The phrase “Pay me now or pay me later” was one of the most popular advertising slogans ever, addressing our pesky human tendency to procrastinate. It pictured two surly auto mechanics holding up a FRAM oil filter, suggesting that either you bite the bullet now and install its oil filters in your car or face dire consequences later.
Clever, effective and true.
There is a sense in which those ads resemble the Gospel of Jesus Christ, only with God holding up an image of the cross and saying in effect, “come to the cross now while there is time or face eternal consequences later.” And He is serious.
The Gospel in Financial Terms
Suppose you pictured yourself as a business property. Like all businesses, you have a “net worth” that, in finance parlance, equals total assets minus total liabilities.
Of course, you value yourself highly with personal assets, including a family, education, career, house in the “burbs,” savings, retirement plans, etc. Further, you have studiously avoided all debt and paid cash for everything.
Sounds responsible.
Then, at the end of your life, you face your demise confident that “the fates” will view you favorably and welcome you to your “eternal reward” with a ticker-tape parade all the way to heaven’s pearly gates.
But then, a guard steps out, finds your name on his clipboard with a black star next to it. The guard sternly informs you that no one gains admission to heaven unless they are debt free. You protest — back on earth, you paid cash for everything, even your own funeral expenses in advance.
The guard informs you that you have been accumulating a massive debt (with interest and penalties) throughout your life, plunging you hopelessly into the red and it is now due and payable.
You find yourself spiritually bankrupt and it’s too late to do anything about it. The guard reminds you of the Bible passage, Romans 3:23, which warns: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God …” as he murmurs, “And you call yourself responsible?”
Just then, you hear footsteps behind you. The “bill collectors” are there to repossess their property (you) and liquidate the collateral (your soul). Sound farfetched?
The biblical backstory is clear …
Mankind started out with a strong balance sheet.
In Genesis 1:26-27, God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them … So, they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle … God created human beings; he created them godlike, reflecting God’s nature.”
Humans were no “evolved animals” but a new divinely constituted spiritual species in the image of their Creator.
Then, we ran up huge debts.
We decided to go our own way, ignoring our Creator. As is written in Romans 3:9-20, “There’s nobody living right, not even one, nobody who knows the score, nobody alert for God. They’ve all taken the wrong turn; they’ve all wandered down blind alleys … Don’t know the first thing about living with others. They never give God the time of day.”
Mankind’s spiritual credit rating ended up “in the tank.”
And we all became spiritually bankrupt.
As is written in Romans 1:18-23, “But God’s angry displeasure erupts as acts of human mistrust and wrongdoing and lying accumulate, as people try to put a shroud over truth. But the basic reality of God is plain enough … So, nobody has a good excuse.”
Our spiritual liabilities now far exceeded our assets.
But Jesus “wrote the check” that could get us off the hook.
Colossians 2:13-15 explains: “And when you were dead in your wrongdoings … He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our wrongdoings, having canceled the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.”
Jesus “wrote the check” that could get us off the hook.
But … you need to cash the check to make it count for you.
How About You?
That accumulated debt load you’ve been working on requires a huge balloon payment at the end — your spiritual death. As is written in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gracious gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
God went to a lot of trouble to pay your bills, according to 1 Peter 1:18-19: “knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ …”
“For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every violation and act of disobedience received a just punishment, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?”
— Hebrews 2:2-4
— D.C. Collier is a Bible teacher, discipleship mentor and writer focused on Christian apologetics. A mechanical engineer and Internet entrepreneur, he is the author of My Origin, My Destiny, a book focused on Christianity’s basic “value proposition.” Click here for more information, or contact him at don@peervalue.com. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.