Christ Sees the Universe as a Network of Unpaid Debts

Mat 6:12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

This the word "debts" is sometimes translated as "sins" or "trespasses" the original Greek, opheilema, has only one meaning, that which is owed. The word used for "debtors" is its close relative, opheiletes, which means a person who owes a debt or one who is under a bond. A person under a bond was almost a slave until the debt was pay.

Modern Christianity prefers to overlook the very business-like language that Christ used to describe life. But not only did Christ talk about suing people in court, tax collectors, and discussing our heavenly reward in terms of wages, but he explicitly says that we should put our duty to other people a higher priority than what we feel we own God. There is a clear pattern here of Christ being concerned with the economics of our relationships. More to the point, he turns those economics on their head. He then equates them to our relationship to God.

First, he turns economics on its head. Debts are meant to be repaid. They are not meant to be forgiven. However, here Christ points out that the most important debt of all, the debt that we owe God for our very lives, cannot be repaid. He has forgiven us that debt.

Christianity, for various historical reasons, has become obsessed with sin. Forgiveness is immediately connected with man's sinful nature, which is why this line is so often mistranslated. However, here, the first time mentions forgiveness in the Gospels. The context is clearly forgiving a debt, not forgiving sin.

Full disclosure, I personally have always had a problem with the "original sin" hypothesis of humanity's fall. Instead, from my reading of the Gospels and my own sense of awareness, I believe in an "original debt." We all owe God because we cannot compensate him for our lives. We don't owe this debt because we sinned. We owe this debt because we are alive. It is woven into the fabric of our existence.

Again, Christ is consistent in his parent/child metaphor of God/us. If we are to grow to become what God intended for us, an image of him, we must emulate him. Since God doesn't ask us to replay our debt to him. We should not ask others to repay their debts to us.

Note that this is the only mention of human relationships in the Lord's Prayer, the central prayer in Christianity, is this one. Think about it. Christ reduces our relationship with God to a debt and our relationships with our fellow humans to a series of debts. This viewpoint is quite revolutionary on its own. How many of us would understand our lives better if we say everything in term of all the gifts we have been given that we can never repay.