Jesus Paid It All

© Copyright 2013 PJ Stassen

All Rights Reserved

A good poor man is better than a good rich man because he has to resist more temptations.

-       Plato, 428-347 B.C.

   In 1945, when the Allies were engaged in wrapping up World War II and busy entering Berlin (the Russians from Germany’s eastern borders and the rest of the Allies from Rome and Germany’s western borders) there were many people fleeing the country to get out of the way of the conquering armies. All kinds of refugees were crossing the borders … civilians as well as soldiers. Many of the refugees, if not most, apparently could no longer present to the border officials any decent I.D. documents, personal papers or passports intact, as the department responsible for the issuing of such documents had long since collapsed as the Nazis were fleeing and Heinrich Himmler, the Gestapo-chief responsible for the issuing of passports, himself was on the run from the Allies. 

   Himmler had, in the meantime, disguised himself as an ordinary German soldier and was trying to cross a British border-post with a falsified passport when he was finally recognised and captured. A few days later he swallowed a cyanide capsule and died, escaping the Nuremberg-trials just like his colleagues Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring (among others) eventually would.  All over Germany and Europe surviving Nazis were being rounded up and sent to the cells in Nuremberg to await the trials. 

   But how was Himmler captured?  How did the British sentries and officials recognise him?  The answer is nothing short of a ‘miracle’ … but a miracle-in-reverse.  Bear in mind that many (if not most) of the refugees were crossing borders probably in tatters with their identity documents and passports etc. virtually in shreds or in some dilapidated condition or another.  The irony with the ‘privileged’ Himmler was that, as the head of the department responsible for the issuing of passports, he could arrange a last-minute, albeit desperate, issuance of a new bogus passport for himself in the comfort of his own HQ … a brand-new, fresh from the printing-press document in five-star mint-condition. 

   Technically speaking it was a perfect document.  There were no mistakes and no errors; it was absolutely above board, except for his alias, of course. And that was what nailed him … the nice-looking passport.  When incredulous British border-officials saw the immaculate document they understandably got suspicious and eventually recognised him as one of the kingpins most wanted by the Allies.

  Now the last thing I want to do is equate Christ with Himmler, but the analogy I want to introduce is that, when Jesus Christ was crucified, He was crucified as the only bona fide substitute or replacement for the rest of hell-deserving mankind.  Satan would then not have crucified any of us even had we volunteered to … our ‘passports’ were in tatters, our credentials non-existent.  In the eyes of the great dragon of the Book of Revelation, Jesus of Nazareth, as the Lamb of God to be slain for the sins of the world, was the only holder of a decent, respectable, valid, authenticated passport, a passport so perfect that it distinguished Him absolutely from the rest of the world. 

   In the end, when push came to shove, it was this perfect passport that nailed Him to the cross.  Jesus paid it all, so that miserable dregs like us could, with our clothes in tatters and clutching the useless, derelict ‘visas’ of our own self-righteousness in our greasy little paws, still anyway cross the borders of the spiritual holocaust of damnation into the marvellous light of His kingdom.  I do not know about you, but I have no merit of my own to present in defence of my past, my life and my soul.  Thank God … Jesus paid it all.            

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Jesus Paid It All

  

 (Elvina M. Hall, 1820-1889/John T. Grape, 1835-1915)

I hear the Savior say,

“Thy strength indeed is small!

Child of weakness, watch and pray,

Find in Me thine all in all.”

Lord, now indeed I find

Thy pow’r and Thine alone,

Can change the leper’s spots

And melt the heart of stone.

For nothing good have I

Whereby Thy grace to claim ‒

I’ll wash my garments white

In the blood of Calvry’s Lamb.

And when before the throne

I stand in Him complete,

“Jesus died my soul to save,”

My lips shall still repeat.

CHORUS

Jesus paid it all,

All to Him I owe;

Sin had left a crimson stain ‒

He washed it white as snow.

Piet Stassen

eLiterature/eLiteratuur:

1. Scribd Publishing Site:  www.scribd.com/PietStassen (ENGLISH & AFRIKAANS)
2. eBook: 'Evolution: The Science That Evolved Into A Fairy Tale' (ENGLISH)  
3. eBook:  'Bertrand Russell Revisited: Rebuttal Of Bertrand Russell's 'Why I Am Not A Christian''(ENGLISH)
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Bibliography

1.     Andrews, Allen (1969)   Quotations For Speakers And Writers.  Newnes Books.  Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd. London.

2.     Peterson, John W. et al (1968)   Great Hymns Of The Faith. ‘Jesus Paid It All’. Singspiration, Inc.  Zondervan Publishing House.  Grand Rapids, Michigan.