Romans 6:15-23
“For the wages of sin is death.” We all know what a wage is, especially in comparison to a gift. A wage is something you get as a consequence of your own work.
A wage is something you earn. It is not given to you as a gift, with no strings attached. Rather, a lot of strings are attached to it.
Your labor is attached to it. When there is, in a country, a functioning economy, the rule of law, and the honoring of labor contracts and agreements, there is a direct correlation between work and wages.
This is the framework for understanding the meaning of St. Paul’s terminology, in his statement in today’s text from his Epistle to the Romans: “The wages of sin is death.”
When there is sin in your life, what can you expect to be the result of that sin? Death is the normal and natural result – spiritual death, temporal death, and eternal death.
Death means separation. Spiritual death is the separation of the human spirit from God’s Spirit, and from fellowship with God.
Temporal death is the separation of the soul from the body. Eternal death is the separation of the resurrected reprobate person from heaven, and from God in heaven.
God had all of these aspects of the meaning of death in mind when he gave this commandment to Adam in the Garden of Eden, as we heard in today’s lesson from the Book of Genesis:
“Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
When Adam disobeyed God and sinned against this commandment, he instantly became spiritually dead. His eyes were opened, we are told, and he realized that he was naked. His inner communion with his creator was gone.
When Adam sinned, and when he was – as a punishment – cut off from the tree of life, he also became mortal. Eventually, he would now also die physically, in temporal death. He had come from dust, and to dust he would now return.
And, in his disobedience, and in his rejection of God’s will and command, Adam put himself on a trajectory toward eternal death. He destined himself for hell. It’s what he had earned, and it’s what he deserved.
Adam would have been damned, if it had not been for the Lord’s gracious and undeserved intervention: as God revealed to Adam the promise of a coming Savior; and as God covered Adam’s sin and shame with forgiveness, as illustrated by the garment of skin that the Lord made for him and placed upon him.
The fact that Adam will not eventually suffer an eternal death says something about God’s mercy in Christ, which prompted him to give Adam – and all humanity – a second chance. It doesn’t diminish our recognition of what Adam’s sin had actually earned for him in this respect.
Sin earns death, in the way that labor earns a wage. For sinners, who ply their trade in sin, death is not given as a gift. It is the deserved compensation, for those who have succeeded in their craft of sinning.
And when there is death in your life, there is no mystery as to how it got there. It is the wages of sin. That’s how it got there. That’s where it came from. Death is the evidence that sin was there first.
Before we would attempt to make individual correlations between specific sins and specific deathly results, we need to look at the bigger picture. Adam’s sin was humanity’s sin.
We were in Adam, our ancestor, when he fell away from the Lord. And Adam, our ancestor, is in us now, as we perpetuate – through our own culpable acts of rebellion – the sinfulness of the human race.
Earlier in his Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul had explained that “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”
The wages of humanity’s sin is humanity’s death. Only in that larger, general context would we then say that the wages of your sin is your death.
But we would say it, because you are not only a victim of sin – namely the sin of your ancestors. You are also a perpetrator of sin.
And your sins – your own sins, for which you are personally guilty – have earned the death that surrounds you and infects you. If there is any death in you – deathly thoughts and actions in the present; deathly fears of the future – that’s where it comes from.
This is not an invitation to try to make a cause-and-effect connection between this or that sin of the past, and this or that deathly consequence now. In most cases that cannot be done. But the general correlation between sin as a whole, and death as a whole, remains.
God is not to blame for human sin. Humans are to blame. And God is not to blame for human death, the wages of sin. Again, humans are to blame. Human sin is to blame.
People don’t like to think about death – not their own deaths, and not the deaths of other people. But not thinking about it, doesn’t make it go away.
And people really don’t like to think about eternal death, and about damnation and hell. But again, not thinking about it, doesn’t make it go away.
And since Holy Scripture spends so much time talking about it, we have to think about it, whether we want to or not, and even if we would rather not believe in hell as the destiny that many will face – and that we might face.
When you experience death – outwardly and inwardly – don’t shake your fist at God. Rather, shake your fist at yourself.
Beat your own chest with your fist, in repentance. It is by your fault, your own fault, your own most grievous fault, that you are dead, and that you will die. For the wages of sin – your sin – is death.
But… but…, the “gift” of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
We recall that Adam earned death, and deserved death. Spiritually he died.
But God revived his spiritual life through the power of his Word and promise, and through the power of his forgiveness. Adam and his wife – our mother Eve – then looked forward in faith to the coming of their Savior: the Seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head for them and for their descendants.
Adam’s time on earth did come to an end. Bodily, he died. But he died – implicitly if not explicitly – in the hope of the resurrection.
And he will be resurrected with all of God’s forgiven and justified saints. This physical death will be undone.
