A man sits at a dimly lit desk holding a phone, looking at a document stamped "PAID IN FULL" while a business card for "B.L. Zebub Senior Collector" rests on the table.

The Debt is Dead

ByAllen

Alex: (picking up the phone) Hello?

Zebub: (A voice like grinding stones) Alex. I’ve got the ledger open. You’re in the hole for a fortune, and your time just ran out. I’m filing the fraud warrant as we speak. You pay this massive debt now, or you can rot in a very dark prison until you pay every last cent in full, plus interest.

Alex: I don’t have it, and you know it, but you insist on constantly breathing threats against me. My father said he settled this. I believe him because he’s a man of absolute integrity.

Zebub: (A sharp, jagged laugh) Your father? That arrogant old man has a reputation of having such high standards. He knows you are a deadbeat, and I can’t see him soiling his goody-two-shoes reputation by paying off the debt of a notorious thief. He’s likely washed his hands of you just like everyone else has. I’ve already talked to your boss; he’s disgusted. I’m calling your mother next, though I suspect she already knows the scum you are. It’s hard to miss the stories in the papers and on the news, and the stories on the internet are especially juicy.

Alex: (Voice steadying) You know I don’t have the money, Zebub. But that’s irrelevant. My father paid my debt in full. I’m sitting at his desk right now, and I’m holding a notarized receipt.

Zebub: (Interrupting) I don’t care what kind of funny paper you’re looking at. That thing is trash. It’s a fairy tale for losers who can’t pay their own way. I know your balance, Alex, and don’t act like you don’t know it too. If you don’t pay by 6:00 PM, the sheriff is going to be pulling into your gravel drive. You really don’t want your kids to remember you being in handcuffs and leg irons the last time they ever saw you.

Alex: I tell you, I have nothing! I can’t pay a debt that’s already been—

Zebub: It hasn’t been anything! You’re mine, Alex. Any lawyer you call will tell you to take that receipt and light your last cigarette with it. Hang up the phone and you’re in for a long, slow death. You’re going to rot in a cell for a debt you’ll never be man enough to cover. If I had my way, your crooked father would be in the lock-up with you.

(Alex hangs up the phone. The silence in the room is thick enough to chew on. He stares at the notarized seal on the receipt and shakes his head. A small pair of footsteps scuffs across the floorboards.)

Child: Daddy? Was that that crazy hateful man again?

Alex: (Exhaling a long, weary breath) Yes, baby. Mr. Zebub calls every day with the same filthy lies and hollow threats. I have repeatedly blocked his number, but his calls keep coming through.

Child: His name is Zebub?

Alex: (Picking up a business card from his desk) B.L. Zebub, Senior Collector. But don’t worry about him. My father tells me he won’t be in business much longer.

Does your internal dialogue ever have that tone to it?

You know you’re a sinner. You know you carried a debt that had more zeros than you had years to live. But your Father, who loves you dearly, paid your debt once and for all with the shed blood of His only begotten Son. Jesus lived the perfect life you never could, and in dying, He paid the price to redeem you.

But the accuser is a con man with a silver tongue. He doesn’t just yell; he reasons. He leans in close with his horrid breath like a duplicitous politician and tries to convince you that your hope is actually just a lack of common sense. He watches you look at that receipt and sneers, “You don’t really believe that, do you? If anyone was going to cover a tab, it would be for a decent person. Not a wreck like you. Are you delusional?”

He wants you to ignore the fact that God has already canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross (Colossians 2:13-14).​

When that doesn’t work, he pivots. He’ll admit you were forgiven once, but then he opens a new ledger. “He gave the pig you are a bath,” he whispers, “and as soon as He dried you off, you rolled around in every kind of filth on the ground before diving headfirst into the mud. You can forget Him wasting any more effort on you. He might have played the fool once, but He won’t do it again.”

But the con man is lying about the paperwork. When you believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance (Ephesians 1:13-14). ​

Your enemy spews lies like acid and roars threats like a lion, but that’s all he’s got. He knows he’s doomed, but Satan’s delusions keep him fighting, thinking he could win this battle yet. You might not be able to avoid the sound of his voice—it’s a persistent, grinding noise—but you don’t have to listen. The notary seal given to us by our Father is the Holy Spirit. With that seal, He has us protected from every lie and accusation.

The debt is dead and buried.

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