Paid as Agreed

Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the FREE GIFT is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I was watching a video the other day on how a credit score in the US is calculated. No one knows the exact formula except for the Fair Isaac Corporation, but the speaker summarized the scoring processes as a risk assessment tool based on whether or not you pay as agreed. Every time you do not pay as agreed then your score comes down. And among the many things this made me think about one was that “Jesus paid the price for my sin.”

I thought about how cool it was to think that accepting Christ as Savior means I have an 850 spiritual credit score. As I thought further I wondered who He paid, and what did He pay for, and if paid at all do I now owe Him. I thought about the Christian song, Jesus Paid it All. Did Christ purchase my debt like a collection agency might purchase a bad credit card debt?

The truth is that there was no “debt.” There was a sentence of death hanging over me. A convicted murderer sentenced to death cannot buy his way off death row. That same criminal cannot send someone in substitute and walk free. But with God all things are possible.

This sin and death entered humanity by the sin of one man Adam. And life too returned to humanity through one man Christ because He had known no sin. Therefore death could not hold Him or have rights over Him because He had no sin. In other words Christ defeated death, and in doing so offered us the same eternal life as a free gift to believing in Him.

Unlike a balance of payments, Christ delivering us from death is free. This is not a collection that is later paid. This is a wiping of the sin complete off the spiritual credit report as if it never occurred. Or debts were not paid! Our sins were forgiven! There is a big, big difference. The question is, what will we do with this free gift?

Will we use it to approach God and ask for, and engage in relationship? Will we accept this free gift, or go about trying to earn something that cannot be paid for? Will we condemn others for their mistakes when we ourselves have been given the priceless gift of eternal life after and before committing those mistakes ourselves?

In the end Jesus did not pay a thing, but rather did what we could not do… namely live sin free from birth to death on this earth. It was love that from that point the Father allowed us to share in His eternal life as a free gift. A gift opened in believing in Him.

In fact the same song that says Christ paid the price for me also says He washed my sins away. The truth that I read in my bible is He became my sins, and those sins went to the cross, but now I live in Christ. In fact, the washing comes from US not Christ according to Revelation 7:14, “they have washed their robes…” it says. Not Christ.

I will close with this. In Christ your sins, past, present, and future were destroyed on the cross 2000 years ago. Death is a non-event, but eternal life is to those who will believe in Him. The washing of the robes, the becoming godly, holy, or whatever spiritual term you would like to use is nothing more to me than "surrender." This washing is surrender in relationship to God and becoming alive and aware in His kingdom.