“Therefore, brethren, we are debtors” (Romans 8:12)

Since God created us for His glory, we’re debtors to Him. Yesterday, we learned our blood belongs to God because His life is in the blood. The command to not eat blood is a synecdoche. A synecdoche means “a thing that signifies the whole”. Every time we don’t eat blood, we acknowledge all things belong to Him. 

 Of course, since mankind fell from grace, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way” (Isaiah 53:6), which is why God required the shedding of perfect blood, a perfect life, in exchange for our guilty blood, our guilty lives. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). So now the only way our debt of sin can be paid is when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. In that way, His blood and life takes the place of our blood and lives. His life becomes a synecdoche of our lives. This is what it means to be “in” Christ. 

 So Christians are no longer debtors to the justice of God and God will never try to collect a debt Christ has already paid. On the cross, Christ said, "It is finished!" and by that He meant, that whatever His people owed for sin was wiped away forever from the Book of Remembrance. Christ has completely satisfied divine justice; the account is settled; the handwriting is nailed to the cross; the receipt is given, and we are debtors to God's justice no longer. 

 But just because we’re not debtors in regard to sin, it doesn’t mean we owe Him nothing! Having been forgiven of sin, it makes us ten times more debtors to God than we would have been otherwise. Think! When someone asked Christ what was the most important commandment, He quoted Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength”. So not only are we debtors for our blood and our lives, but our duty is to love Him also. And not just the kind of love an animal gives when you take care of them. God’s command is that you love Him unconditionally. 

 You owe Him unconditional love. He saved you from Hell and gave you Heaven. He supernaturally changed your heart and filled with the Holy Spirit. He kept you from killing yourself before you were saved and now keeps you from backsliding. For everything except forgiveness of sin, you’re more in debt to Him than ever. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Romans 12:1-2).