Those of you who know me very well know that I spent 13 years working in the automobile business. I sold cars for nearly ten of those years and spent the remaining time as a finance and insurance specialist and a sales manager. I tell you this, not to invoke your sympathy (although I deserve it for this tour of duty), but to explain my credentials for making the following statement: I need more than a co-signer.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with the ins and outs of finance, a co-signer is a person with good credit who signs alongside a person who doesn’t have enough credit history to qualify for a loan of the size requested. Often, the co-signer is a parent or older sibling who has a proven track record of repaying loans responsibly. The co-signer, in effect, guarantees the loan by saying he will repay it if the primary borrower doesn’t handle his or her business. If the primary buyer does a good job of repaying this note, however, he will almost certainly qualify for future loans in his name, alone. Here is the issue, though: as many bankers reminded me over the years as I tried to get loan approvals for customers, a co-signer doesn’t help bad credit… just insufficient credit. In other words, if someone was just starting out, the bank would take a chance on them – providing someone would guarantee the note. However, if someone had borrowed money in the past and had either defaulted on the loan or been seriously delinquent a number of times, a bank would not approve them – co-signer or not.
Let’s put this in a spiritual perspective, shall we? Let’s say a person was trying to qualify for heaven… and let’s say that person was me. Now, if I had just had an insufficient amount of credit (read: righteousness), I could have probably gotten by with Jesus just guaranteeing the note. The thing is… I was rotten. I didn’t just have insufficient righteousness, I had dirty laundry strewn from Chattanooga to El Paso (that’s what one banker used to tell me when he declined a deal… El Pass-O). Lest you think this story is all about me, let’s talk about your credit. You see, Romans 3:23 says, “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Now, you may be thinking “yeah, I’ve slipped up a few times, but I’ve done a lot of good things, so my overall credit score has to be pretty good, right?” Well, actually, the good stuff you’re counting on doesn’t really weigh out all that well on God’s scale of holiness. Isaiah says it this way in chapter 64, “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags.” In other words, what we think is good credit stinks, too.
The story even gets worse. You see, our families have a history of bad credit. Our father, Adam, was given the deed to this great garden home. All he had to do was handle his business well and we would have all grown up in Eden. Alas, he didn’t. Next thing you know, our beautiful garden goes into foreclosure (I think that is a pretty mild word for having an angel with a flaming sword placed at the door to keep us out!). Ever since that day, we have been trying to qualify to buy the family home back; but not only is our credit bad, we have been blamed for Adam’s failure. In Romans 5:12, Paul writes, “… sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.” Yikes! I’ve got enough problems of my own without Adam handing his issues down to me.
Now back to the car business for a minute. There was one other alternative for someone with bad credit: it was called a straw-purchase. In a straw-purchase, someone came into the dealership and bought a car for someone else. In other words, the person who would actually be driving (and, hopefully paying for) the car was not involved in securing the loan at all. The deal was totally based on the credit-worthiness of the person who was making the purchase. The problem is, banks won’t allow that. It is absolutely, positively, strrrrrictly prohibited (and illegal). You can see the bank’s point of view, right? The actual driver of the car has already proven that he or she would not repay a loan in a satisfactory manner, and now he will have even less motivation to make the payments since his name is nowhere on the deal. This leaves the straw-purchaser in line to have to pay for a car they don’t drive and don’t want. How motivated to pay do you think this person will be?
There is good news, though: God allows straw-purchases. In fact, He loves them. You may be asking, “what’s with all this talk about credit? What does that have to do with eternal life?” Well actually… everything. Look at Romans 4:3-5, “What does Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.” Just a few verses later, Paul explains further, “The words ‘it was credited to him’ were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” In other words, it is all about credit.
There is this amazing exchange that happens when we put our faith in Christ. Two thousand years ago, a man named Jesus lived a perfect life, then was “credited” with all of the sins that you and I (and Adam) have committed and ever will commit. 2 Corinthians 5:21 elaborates by saying, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Being held guilty for Adam’s sin seems a bit unfair until we understand that through God’s startling act of grace, we can be credited with the absolute perfection of Jesus. One last passage from Romans 5:18, “just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”
One final thought: stop living like you have a co-signer. Many of us accept God’s free gift of grace and justification, but then live like we are responsible for staying qualified to keep our salvation. While gratitude should cause us to want to “handle our business” responsibly, shame and condemnation over every stumble is not supposed to be part of our lives. Just like with a straw-purchase, the transaction is based solely on Jesus’ credit… and it is perfect.
