Romans 6:23
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Romans 6:23:
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. |
There are in Gods word specified consequences, curses, and blessings for disobedience and obedience. We cannot understand history apart from that reality. |
Is it possible to not sin? Be careful how you answer. John the evangelist wrote: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). Still, it is amazing how many people claiming to be Christians think they do not sin. Solomon taught: “There is no one who does not sin” (2 Chronicles 6:36b). Paul revealed: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 6:23). When we are tempted, God always provides a doorway out for us not to sin (1 Corinthians 10:13). Yet, we are far from perfect at following that path, so we often fall short of God’s design, both by omission and by commission.
When we miss the mark, just like a basketball player attempting to make a shot and missing it, we need a remedy. God has made a way: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Confessmeans “to agree” with God’s perspective of our attempt to seek life apart from Him. When our hearts break for committing our transgressions, God forgives us and restores us. --Restoration Road; Confessing Darkness, Restoring Light (1 John 1:8-9); 2.22.21
When we miss the mark, just like a basketball player attempting to make a shot and missing it, we need a remedy. God has made a way: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Confessmeans “to agree” with God’s perspective of our attempt to seek life apart from Him. When our hearts break for committing our transgressions, God forgives us and restores us. --Restoration Road; Confessing Darkness, Restoring Light (1 John 1:8-9); 2.22.21
Arthur W Pink
Salvation is by grace, by grace alone. Nevertheless, divine grace is not exercised at the expense of holiness. It never compromises with sin. It is also true that salvation is a free gift, but an empty hand must receive it and not a hand which still tightly grasps the world. Something more than believing is necessary to salvation. A heart that is steeled in rebellion against God cannot savingly believe. It must first be broken. Only those who are spiritually blind would declare that Christ will save any who despise His authority and refuse His yoke. Those preachers who tell sinners that they may be saved without forsaking their idols, without repenting, without surrendering to the lordship of Christ are as erroneous and dangerous as others who insist that salvation is by works and that heaven must be earned by our own efforts. --Arthur Pink
As Romans tells us, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). It is not a good thing that our Christian friend or family member has passed away. No matter the benefits after death, death itself is an abomination. Death is an unwelcomed guest. It had no place in creation. Rather, it stormed onto the scene as the thief of life upon the entrance of sin into this world. Therefore, death itself is not to be celebrated. We cannot merely rejoice when a Christian dies somehow forgetting that death is an enemy.
For God formed man from the dust of the earth. Creation is turned on its head as man is returned to the dust in his death. There has been loss and loss that was not meant to be in this world. There has been death, which had no place in the good creation. In fact, at death man is torn asunder. His body and soul, created as one person, is separated. It is true that at that moment when a Christian dies, their soul immediately passes into the presence of Christ (Luke 23:43; Philippians 1:23), but their body is left to decay. The soul is naked before the Lord. And the body lies lifeless and void of the soul until the resurrection. Therefore, there is a sense in which we could say that our naked souls are longing for the day of resurrection. For on that day they will be reunited to our bodies never to experience that horrible separation again. We will forever dwell as we were created to be. -Kevin DeYoung; Gospel Coalition |
Jesus brought hope to a lost world. Never again would the world be the same. Jesus came to save sinners from the penalty of their sins. He came to bridge the gap between a sinful man to a Holy God. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23, NLT). Romans 3:23, says “for we have all sinned, we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (NLT) giving us a reason we need a Savior. Jesus’ message is simple. Believe on Him and be saved. What peace and comfort comes from knowing one is saved. Fear has no hold over believers because of the peace that passes all understanding for those who are in Christ Jesus. --Linda Holub
Physical life is a gift from God. He gives to all people life and breath (Acts 17:25). Eternal life is a gift from God (Rom. 6:23). To all who want it He grants it by faith. According to His great mercy He causes us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Christ from the dead (1 Peter 1:3). We see in the Bible the gospel principal that life comes out of death. Jesus illustrated this with the words "unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die it remains alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). Christians are said to have been spiritually dead and God makes them alive spiritually with Christ (Eph. 2:1-7). God takes us from death to life spiritually. We walk, or live, in newness of life. -Mike Sciarra; Grace Church
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What is central to biblical teaching is not where heaven is, but what it is. Heaven is where God dwells in the unapproachable light of his awesome majesty (1 Timothy 6:16). Death is “gain” for believers because we enter heaven, the place where we come into the fullness of Christ’s loving presence in a wholly new way, which is better than life itself (Philippians 1:21–23). It is also the place where sin (Revelation 21:8), sickness (1 Corinthians 15:42, 52–57), and sadness (Revelation 21:4) are no more, and where we live in perfect fellowship with Christ forever.
Contrary to the teaching that believers enter into a state of “soul sleep,” or unconscious resting, until the day of Christ’s return, the Bible teaches that we will enter into conscious communion with Christ upon death. As Jesus told the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). Paul says that faithful service to Christ in this life brings with it abundant blessings, and yet it also means being “away from the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:6). He knows he still has gospel work to do, but his chief desire is to arrive finally at that day when he will be “at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). --Ben C Dunson; Desiring God 
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1 John 3:4 declares that sin is lawlessness. It is disobeying a scriptural law of God. For example, murder, lying, and stealing are sins because these actions are violations of the ten commandments. God has pronounced that the penalty of sin is spiritual death and separation from God in a place of judgment called hell: “For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).