And for Adam, a hellish eternal death will never be experienced, because his sin and shame were indeed covered with the garment of Christ’s righteousness, prepared for him by the shedding of the blood of Christ, his substitute: who is described in the Book of Revelation – from God’s timeless perspective – as “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
As for Adam, so also for you – if you know what Adam knew. Or more precisely, if you – by repentance and faith – know who Adam knew.
The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. There are at least a couple of words in New Testament Greek that are generally translated in our English Bibles as “gift.”
One of those words is “doma.” This is similar to the English word “donation,” and describes a specific thing or object that is presented to someone – sometimes as an expression of gratitude for some previous service rendered to the giver of the “doma.”
Another Greek word translated as “gift” is “charisma.” This is the word that St. Paul uses in today’s text when he says that the “gift” of God – the “charisma” of God – is eternal life. Our English word “charismatic” is derived from this term.
“Charisma” never describes something that is given as a reward for some previous meritorious conduct. A “charisma” is always a free gift, motivated only by the grace of the giver.
And a “charisma” is not simply a thing or object that is presented to someone. It has the connotation of an endowment that is bestowed upon someone, or that gets inside of someone; and that then becomes the source of a good change in that person, or of a positive transformation of that person.
This is the kind of gift that God gives you when he saves you from death. You can’t earn it. The only way to have it is for God to give it to you.
Again, there is a connection between sin and death. Death comes from sin, and because of sin.
The present and future death of the human race, and the present and future death of each human being, is the result of the sinful wickedness and sinful rebellion of the human race. But eternal life, for those who have it, does not come from humanity’s goodness and obedience.
A bad result for humanity is earned by bad human actions and bad human thoughts. But a good result for humanity is not earned by good human actions and good human thoughts.
The good result of eternal life – a cleansing and a deliverance from death, in time and in eternity – is not earned at all, by any means. It is a gift. And it is a gift from God.
If there is any cause or reason for God’s giving of life to you, that cause or reason is not found in you. It is found in God.
And more specifically, it is found in Jesus Christ – the eternal Son of the Father – and in his life for you, in his death for you, and in his resurrection for you.
When an earthly boss pays you your wages, he does so on the basis of looking at your performance, and the results produced by your efforts. When God gives you eternal life, he does so on the basis of looking at his Son’s performance, and at the results produced by Jesus’ efforts.
That’s why the free gift of God is eternal life “in Christ Jesus.” Not in you, but in him. Not because of you, but because of him.
And the eternal life that we have in Christ Jesus – the life we have in him now, filling us and renewing us; and the life that we will have in him in the resurrection and in heaven – is a divine life. Because the one in whom and through whom we have it, is divine.
The gift of God is eternal life “in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Literally, the Greek says: “in Christ Jesus, the Lord, of us.”
Jesus is “the Lord.” Jesus is Jehovah: in human flesh, to accomplish human salvation.
“God” was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. The risen one, who is “my Lord and my God” – to quote the apostle Thomas – forgives my sin, and gives me life, because of who he is, and not because of who I am.
If someone would offer you a job, and a certain salary for that job, he might say: “If you do this work that I need done, then I will pay you this wage.” It’s conditional. Strings are attached.
If, however, someone would offer you a gift, there are no “if-then” conditions. The gift is held out to you. You are invited to receive it.
When you receive it, it is yours. The gift of eternal life is a gift that God holds out to you.
Actually he speaks this life to you, upon you, and into you, when he speaks the gospel of Jesus Christ to you, upon you, and into you – through his called servants, in sermon and in sacrament. And as with anything that is offered to you through a word or a message, the way in which you receive it, is by believing it.
What we read in the Book of Proverbs is exactly what God, in Christ, would say to you and me:
“My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh.”
And Jesus himself says, in the Gospel of John: “It is the Spirit who gives life… The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.”
Eternal life, in Christ Jesus our Lord, is a gift. It is always, and only, a gift. It is a gift to be received, by being believed.
If you sin, have no doubt that the wages of that sin is death. All sin deserves death.
And all sin will result in death – spiritual death, temporal death, and eternal death – unless God intervenes, to cause you to receive something instead of death; something that you do not deserve, and have not earned; but something that will halt and reverse the deathward trajectory on which you sins put you.
To the penitent, God gives eternal life in Christ Jesus. Those who believe God’s word of life, receive that life, and live forever.
In Christ Jesus the Lord, God has intervened. In Christ Jesus your Lord, God has intervened for you.
God is intervening right now, for you, in the very words that I am speaking to you, right now. God is offering eternal life to you right now, through these words.
As you believe God’s word of life, you receive that life, and will live forever. Believe, and live!
For the wages of sin is death. But… but…, the gift of God, to you, is eternal life, for you, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.