.
A debt that has been forgiven is left unpaid.

So, I ask again. What was our debt? Who was our creditor?

Although Jesus did state that this is what the Kingdom of heaven was like, He was only drawing a simple comparison as opposed to a full-blown analogy.
We are forgiven are debt because our debt was paid. Death was the required payment to atone for our sins (Romans 6:23). We were not just forgiven our debt. Jesus paid it for us by becoming sin and dying in our place. Our debt was paid for us, so we could be forgiven our debt.

 

[drich0150]

I've often heard people claim that Jesus paid our debt, but I haven't been able to find any reference to it in the Bible.

Where did this idea come from?

What debt did we owe? Who was our creditor?

col 2:
11 In Christ you had a different kind of circumcision, one that was not done by human hands. That is, you were made free from the power of your sinful self. That is the kind of circumcision Christ does. 12 When you were baptized, you were buried with Christ, and you were raised up with him because of your faith in God’s power. God’s power was shown when he raised Christ from death.

13 You were spiritually dead because of your sins and because you were not free from the power of your sinful self. But God gave you new life together with Christ. He forgave all our sins. 14 Because we broke God’s laws, we owed a debt—a debt that listed all the rules we failed to follow. But God forgave us of that debt. He took it away and nailed it to the cross. 15 He defeated the rulers and powers of the spiritual world. With the cross he won the victory over them and led them away, as defeated and powerless prisoners for the whole world to see.

The debt was paid on the cross, so God then had the option to forgive it.

Supposed you owe Jim $10,000,000 but can't even begin to pay even the interest on the loan.

Then imagine that Jack pays Jim the entire balance (plus interest).

Did Jim forgive you? No.

if "you" has a contract with jim, and jim releases "you" from the contract without "you" full filling your end for whatever reason. the debt is forgiven. why? because one of the literal defintion for forgive is to cancel a debt. Reasons for debt cancelation do not play into this as your presuppose. that is a bias or spin you put on to the word forgivness that is not apart of the official defination.
for·give
/fərˈɡiv/
Learn to pronounce
verb
verb: forgive; 3rd person present: forgives; past tense: forgave; gerund or present participle: forgiving; past participle: forgivenstop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake.
"I don't think I'll ever forgive David for the way he treated her"

1. Similar:
   pardon
   excuse
   exonerate
   exonerate these men from this crime" data-hw="exonerate" data-lb="" data-tae="false" data-te="false" data-tl="en-US" data-tldf="" data-url="/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS743US744&sxsrf=ACYBGNQe0OXayP66VMQVr7VWfvrgdKfEnA:1580310640295&q=define+exonerate&forcedict=exonerate&dictcorpus=en-US">
   
   absolve
   absolved them of any crimes" data-hw="absolve" data-lb="" data-tae="false" data-te="false" data-tl="en-US" data-tldf="" data-url="/search?rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS743US744&sxsrf=ACYBGNQe0OXayP66VMQVr7VWfvrgdKfEnA:1580310640295&q=define+absolve&forcedict=absolve&dictcorpus=en-US">
   
   acquit
   let off
   grant an amnesty to
   amnesty
   make allowances for
   stop feeling resentful toward
   feel no resentment toward
   stop feeling malice toward
   feel no malice toward
   harbor no grudge against
   bury the hatchet with
   let bygones be bygones
   let someone off the hook
   go easy on
   exculpate
   
   
   • stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone for (an offense, flaw, or mistake).
     "he was not a man who found it easy to forgive and forget"
   • cancel (a debt).
     "he proposed that their debts should be forgiven"
   • used in polite expressions as a request to excuse or regard indulgently one's foibles, ignorance, or impoliteness.

Why is it forgiven, why does jack not demand you pay what you owe? because someone else paid what you owed. this like it or not is still considered debt forgiveness.

again the reason is irrelevant.

The bill has been paid in full.Jim has his money back. It has cost him nothing.

indeed

But suppose (as in Matthew 18) Jim says "Forget about it" and cancels the debt. Now you've been forgiven.

A debt that has been paid is not forgiveness.
A debt that has been forgiven is left unpaid.

according to who? according to how you've been taught to understand the word?
That's just it, how we understand our vernacular and how it is properly interpreted is not always the same thing.
In this case the literal 3 definition of forgive is to cancel a debt. there are no reasons why associated with the cancelation. that is something you added that is not apart of the official understanding of this word.

So, I ask again. What was our debt? Who was our creditor?

and I point again to col 2 at the top of the page.

 

[tturt]

When Jesus said "It is finished," He paid in full. In the Greek it means brought to its completed end. Jesus came to take back what was lost in the fall and destroy the works of the enemy. I John 3:8. Jesus declared when it was finished, not those around Him. He wasnt declaring his death but that He had now paid in full for us.

(We need His help to do Rom 16:20).

"...having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross." Col. 2:14

 

[John Helpher]

I've often heard people claim that Jesus paid our debt, but I haven't been able to find any reference to it in the Bible.

Where did this idea come from?

What debt did we owe? Who was our creditor?

My understanding of why sacrifices were instituted in the first place was to communicate that our bad choices (commonly referred to as sin) have consequences not only for us, but for others. It should be you, but the animal dies in your place. You're meant to feel sorry (not only for the monetary loss to yourself) but also that your behavior led to the death of another living thing.

God is trying to communicate that when it comes to sin he's not playing around; for him it's an issue of life and death. Unfortunately, over time (as we humans tend to do) the sacrifices lost their punch and became just another religious ritual. In other words, it wasn't working, but it did serve it's purpose, much like punishments for small children; when they are kids the punishments teach them valuable lessons, but as they grow into adults you can't really send them to the corner for a timeout.

Jesus represent the adult phase of God's plan for humanity; he is the ultimate sacrifice that we're meant to reflect on.