Jesus clearly taught that sinners were condemned in sin and would perish and go to hell if they didn’t believe in Him as their Savior (John 3:16-18). Jesus said that He was sent into the world not to condemn sinners but to save them from condemnation: “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that world through Him might be SAVED.” This is how a sinner is saved from sin’s penalty of condemnation. The apostle Paul declared in Ephesians 2:1-6 that every sinner is spiritually dead in trespasses and sins but God in His mercy and grace has provided a way to escape sin’s condemnation. Salvation or deliverance from sin’s penalty has been provided thru Christ. This deliverance is called the ‘GOSPEL” in the New Testament. The word literally means the proclamation of “good news.” The apostle Paul clearly discusses the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4. The gospel is good news because it saves a sinner from sin’s condemnation. -Gary M Barker |
If you yield to sin the first time, you will lose the feeling about sin the second and third time. If you call sin by the right name and acknowledge sin as sin the first time, if you have the right view and right attitude toward sin, and if you deal with sin the right way the first time, you will be able to deal with sin the next time. If you do not consider sin as sin the first time and deal with it, but rather consider losing your temper as a common thing for a Christian, you will commit the same sin the next time. Whoever does not know sin will not know holiness. What is holiness? Holiness is having the knowledge of sin. Adam and Eve were only ignorant and innocent before they sinned; they were not holy. Only those who know sin know the meaning of holiness. --Watchman Nee; The Renewing of the Mind
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Why do Christians have to die? Why can't they just live and then go to heaven without passing through the experience of death? Although the wages of sin is death, and believers have certainly sinned, has Christ not paid the full penalty for our sins? So, why do Christians have to die?
The simple answer is, they don’t. Believers do not have to die because Christ has died in their place. There is not an atom of penalty left to pay. Therefore, God could translate Christians to heaven without their experiencing death, just as he did with Enoch and Elijah (Gen. 5:24; 2 Kings 2:11; Heb. 11:5) and as He will do with Christians who are living when Christ returns (1 Thess. 4:17). So, believers do not have to die, as Christ has purchased deliverance from physical death and the redemption of our bodies. But, in most cases, the Lord has chosen to delay or postpone the application of these benefits until the final resurrection. The question remains, though: Why? If Christians do not have to die, why do they die? The Heidelberg Catechism asks the same question: “Since Christ has died for us, why do we still have to die?” (Q. 42). Its answer: “Our death does not pay the debt of our sins. Rather it puts an end to our sinning and is our entrance into life.” -David P Murray |
Faith and works, not faith or works. A truncated understanding of faith leads to another problem with the typical “Romans Road” gospel. It tends to promote the idea that we are saved by believing in Jesus rather than by good works. Of course, Paul does talk about the uselessness of certain kinds of works—the works of the law. “We … have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified” (Gal. 2:16).
By “law” Paul means obedience to the statutes of the Old Covenant of the Torah, such as circumcision. For Paul, there is no fundamental opposition between faith and works, but only between faith and the kind of works that rely on external religious rites. For him, faith is an allegiance to Christ leading to a transformation exhibited in the kinds of good works that demonstrate a person is truly his disciple.
It might come as a surprise to many of us that every single text that speaks of the final judgment in the New Testament clearly states that it is based on works rather than bare faith in Christ. Just two examples can represent all of them: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21), and “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). To appear before God barren of the transforming works of the Holy Spirit is a daunting prospect.
Perhaps the fullest statement of the gospel’s transforming power occurs right in the middle of Romans: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. … And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:1-4). Authentic faith shows itself in the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, who enables us to fulfill God’s fundamental law, the law of love. --Rebuilding The Roman Road
By “law” Paul means obedience to the statutes of the Old Covenant of the Torah, such as circumcision. For Paul, there is no fundamental opposition between faith and works, but only between faith and the kind of works that rely on external religious rites. For him, faith is an allegiance to Christ leading to a transformation exhibited in the kinds of good works that demonstrate a person is truly his disciple.
It might come as a surprise to many of us that every single text that speaks of the final judgment in the New Testament clearly states that it is based on works rather than bare faith in Christ. Just two examples can represent all of them: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 7:21), and “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10). To appear before God barren of the transforming works of the Holy Spirit is a daunting prospect.
Perhaps the fullest statement of the gospel’s transforming power occurs right in the middle of Romans: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. … And so he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:1-4). Authentic faith shows itself in the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, who enables us to fulfill God’s fundamental law, the law of love. --Rebuilding The Roman Road
Sin separates from God, hurts, carries guilt and sorrow, ruins relationships, takes away physical and mental health and robs of life now and in eternity; but the saved are given a beautiful new life now and in Heaven. They travel the highway “with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isaiah 35:10). They experience peace that comes with freedom from sin’s condemnation and unity with loved ones and other believers.
“Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold your God will come…he will come and save you” (Isaiah 35:4). Join the church of the living God by faith in Christ Jesus, repentance, confession of the Savior, water baptism and the infilling of His Spirit. No one is excluded. Come. You must choose. Walk with the King in things that are high, things that are noble. Walk in light, honor, love, joy and peace. The Bible is your road map. He wants you and will walk with you all the way home. - Betty Carlton
“Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold your God will come…he will come and save you” (Isaiah 35:4). Join the church of the living God by faith in Christ Jesus, repentance, confession of the Savior, water baptism and the infilling of His Spirit. No one is excluded. Come. You must choose. Walk with the King in things that are high, things that are noble. Walk in light, honor, love, joy and peace. The Bible is your road map. He wants you and will walk with you all the way home. - Betty Carlton