“He breaks the power of cancelled sin”
That is a favorite lyric from the hymn “Oh, For a Thousand Tongues to Sing”. Cancelled sin. As another type of cancelling, that of student loan debt is in the news, I want to consider it more deeply as some are touting how biblical and Christlike this is. I want to think through that.
I’ve had very many thoughts on very many aspects of this. There are so many arguments either praising or condemning this executive action being slung back and forth, but there’s one sentiment in particular that I want to think through because I believe the nature of God and the cross is at stake. The sentiment goes something like this, “if you’re upset with the President forgiving student debt, then wait till you hear what Jesus did“, thus linking in concept God’s forgiveness of sin with the current President’s forgiveness of student loans. This is just one of many ways that I see believers linking this government action with Christian ideals as proof of its rightness.
I understand the sentiment behind it and I’m sure those who state such things do not have the intention of all the implications of such a statement, but I want to consider those implications because they are anti-biblical, and I want to state clearly why I say that.
The idea that an executive can, with a stroke of a pen, simply forgive or cancel willingly incurred loans is one thing; it is a financial, political, legal, and constitutional matter that I don’t want to get into here. The issue is when we compare this to God and Christianity. The bottom line to me is linking these is at least a denigration, if not a denial, of penal substitutionary atonement – the bedrock of our faith. I need to back that statement up because that’s pretty strong.
There is a huge difference in what God has done with sin on the cross and a human authority saying in an Executive Order “I am using my authority and power to cancel your debt”. It boils down to this:
God did not forgive or cancel the debt owed. Jesus, as God, paid in full.
The scriptures shout at us that if God did just cancel it, He would be UNJUST. It would be an unrighteous act of God to cancel the debt. This is what Romans 3:25 shouts:
25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
Romans 3:25-26 ESV (emphasis added)
God, as the ultimate sovereign, omnipotent creator of all, could have simply declared from heaven’s throne all sin debt forgiven. No one can stay His hand; He does whatever He pleases. He could have with ultimate, unquestioned authority declared the sin debt cancelled and forgiven; the ultimate executive order. But he would not and did not – because he is just. It would belittle his own glory. Justice demands all debts be paid in full. Otherwise, if he did just forgive or cancel the sin debt, then the cross was an extravagant and unnecessary waste.
The cross was payment in full, it was not cancellation or forgiveness.
No debt can ever be cancelled or simply forgiven. Someone has to step up and pay it. Even in the case of the lender, should they decide to just suffer the loss, they are still paying in full. Make no mistake, that is a payment in full transferred back to the lender themselves to pay. The debt can never just vanish into thin air. It can only be transferred to another payer. To my main statement above, in our atonement these aspects are the “penal” (penalty fully paid) and the “substitutionary” – someone else fully paid it. Deny these and you deny the gospel.
The same God also stated the following truth:
21 The wicked borrows but does not pay back,
Psalm 37:21 ESV
but the righteous is generous and gives;
God states you are wicked if you intentionally borrow and take on debt you then do not pay back. That of course does not preclude someone else coming along and willingly, out of their choice and grace, taking on your debt – but then they PAY IT. Borrowing and debt is not evil, but In order for the debtor to not be wicked, the lending party must be made whole.
Businesses have an accounting category for ‘bad debt’, the money they are owed that customers will not repay. Putting debt into that line item isn’t a magical cure that makes it go away, it is instead a business expense that is rolled into the price of their product, thus transferring the payment of this debt to all their paying customers, which is unjust. To not pay debt you created and incurred and thus require others to pay on your behalf without their consent is wicked, not virtuous.
One may say that in this instance, ‘the government’ as the lender is deciding to suffer the loss, so the debt is being paid by ‘the government’ itself. Except…it can’t. The government has nothing to loan out to begin with that was of any self-generated value; the government does not earn a wage, it does not sell its services and earn a profit, creating wealth. Its resources come from taxation of its citizens. It takes from those who do work in order to provide common services on their behalf. What they loaned out in all these student loans were taxes collected from fellow citizens. Therefore, for the government to simply cancel that debt means massive amounts of loss of taxpayer money is transferred back to the taxpayers. So the government is not the last half of verse 21 above and being generous and giving. It is not virtuous to transfer individual debt to all other taxpayers by executive authority, and neither is it, I suspect, Constitutional.
I’m wandering a bit from the main Theothought. Let’s not forget that Jesus Christ cried out from the cross, “Tetelestai” with a meaning of “Paid in Full”. The debt paid, God’s righteousness upheld in that payment, his task now finished. With the debt fully paid, now God could freely forgive our individual sin by applying that full payment to us. That is such a huge difference from this popular view of forgiveness being touted. We dare not forget that God is merciful and gracious, but it is a just grace. He doesn’t lay one of his attributes, perfect justice, aside for another, grace. Salvation and forgiveness is free only because the debt was fully paid.
With that, I’ll avoid getting into all the “year of Jubilee” and use of some of Jesus’ parables concerning salvation, or the Lord’s Prayer that are being used in attempts to elevate this administration’s political action to some biblical virtue. All of those have their own problems. This idea of “the debt is just forgiven” is the underlying concern when that anti-biblical concept is likened to the gospel of Jesus Christ.
I don’t want to confuse a government cancelling a debt by forcefully transferring it to others without consent with the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the infinite worth of His sacrifice to pay the debt in full – THEREFORE we can, after his full payment, sing with joy of our cancelled sins.