Owing All

“Jesus paid it all; all to Him I owe.” This simple phrase from a familiar hymn carries such a weight of meaning. But what is that meaning? What does it mean to owe Jesus all?

For years, every time I sang this song, it troubled me because I thought it was saying that because Jesus gave everything for us, then we are beholden to give our everything to Him, i.e. we owe it to Him in return for what He did for us. But is that biblical? Let’s think about it . . .

What does it mean that Jesus paid all? Well, first of all, we have to understand that something needed to be paid. This something is the monumental debt that each of us owe to God because, thanks to our sinful core, we have worshiped ourselves and have broken His law. The currency required to settle this debt is literally life itself, because, as the Bible tells us, “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a, ESV). So because “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” all of us are in debt to the God of the universe to the tune of not a dollar amount but our very lives (Romans 3:23, ESV).

And this is where Jesus comes in. He, being God Himself, came to Earth as a man, fully human, and lived his entire life without incurring any debt—and yet He died.  He sacrificed His life, and He did so willingly. As He himself said, “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father” (John 10:17-18, ESV). Because He did not have the inherited sin nature that we have and because He never broke God’s law, He was the only person who could be a sacrifice potent enough to assuage the debts of the entire world.

And because He loved us, He did what only He could do (Romans 5:8; John 3:16). He took our rap sheet of grievances against a holy God—indeed, against Himself—upon Himself and paid our life-debt with His own life. His perfect life became the payment so that we don’t have to pay with our own.  That’s how He paid it all.

But what does that mean for us? Do we then owe Him something in return? In other words, are we still required to pay Him something?  Are we supposed to live a holy life because it’s the least we could do for someone who did so much for us? Whether explicitly or not, such thinking can often be found in the Church, but there is danger in it.

If our motivation to be holy is stemming from a sense of needing to repay God, then it is no different than a works-based conception of salvation. If we are duty-bound to repay Jesus once we receive the gift of a clean slate that His life, death, and resurrection purchased for us, then we are not truly out of debt. But Jesus’ sacrifice was sufficient. His forgiveness is complete (Psalm 103:12). All we have to do is repent and believe; we don’t have to do any good works to guarantee the efficiency of His gift (See John 11:25-26; Acts 16:31; Mark 1:15). We don’t have to try to repay Him—not that we ever could.

Yes, we become more holy and Christ-like after receiving this gift, but it is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, giving us the desire for the things of God that produces changed conduct and empowering us to choose good instead of evil. We aren’t required to change our conduct for the purpose of making ourselves worthy of what we have received. We aren’t beholden to God in this way. So what does it mean, then, to owe Him all? Should we avoid proclaiming those words? Not so fast.

A couple of years ago I realized that there is, in fact, a sense in which we do owe all to Christ. Here’s how:

Most likely, you’ve heard someone say something to the effect of, “I got to go home early today, and I owe it all to Jane. Without her help, I’d still be there working.” In this instance, “owe it all” is used to refer to the reason a given outcome occurred. It is pointing to the cause that resulted in a given effect. So in this sense, we can say with truth that we owe it all to Jesus. He provided the cause that effected our salvation and release from death. For those who have repented and believed in Him, who have become God’s children, we owe not just our very existence to Him as all of creation does, but we owe the eternal survival of our lives as well.

So now, whenever I sing, “Jesus paid it all; all to Him I owe,” I don’t sing with confusion, thinking it’s my duty to live a good life to somehow try to repay Jesus for what He has paid on my behalf. Instead, I think of the profound and infinite blessings that are mine in Christ Jesus (see Eph. 1:3-14) and worship and thank the One who is responsible for making them all possible.

In short, those of us in Christ have a beautiful life and a beautiful future awaiting us—and we owe it all to Him.