Here is an article I wrote 10 years ago about the similarity of justification to 'term life insurance.'
Justification by Faith and the Insurance Policy
Marcus Sanford, Jun. ’10,
ask@interplans.net
I am unable to find a brilliant article on credit and capitalism that R. Brinsmead wrote in the 70s when teaching justification by faith around our country as a missionary to us. While he frequently pointed out that the operative verb Paul used was the accounting term ‘logizo,’ I only remember that one article showing what a
credit system could do. The article had the phrase ‘spiritual capitalism’ in it, maybe therefore drawing on, or working with, the banks of the time of the Reformation, and after.
So I would like to talk about spiritual capitalism for the believer in this age of credit, and especially now that policies like
term life exist.
Term life is “an estate for a person who has none.” You can’t use the value of it until death; it shows as a zero on loan applications. But by steadily paying in, you have a huge resource upon death. (There are some newer instruments which allow a person to ‘cash out.’)
First, Jesus’ own parables show that
credit was extended and solved a problem. Sin was often called a debt! How close can you get? The shrewd steward
decreases debts as he is being fired and makes friends. The overall meaning may be uncertain, but we all would love to have a debt reduced, right? Justification by Christ’s righteousness is best expressed as his righteousness (all that he did perfectly as a human, including love unto death) is credited to those who believe, no matter how poorly they believe. It is
transferred, credited, reckoned. It is not something that takes place inside them.
The recipient is not instantly righteous, and may never make much progress. But God’s universe is not a meritocracy, where the most worthy are the most saved. Or actually it is the strictest universe where only Christ being God could render a human life that was good enough, and did. So only the Most Worthy was raised from death, and we in him, even in our unbelief, so long as we call for help to believe.
The intriguing thing, of course, about the idea of sin as a debt, is that nearly every time the Pharisees refer to their sins as debts (or Jesus refers to theirs), they are
small in amount. Jesus came to those who agree that their debt amount was
huge. Notice, for example, the mathematical difference in the story used when a repentant ‘sinful woman’ wiped Jesus’ dusty feet with her hair. When you’ve analyzed the math, then go on to her hair. Forget the social roles for the moment and imagine you are Pharisee with long hair. Would you ever consider doing this for Jesus?
There is therefore a very important dynamic between how seriously we take
sin-as-debt, and how we proceed in good works and worship.
So now let’s understand term life policies. Any large insurance firm will offer them. They pay out on the final day—at the time of one’s death. In the meantime, they have
no face value. That means whatever has been put in does not show as a savings, and is not an asset when trying to get credit. The payment is a token amount of its worth, but commands the large account’s amount. But should the fateful day arrive, they are worth the value agreed.
So it is really quite similar to what God has offered us in justification. We are given an enormous gift with the contingency of its use upon death. We get little right now. But we have all the assurance, and calm of knowing it will be there for those around us when we die. As one agent says “Term creates an estate for those who have none.” That’s it exactly!
We are abandoned in this life, without an estate, destitute, but by contributing the token amount each month, we have
“access” to the large amount! We may have large debts. I mean access in the same way as Rom. 5 says we have access to his grace. Not to use so much as to know of. That monthly payment is
faith—not really any value in itself, just the consistent statement that we need this huge amount and cannot produce it ourselves. We must regularly make that confession: that we have no righteousness worth mentioning.
So imagine the person who has been raked through the misfortunes of life, who has been decimated. Sometimes those things happen completely outside our doing. That’s a good picture of us as a sinner. And the part that’s outside our doing is that sin has been
imputed* to us through connection to Adam. But now also see that by making the small payment each month, he is credited or “worth” the huge account face value. That’s justification for when justification is needed. You don’t get all righteousness, and you don’t need it, but you do get the hope and dream that it will be totally there on the day needed. And we get that through connection to Christ, of whom we have graciously been made members by faith, just as we are already members of Adam.
Finally, remember to keep
cause and effect separate. Yes, God gives joy through justification, but that is because we now know of his love (his gift of Christ’s righteousness for us) and the hope it gives. But if we constantly
pursue joy without this base of knowledge, and think the whole Christian life is one sunbeam after another, that
“today (our today) is the day the Lord has made,” we will hit a gravelly bottom some day. We may never be “rich,” may never outgrow sins that we want to. The cause of joy in this Gospel is not the same as the effect in us, and we should just let God create whatever effects in us he wants.
All this is not to suggest or encourage a person squandering their estate, not at all. It is not to be used as an opportunity for the flesh, but as a basis for love for others whom we otherwise think unworthy.
*Imputed (to credit, to regard as owned) itself is a financial-bookkeeping term. It means that a large sum is not possessed in hand, but is still highly useful for certain needs. We have fellowship and the Spirit because God imputes Christ’s righteousness to us, covering our sin.
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