“Man owes God a debt he can’t pay, and Christ’s sacrificial death the cross pays that debt.”
(Jim Ober)
What dawned on me one day is that we do indeed have a debt to God, and that is the debt (i.e. obligation) of fulfilling the gift of life that God has given us. If we have thrown that gift away or abused it, through envy, disobedience and rebellion, then that incurs a debt that can never be repaid. For even if we were to obey God’s life-giving Spirit completely after repenting, we would still be owing for the time before, when we were out of harmony with God’s life. The creature (e.g. a human being) that is brought to life for the purposes of displaying the glory of God, by rights should do so at every moment of its existence. So if I “sin and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3.23) for a time, then opening myself to God’s glory fully doesn’t erase that past lack. It is a debt of obedience and fulfillment of being that can never be repaid by me. You can’t relive the past.
So the “unrepayable” debt that we all owed is a debt of living fully in God, a debt of obedience. And when you begin to think about that one, the scriptures just spill out one after the other to affirm it. What did Christ’s going to the cross achieve? His full obedience, which he offered to God on our behalf, and so atoned for our disobedience and brought in our righteousness.
Rom. 5.17-19: For if in one person’s trespass death came to reign because of him, far more will those who have received the overflowing of grace and the gift of acquittal come alive and reign because of the one, Jesus Christ. In summary, just as one person’s trespass resulted in all people’s being found guilty, so correspondingly one person’s innocence results in all people’s acquittal and life. For just as because of the disobedience of the one man the many were brought into being sinners, so by the obedience of the one the many will be brought into being righteous.
He was tempted in all things just as we are, yet he lived his bodily life without sin (i.e. in full obedience, Heb. 4.15). By working out the process of obedience on our behalf (Heb. 5.1) through the painful temptations and experiences he suffered, he atoned for our shortcomings, and became our source of “eternal salvation” (Heb. 5.7-10). In his incarnation he chose to take on the role of a servant, and became obedient to death, even death on the cross (Paul, Philippians 2.6-11). What we lacked, and what we could never have restored, even if we had been able to repent (which we were unable to do in any case, Col. 2.13-15), Christ supplied for us, proving out full obedience in the crucible of mortal suffering.
Isaiah says that “by his knowledge, my righteous one will justify many” (Isa. 53.11). And what is his “knowledge” that accomplishes the justification of, i.e. atones for the sins of, the many? Obedience, which he learns through his experience of human temptation, suffering and death:
Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death–that is, the devil–and free those who all their lives were held in slavery through fear of death. . . .For this reason he had to be made like his brethren in all ways, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted (2.14-18).
During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a priest, he learned obedience through his sufferings, and, having been perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God to be high priest according to the order of Melchizedek (5.7-10).
This is the substitutionary atonement that positively satisfies God’s “just requirements.” Scripture nowhere pictures the sacrifice of Jesus as a passive experience of rejection and violence from God. To the contrary, Christ presents a total, active, acceptable self-offering on our behalf. As Paul says, “Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5.2). Think how obedient he proved himself even in Gethsemane, facing the horror of imminent execution: “Not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22.42). And hear his final words, “Father, into your hands I am entrusting my spirit” (Luke 23.46). The creaturely faithfulness that we betrayed and failed under the best of circumstances, he expresses fully and unrestrainedly in the worst of circumstances. At incalculable cost to himself, he pays back our debt of obedience to God.