Blessed Holy Week. This is the week in which the Christian world remembers the ultimate sacrifice: when Jesus gave up all he had, endured more suffering than any of us could ever imagine, and sacrificed his very life in order to save us from our sins. Before offering himself up as the final sacrifice, Jesus taught his disciples many things, including how to pray. In what has become known as “The Lord’s Prayer” or the “Our Father,” Jesus includes the petition, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). In every church I have ever attended, this petition of the Lord’s Prayer is translated, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Even though virtually every biblical translation, from the KJV and RSV to the NIV and ESV, translates the Greek word ὀφείλημα (opheilēma) as “debts,” most English-speakers memorize the Lord’s Prayer with “trespasses.” This is due to a man named William Tyndale.
Tyndale was a brave Christian saint and martyr who translated the Bible into English in 1526. Twelve years later, he was executed for what King Henry VIII called heresy. Two years after the tyrant Henry’s death, his son King Edward VI commissioned the writing of the English Book of Common Prayer (1549). This prayer book was compiled by the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer. Cranmer used Tyndale’s translation of the Bible and therefore included “trespasses” for the Lord’s Prayer. Ever since, English-speakers, whether they belong to the Church of England or not, have followed in this tradition. I have no knowledge of Greek and therefore have no opinion on whether “debts” or “trespasses” is a better translation. However, I would like to focus on the concept of our sins as debts.
A debt is something an individual is responsible for and is expected to repay. A person has debt in the same way he might have an illness. It’s something that is at times unavoidable to take on, yet something one should consistently work toward ridding himself of, if possible. Historically, if someone could not pay their debts, they were thrown in prison. Charles Dickens, scarred by his childhood memory of his father being taken to debtor’s prison, includes such settings in many of his novels. Many people are saddled with debt their whole lives, chronically unable to pay it off due to either reckless spending habits, unemployment, unreasonably high medical bills, or high-interest loan sharks. Whether chronic debt is the responsibility of the debtor or the lender, it can be a debilitating cancer on one’s life.
In this way, sin is like debt. When we sin, we make ourselves debtors. Like debt, sin is a plague on our lives. It damages our reputations, inflicts us with emotional strain, and hinders us from living free, abundant lives. In the Old Testament, God provided a way for sinners to pay down their debt. This was the sacrificial system, found most prominently in the Book of Leviticus. God accepted the sacrifices of bulls, lambs, birds, and grain as payment for the sins committed by his people. This gracious covenant system allowed the Israelites to pay off their moral deficits consistently. But every time they sinned again, another sacrifice would be required. Therefore, in addition to the regular sacrificial offerings that God accepted as debt relief, the Israelites also had faith in the promised Messiah: the one who would one day come and cancel all their moral debt, once and for all.
Jesus was the only man who never sinned, nor had the curse of original sin. He was a perfect man, which is why he was an acceptable permanent payment for the debts of all sinners. “He became sin who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21). He took our debts upon himself. Therefore, when Jesus willingly submitted himself to torture and execution, he paid our debts in full. He paid the price that was owed for our sins. This means that, as long as we don’t rip up and reject the New Covenant of Debt Forgiveness, we are no longer debtors before the Lord. So when we pray, “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors,” it is a confirmation that we have laid claim to Christ’s payment of our debts, as well as a reminder that we have no right to hold on to the debts of others. When people sin against us, they owe us a debt of apology and perhaps restitution. However, even if we never receive these payments, we must forgive their debts. And if they do apologize, we must never hold our neighbor’s sins over their heads, but rather forget the injury just as the bank forgets a paid-off loan.
In 2022, the Biden administration announced a plan to “forgive” student loan debt. Conservatives spoke unfavorably of this plan, at which point the Left employed a common strategy of theirs: taking the Bible out of context. On Twitter, a user named April Ajoy tweeted: “Bold of Christians to be mad about student debt forgiveness while professing a faith that is literally based on forgiving debts.” Another Twitter personality named Shane Claiborne wrote, “If you’re mad about Biden forgiving student debt… just wait until you hear what Jesus did.” Variations of this point spread all across social and mainstream media, with secularists and liberal Christians alike parroting the equating of Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation with Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. But here’s the thing: Joe Biden did not forgive any debt. He simply reallocated the money owed from indebted students to American taxpayers as a whole. Sure, individual students saw their debt go down, but the national debt went up.
Moreover, even if the student debt actually was paid off or “forgiven,” the government itself is not paying any of it. Cancelling the debt of sin cost Jesus everything. Cancelling $183,000,000,000 of student loan debt cost Joe Biden $0. So whether or not one supports reallocating debt from individuals to the country as a whole, it is pure deceit to call it “forgiveness.” When Jesus forgave our moral debt of sin, he didn’t reapportion our debts to another sinner or to humanity as a whole. He eradicated it completely with his blood.
And since our moral debts have been forgiven and cancelled in the economy of mercy, we should try to do the same with our financial debts in the economy of money. Most people live with some amount of monetary debt, and that does not make them bad people. My wife and I had student loan debt for years after we got married, and we are still making payments on our mortgage. Debt is sometimes a necessary burden to take on for a time. But running up huge amounts of debt with no intention of ever paying it off is immoral. Because, like our debts of sin, someone has to pay the price for them. And whether our unpaid debts have to be absorbed by the bank, the government, or a private entity, the costs are often paid in the form of higher prices and higher interest rates for everyone else. So, don’t stress about it. Take your time. But work towards paying your debts. Our country and our world work so much better when debts, be they moral or financial, are paid in full.
Jonathan Kettler is a history teacher at Brandon High School.
