Do we pay for what we have done?
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August 11, 2017
A few years ago, I was walking out of a church when a man said to me, out of the blue, “Well, I know we all have to pay for what we've done ...” I don't know what he was talking about, or what specifically was on his mind, but it struck me that this is exactly the way many people think: that we all have to pay for what we’ve done.
In the world of man, yes, you do have to pay for what you’ve done. If you break the laws of the state, the agents of the state will make you pay. If you punch someone in the nose, you’re liable to get sued and you’ll have to pay. In the physical world, whatever you sow is what you will reap. By the way, sowing and reaping is nothing Christians should get excited about – it’s just a carnal, physical, natural law. It’s the way the physical world operates.
On the other hand, the Bible tells us that God’s ways are higher than man’s ways. In fact, where sowing and reaping is concerned, Jesus encourages us to consider the birds flying in the heavens: “they neither sow nor reap, yet your Father feeds them.” God’s economy is not based on sowing and reaping, getting what you deserve, or, in other words, on wages, but, instead, on gifts. The Apostle Paul writes, “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.” Notice the contrast between wage and gift. A wage is being paid for what you’ve done. A gift is freely given based on the goodness of the giver. If God made us pay for what we’ve done, if he gave us the wage we deserve, we would get death. But instead of paying us the wage we deserve, God offers the gift of eternal life.
The reason that we do not pay for what we’ve done, where God is concerned, is because someone has already paid. Hebrews 2:9 says that Jesus, by the grace of God, tasted death for “every man.” In other words, if the wages of sin is death, and if Jesus has tasted death (as the wages of sin) for every man, then the payment for sin has already been made.
God is not keeping track of sin, yours or anyone else’s. He does not make you pay for what you’ve done. God is not interested in retribution, but in reconciliation.
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