Jesus Paid It All (No, REALLY!)

Early this morning on my drive to church, I was blasting one of my favorite Christian songs on the freeway – “Jesus Paid it All”. It’s an old hymn that has been re-vamped for modern worship. I absolutely LOVE the song…except for one word in it. There is a particular line that goes…

“Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.”

Beautiful. And so true.

Almost.

If you are a believer in Christ, perhaps you can guess which word I’m talking about. It is the word “owe.” Is it true that as believers we owe Jesus everything? Do we owe Him anything at all? What are we actually saying when we sing that line?

Oh, think I understand what we MEAN when we sing it. What we mean is that God has been so good by bringing us the gift of salvation, we naturally feel indebted to Him for such amazing love. We subconsciously tell ourselves things like “Jesus gave His life for me, and I owe Him my life in return.”

There is only one tiny problem with this idea. According to the Scriptures, it is nowhere to be found in the framework of the New Covenant way of life. Throughout the New Testament Epistles, we are reassured over and over that the relationship we have with God through Jesus Christ is a GIFT. And yet as clear as this is – many believers live the bulk of their Christian existence relating to God in terms of debt-repayment.

Make no mistake about it – before we received the gift of salvation, we were indeed debtors to God because of our sin. But Jesus didn’t come to give us a loan. His life, death and resurrection were not presented as a second mortgage in order to pay off the first. Jesus is our Savior – not a creditor. When He paid the debt of our sin, He did so as a free gift – the gift of forgiveness and new life both eternal and abundant.

How often do we mistakenly relate to God as cosmic bill collector more so than a Savior? Sure, we tell ourselves we understand the fact that we will never be able to “literally” pay God back for His grace – but so many of us live as though we believe He expects us to die trying.

Ask yourself this crucial question: What makes a gift a gift? What makes something a gift is when it is totally free. A gift actually ceases to be a gift the very moment there is even a HINT of the expectation of repayment attached to it. The New Testament Epistles never encourage us to see ourselves as debtors. Yet what we ARE repeatedly told is that we WERE debtors who are now “dearly loved children”, “saints”, “members of God’s family”, etc.

If I could change that song, I would only change one letter. I would add the letter “d” to the word “owe”. My debt to God is now in the past. I owe him nothing in the true sense of the word. Do I FEEL indebted to Him? I once would have told you “yes”. But the more I understand grace, the more I realize that God isn’t asking me to relate to Him in terms of debt-repayment. The greater response is simply thankfulness.

Dozens of times in the New Testament letters, thankfulness is described as being at the core of our response to God’s grace – not guilt or a sense of “owing” anything. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1).

When we operate as free sons and daughters of God – motivated by a sense of deep thankfulness and gratitude – we are more aligned with God’s heart for us. A holy life becomes less about us “living for God” and more about Him “living through us.” Religion wants us to be operating from the mind-set of a debtor. Jesus wants us operating from the mind-set of His irreversibly beloved children.

If you know the tune, then sing the revised version with me…

“Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owed.
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.”

Isn’t the truth good?