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NASB | Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God [that is, His remarkable, overwhelming gift of grace to believers] is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. |
Bible Question: Why does the wage of sin have to be death? |
Bible Answer: “I have been struggling with the understanding of why the payment for sin must be death” Part 1 ot 2 Hi, Tara! Here’s an analogy of obedience that may help solve your quandary: God is our (Christians) employer who, as CEO, has established the bylaws and boundaries of our enterprise (the Church). Unlike His human counterparts, God has no ulterior motives to exploit His underlings, plunder the company, hide the assets, layoff employees, and file for bankruptcy. His bylaws and boundaries are set not to curtail our individual growth, but, rather, to maximize our potential: When Abram was ninety-nine years old Yahweh appeared to him and said, ‘I am El Shaddai. Live in my presence, be perfect, and I shall grant a covenant between myself and you, and make you very numerous.’ (Genesis 17:1-2). God is as forgiving as He is generous: ‘Come, let us talk this over,‘ says Yahweh. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing to obey, you shall eat the good things of the earth.’ (Isaiah 1:18-19) But God’s generosity, though knowing no bounds, is tempered with resoluteness: ‘But if you refuse and rebel, the sword shall eat you instead--for Yahweh’s mouth has spoken.‘ (Isaiah 1:20) Yet as stern as He is, God allows us the freedom to choose to obey or reject Him: ‘Today, I call heaven and earth to witness against you: I am offering you life or death, blessing or curse. Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live, in the love of Yahweh your God, obeying his voice, holding fast to him; for in this your life consists…’ (Deuteronomy 30:19-20) Throughout the Old Testament the Israelites lived with the knowledge that they could choose to obey Yahweh and live in His love or they could reject Him and embrace death. It was not evidently clear to them that the death that they were warned about was a spiritual death (as the warning to Adam and Eve, who, obviously, did not die physically right after their disobedience!) Now, since God is immutable (though the format He uses to convey His Word to His people varies according to His Divine Plan), the bylaws and boundaries He set for us do not change with the passage of time! Through the teachings of Jesus and the Holy Spirit we have come to understand that the promise is not merely of temporal life but also spiritual life; and, that the forewarning of impending death was not meant simply of a physical death, but, more precisely, of a spiritual death! So it stands: to be in Yahweh’s love is to have life; conversely, to be away from Yahweh’s love is to inherit death: What is the implication? That we are free to sin, now that we are not under law but under grace? Out of the question! You know well that if you undertake to be somebody’s slave and obey him, you are the slave of him you obey: you can be the slave either of sin which leads to death, or of obedience which leads to saving justice. Once you were slaves of sin, but thank God you have given whole-hearted obedience to the pattern of teaching to which you were introduced; and so, being freed from serving sin, you took uprightness as your master. I am putting it in human terms because you are still weak human beings: as once you surrendered yourselves as servants to immorality and to a lawlessness which results in more lawlessness, now you have to surrender yourselves to uprightness which is to result in sanctification. When you were the servants of sin, you felt no obligation to uprightness, and what did you gain from living like that? Experiences of which you are now ashamed, for that sort of behaviour ends in death. But, now you are set free from sin and bound to the service of God, your gain will be sanctification and the end will be eternal life. For the wage paid by sin is death; the gift freely given by God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:15-23) Tara, when we read the Bible in its entirety (I don’t mean that you must read all of the Bible before you understand its message) we come to realize that the various passages, though written in various time frames, are interrelated and codependent: God’s Word is manifested to His people according to a succession predestined by God’s Divine Plan. In the Old Testament Yahweh directs His people using temporal values as the currency (an eye for an eye; sacrificial offerings…) and the Law and the prophets which lead to Jesus’ arrival (Immanuel). Jesus is incarnated and pronounces that the Kingdom of God is at hand but He clarifies that He did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it! So the price for disobedience (living away from God) is still death; while the rewards for obedience (living in God and for God) is life everlasting! |