Jesus died for me, but not for all of you

Imagine you've got a friend who owes the bank $25,000. He couldn't pay that back in a million years. The bank is threatening to garnishee his wages, repossess his home, and wreck his credit -- basically, make his life hell.

You step up and offer to pay the debt on his behalf. He is eternally grateful.

You go to the bank together, and you scratch out a check for $25,000. You say to the banker, "So that takes care of his debt, right?" The banker says, "Yes it does, sir. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

You say, "Yes -- I just wanted to be sure that this also takes care of the debts of everyone else who currently owes your bank money." The banker looks puzzled. He says, "No, sir...the $25,000 only covers the debt of your friend here. All of the other debts would have to be settled separately."

Now, let's travel back to first-century Jerusalem. Jesus is crucified like a common criminal. He was free from sin himself, so he owed no "debt" to God; he was not in line for any divine punishment as a result of his sin. When he died on the cross, therefore, it could only have been in payment for someone else's sin.

Whose, though? Working from the bank analogy, Jesus could die for one person's sins. But how does it make sense that Jesus' death atones for the sins of the billions of people who have come after him? 

Let's consider just one category of sin -- adultery. You could get the death penalty for adultery in Jesus' time. So, let's imagine that there were, say, 500 adulterers in first-century Jerusalem alone. In order to atone for their sins, wouldn't Jesus have to have been crucified 500 separate times? If you extend that same logic to all people and all categories of sin, you see that the punishment Jesus suffered, while agonizing, was clearly inadequate to cover all of humanity's transgressions.

Comments

[Lehigh]

I wasn't aware of the exchange rate of 1 crucifixion = forgiveness for 1 sin. Not sure the bank analogy is apt.

[Special Agent Johnny Utah]

Christian apologists very often cast Jesus' sacrifice in terms of "paying our debt." In the same sense that a criminal is deemed unworthy to live among us until he has paid his debt to society (i.e., gone to prison), we are unfit to join God in the afterlife until we've paid our debt. Otherwise, God would be unjust -- everybody would get to spend eternity in paradise, no matter how badly they behaved on earth, and no matter whether they suffered consequences for their behavior or not. So, Jesus bears the punishment for us, allowing us to spend eternity in the presence of God, cleansed of our sins.

Or so the argument goes.