Thinking about Easter, I bought an authentic replica Roman nail that would have been used to crucify Jesus and I have it on my desk as I type. I found the phrase ‘paid on the nail’ echoing around my brain. What did it mean and where did it come from? It’s a phrase my friend Graham Kendrick used in the moving song ‘How Much Do You Think You Are Worth?’ on the album Paid on the Nail in 1974.
The phrase ‘paid on the nail’ goes back to the days before cash dispensers and easy credit, when debtors would do their best to postpone or avoid payment. To such pleas as, ‘Can’t you wait till payday?’, ‘Can I pay in instalments?’ or ‘Would you accept a credit note?’ those to whom the money was owed would give the firm, unyielding response: ‘No! I want it paid on the nail.’
As for the meaning, ‘paid on the nail’ seems to have three senses. First, it refers to an applicable payment. The debtor has a bill, it has their name on it and they can’t swap it for a smaller bill or pretend it belongs to someone else. They are responsible for paying it.
Second, being ‘paid on the nail’ refers to an adequate payment. The debt must be cleared, not by some vague promise or an IOU note but in some visible, tangible form that no doubt involves the ring of coins or the rustle of banknotes.
Finally, ‘paid on the nail’ refers to an accepted payment. In all likelihood the transaction was done in the presence of witnesses and something like the word ‘paid’ written across the bill: any debt was now completely cancelled.
The origin of the phrase is disputed. Various towns, such as Bristol, Liverpool and Limerick, point out the presence in their old financial areas of flat-topped pillars or columns and claim that it was on these ‘nails’ that debts were paid off. Maybe, but the expression seems to be older and there’s an ancient French phrase that refers to payment and a fingernail. Certainly, it’s easy to imagine someone insistently tapping on a tavern table with a long grubby fingernail and saying, ‘I want that money now. And here.’
Let’s turn back to Easter. Crucifixion was a brutal punishment used by the Romans not just to inflict pain on the victim but also shame, as their slow and agonising descent into death could be watched by a mocking and gloating public. The nails were hammered between the wrist bones – not, as often depicted, in the palm of the hands, which cannot take the weight of a body – and through the heels. Archaeologists have recovered two skeletons with nailed heels, one in Jerusalem and the other, curiously enough, in a recent excavation just outside Cambridge, suggesting crucifixion was used across the Empire. Although nails are not mentioned in the account of the crucifixion of Jesus, when the risen Lord appears to his disciples (see John 20:19-29) we read that he shows them the imprint of the nails in his ‘hands’ – a word that in Greek would include the wrist. The idea of nails and nailing occurs in Colossians 2:13-14 (NIV): ‘[God] forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.’ That ‘legal indebtedness’ translates a Greek phrase that is better rendered as ‘a record of debt’ (so the ESV) or, as one commentator simply puts it, ‘an IOU’.
We are reminded that the cross was not just an event of pain and horror but also of achievement, indeed of payment. The New Testament sees it as a triumph not a tragedy and proclaims that in Christ’s death an atonement – a payment – was made for his people’s debts of sin (see Romans 5:6-8, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 9:28 and 1 John 4:10).
Considering the cross this Easter, those three senses of being ‘paid on the nail’ are all relevant.
First, Christ’s death was an applicable payment. Yes, it is we who are in debt before God and are unable to pay. Yet to come to faith in Christ is to be accepted into his family and to take him as our older brother (see, for example, Romans 8:29, Mark 3:34-35 and Hebrews 2:11). As our older brother, Jesus stands in for us. He picks up the note of the debt, says in effect, ‘This is a family matter,’ and pays it. Paid on the nail.
Second, Christ’s death was an adequate payment. The punishment we deserved was death and Jesus bore that in our place. Here some might protest that any such transaction must be limited as one individual can only stand for one other. True, but if the individual who pays the price is the eternal and infinite God made flesh, then any such logical formula shatters into infinity. Paid on the nail.
Finally, Christ’s death was an accepted payment. John 19:30 tells us that as he was dying Jesus said, ‘It is finished’, translating the Greek word tetelestai, which means ‘fulfilled’, ‘accomplished’, ‘completed’ and even ‘paid’. Of course, the ultimate proof that Jesus’ payment for sin was accepted by God is that on Easter Sunday morning Jesus rose from the dead. Death, the punishment for sin, could not hold him. Paid on the nail.
Applicable, adequate, accepted. But let me end with one more word: appropriated. You may read what I have written and say, ‘Yes, that makes sense. I believe that’s what happened.’ But have you taken it to be your own personal truth? Can you say, as Christians have said over the centuries, ‘He died in my place’? My sins are paid for. Paid on the nail!
I know I am a sinner, but Jesus thinks ‘I am to die for’.
That’s why today on this Friday, we call it ‘Good’.
Jesus came to pay a debt he didn’t owe, because we owed a debt we couldn’t pay. It was love, not nails that kept Jesus on the cross. Christ’s crucifixion as the Son of God, allowed our adoption as children of God. Christ went to a place of separation, so that we would never need to be separated from God. Christ became empty, so that we might become filled. Christ became nothing, so that we can become something. Our old history ends with the cross, and our new history begins with the resurrection. We have a great need for Christ, and we have a great Christ for our need.
Without Christ we have a hopeless end. With Christ we have an endless hope.
Let us bow down and confess that Jesus is our Lord and God.
Keep the faith.
J.John
Reverend Canon
