Is anything left to pay?

The short answer Settled

Nothing. On the cross Jesus declared His work finished. He offered one sacrifice for sins, once, and sat down at the right hand of God. Where sins are forgiven, no offering for sin remains, and nothing is left for anyone to add.

"It is finished!"

John records that Jesus knew "that all things were now accomplished" (John 19:28). Then He said, "It is finished!" and gave up His spirit (John 19:30). He said it of His own work, at the moment of His death. In Greek it is one word, tetelestaiGreekΤετέλεσταιTetelestaiIt is finished!5055 · Perfect passive indicative: done, and it stays done.

The priest who sat down

Hebrews sets two pictures side by side. "Every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins" (Hebrews 10:11). "But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God" (Hebrews 10:12). The priests stood because their work was never done. Christ sat because His was. "For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified" (Hebrews 10:14).

He did it alone. Christ, "when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high" (Hebrews 1:3).

And it will not be repeated. He did not come to "offer Himself often" (Hebrews 9:25), but "now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Hebrews 9:26). He "was offered once to bear the sins of many" (Hebrews 9:28), and believers are sanctified "through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all" (Hebrews 10:10).

A debt cancelled

God says of those He forgives, "Their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more" (Hebrews 10:17). Then: "Now where there is remission of these, there is no longer an offering for sin" (Hebrews 10:18). Remission is forgiveness, the release of a debt.

Paul says God forgave believers "all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us," and that "He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross" (Colossians 2:13-14). Paying toward a debt that has been cancelled does not help pay it. It only shows you do not believe it was cancelled.

The usual objection

Many people believe Christ's death did not finish the payment for sin. On one view His sacrifice must be offered again and again. On another, it covers part of the debt, and the sinner must make up the rest by his own suffering, in this life or in a time of cleansing after death. Paul himself, they point out, speaks of filling up "what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ" (Colossians 1:24).

Hebrews answers the first: Christ was offered once, and He will not offer Himself often. "It is finished" and "no longer an offering for sin" answer the second. As for Colossians 1:24, Paul is speaking of what he suffered as he served the church: "I now rejoice in my sufferings for you," he begins, and they are "for the sake of His body, which is the church" (Colossians 1:24). They were not a payment for sin. The same letter says believers were reconciled "in the body of His flesh through death" (Colossians 1:22): His death, not Paul's sufferings.

The words behind it