In our day, two errant views of God have crept into our churches. Yes, there are lots of errant views of God that have crept into the church, but there are two that stand out to me as I finished reading the Bible this morning. Here is the Cliff Notes version of those two views:
1. God owes me because I follow Him.
2. I owe God because He saved me.
Let me use the Bible to illustrate why both views are not Biblical. (Novel idea!)
First, remember in 2 Kings 20 when Hezekiah, a good king, had developed a painful sore that was evidently mortal. Read the passage in your Bible. God sent Isaiah (yes, the one that wrote a sixty-six-chapter book of the Bible) to tell Hezekiah that he was not going to get well. He was going to die.
How did Hezekiah respond? Then he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying, “Remember now, O Lord, I beseech You, how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart and have done what is good in Your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.” (2 Kings 20:2–3, NASB95) What did Hezekiah say? He asked God to remember the goods things he had done. How did God respond? “I will add fifteen years to your life, and I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will defend this city for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.” (2 Kings 20:6, NASB95)
Did you catch that? God said that he was not adding years to Hezekiah’s life because of anything Hezekiah had done. He did not owe Hezekiah for serving Him. He was adding fifteen years to Hezekiah’s life “for My own sake.” This means God was adding life to Hezekiah so that he would be able to tell others about how gracious God is. He also was adding time to Hezekiah’s life so that David’s family would have someone on the throne. Evidently, Josiah was not born yet, so the next king was not ready. In neither of these was God saying He owed Hezekiah anything!
What does God owe us? How about death? For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23, NASB95) What does He owe us? Hell, separation, judgment, condemnation in judgment, and more. What does He give us? Eternal life! Grace! Mercy! Listening to our prayers! Relationship! God owes us nothing but gives us everything.
How about the second errant view? Because of what Jesus did for me on the cross, I need to spend the rest of my life paying God back for the sacrifice of His Son and for the salvation He has given me. This is problematic for several reasons. First, remember what Romans 6:23 says above? We are constantly falling short of the glory of God. This means that we would never be able to balance the books, so the paying back would never actually be accomplished. Second, what could we possibly give that would compare to the life of the only begotten Son of God? How much is the life of a child worth? As someone who has lost a child, even an adult child, I can tell you that there is nothing that is worth trading for her life, and she was not the Son of God! Lastly, whatever we would give to God to pay Him back He would have provided. Isaiah wrote, Thus says the Lord, “Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool. Where then is a house you could build for Me? And where is a place that I may rest? “For My hand made all these things, Thus all these things came into being,” declares the Lord. “But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word.” (Isaiah 66:1–2, NASB95) All that we have and all that we are as Christians came from Him. Anything we would want to give Him would have come from Him, so that would be no paying back of any debt. The only thing we have that did not come from His is our sin and He has forgiven us of that if we are in Christ.
No, God does not owe us because He has already given us more than we could hope for in salvation. No, we don’t owe God because Jesus paid it all. So instead, we need to live a life of gratitude and thanksgiving and trust that He loves us and is enough.