Debt forgiveness

There has been a rebuttal to this since, but I still wanted to record it...

I had a skeptic friend ask me a common question this week: "Why does God need to use Jesus to take away sin at all? Why can't He just snap His fingers and forgive debts?"

He didn't ask in a snooty way. It was a genuine question. I was glad he used the word "debt". He's very vocal about the student loan debt situation, so I decided to use that imagery to make a point. (I don't want to deter my point by something political so focus y'all).

He recently posted something about it, saying how debt isn't canceled. It's not eliminated.

It's transferred.

I thought this was brilliant.

So I asked him...Why can't the government just snap their fingers and cancel student loan debt?

He went off about how someone has to pay the debt, and because it's been accumulated by choice, it needs to be paid by someone. It can't just disappear. It needs to be taken care of.

Perfect.

Okay, I then asked him what he would do if one person came up and said they'd pay the entire debt? In this way, it's not on the shoulders of the people, and those that can't afford to pay will have their bill reconciled? They owe a debt they can't pay. But this one person, the only person who can afford it, paid it all.

He could see where I was going with this. (I was glad for that because sometimes my analogies fall flat.) He said it was the first time he understood why God just couldn't snap His fingers and forgive a debt even bigger than money. Sin debt is infinitely more serious than money debt.

Sin isn't "canceled." It's transferred. And it was transferred to and eliminated by the one Person who could pay it all: Jesus.

I wanted to share this as an example of how we can meet people on common ground to share the concept of the Gospel and the work of Jesus.