Romans 6 this morning for a little
while. Romans 6. And verse 23. We'll look at just the last verse
of chapter 6. And then if we have time, we'll
look at the first part of chapter 7. But look at this little verse
used so often, quoted so often. for the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord." Now this is simple language, it's brief, and the message of
this verse is told in six key words that are three sets of
opposites. Look at it with me. The wages
of sin is death. Wages, but the gift. Wages, gift. The wages of what
is death? Sin. But the gift of who? God. Sin and God. Our sin, we earn something by
our sin, but God graciously gives a free gift. Alright, what's
the next set of opposites? The wages of sin is what? Death. But the gift of God is eternal
life. You see how simple the language,
and how clear. And then, this last little phrase. We're not going to miss that.
By God's grace, we can't miss that. How is it that we can exchange
our wages for His gift? How is it that we can pass from
death to life? How is it that all of our sins
can be gone and we can be alive unto God Almighty through Jesus
Christ our Lord? That's how. You see how simple
and brief and so much is said in so few words in this holy
book that God's given us? And Paul here, in keeping with
the analogy of a servant and a master, he's been talking about
that, that's the word for, it tells us that something is said
before this that this applies to, for the wages of sin is debt. What came before? This analogy
of the servant and his master. Whoever you serve, that's who
your master is, whether sin or God, whether you or God. And in keeping with this analogy,
he acknowledges here that servants always receive some kind of compensation
for their service. A workman, someone who's a servant
of another, has a master and works for that master, they receive
some kind of compensation. How many times have you heard
someone say in your lifetime, I just want what's coming to
me? In other words, I want what I deserve. I do not. not when it comes to the things
of God, not when it comes to spiritual things. What's coming
to us as sinners, Paul said, is hell. Now, he uses the word
death here, but it's not what we think of as death, what the
world thinks of as death, just to stop breathing, for our heart
to stop. When my mother-in-law died, the
man came and checked her pulse and tried to tell if she was,
checked her blood pressure. No, the blood's not pumping,
the heart's not beating. She's dead. That's not the death
this is talking about, not all of it. This is death in every
sense of the word. And we won't take the time to
trace the word death throughout the whole scripture this morning,
but the scripture speaks of physical death. This body will die. This
corruptible must put on incorruption if we're his. And it speaks of
spiritual death. She that liveth in pleasure,
God said, is dead while she lives. That's spiritual death. And you
which were what in trespasses and sins? Dead. You're walking
around, but you're dead. Your heart's beating, but you're
dead. Spiritual death. And then there's what's called
eternal death in the scripture. And we know what that is. How
can you die eternally? Dying is a one-time act. You're
alive and then you die. It is appointed unto man once
to die. That's true of physical death,
but there is eternal death. There's death that never ends. And it's also called in the word
of God, the second death. And it's described this way.
They were all cast into the lake of fire. And there was torments
and weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. And that's described
as the second death. And so there's all these types
of death, but what this is really, what this death here that your
sin earns, the wages for your sin, the rightful pay for what
you've done, and everything you've done is sin, according to God. You may not think so. You think
you've done some good and some bad. God sees it all as sin. Our righteousness is before him
or his filthy rags. Paul said, in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing. We've never done anything but
sin. So everything we've done, we've earned something from God. And what it is here, it's called
death here. It's called hell in the scriptures.
But what it is, is it's the very worst that God can do to you.
It's the absolute worst God can do, whatever that is. You can
call it death, and that gives us some glimpse of it. We know
that Christ is life, and we're eternally separated from him,
so there's no life. It's death forever. It's called
fire because on earth, what's more painful than that? What can torment the flesh more
than to burn with fire? And so it's described that way,
but we know that this spiritual death, this hell that the scripture
speaks of is not that kind of fire, because that kind of fire
consumes the flesh, and then it's over. But this is a fire
that burns forever. This is a fire that there's never
any relief from. And so it's described in all
these ways, but what it is, it's the worst that the living God
can do to a sinner. Because it's what we've earned
with our sin. And sin is infinitely evil because
it's against an infinite God. And the crime merits a punishment
that fits that crime. Infinite torment. Infinite hell. Whatever that is. And we don't
know what death is. We really don't. But God, we
know, has revealed himself in this book as merciful and gracious. We know that. God delights to
show mercy. He is plenteous in mercy unto
all that call upon Him. And we know this, His mercy is
in Christ. Everyone who is in His Son of
God are ye in Christ Jesus, who has made unto us wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. If you are in Christ Jesus, you
are under the mercy of God. If not, there's absolutely no
mercy for you. None. If you reject God's Son,
if you despise His Son, if you're found guilty of murdering His
Son, which guilt we all bear by nature, there will not be
one iota of mercy mixed with His wrath upon you. Not one. It will be unrestrained and it
will be deserved. Every bit of it. Richly deserved. Our sin, that is infinite because
it's against the infinite God. And the punishment fits the crime.
God is faithful and just to forgive us in Christ. In Christ, there's
absolutely no condemnation. Outside of him, there's no mercy.
In him, there's no wrath. There's no punishment. There's
no guilt. There's no condemnation. Because
Christ has borne our guilt and punishment on the cross, all
of it. Whatever the worst is that God can do to a sinner,
that's what He did to His Son on Calvary. That's the Gospel
message. He died in our stead. Whatever
that death is that our sin earned, that's what He died on the cross.
Not just physical death. Physical death for the believer
is a blessing. Our sin has earned something
else. And that's what our Lord Jesus Christ, our substitute,
our representative, bore in our stead as our mediator, as our
representative on Calvary's cross. And having done that, His holy,
sinless, precious death has fully satisfied the wrath of God against
me and you and all of His sheep. If you're His, it's against you.
And he's born at all and satisfied God so that there is therefore
now no condemnation. And God not only can be just
and holy and right and forgive you because of what Christ did,
he must be merciful to you. He not only can justify you,
if Christ died in your stead, he must. If Christ bled for you,
then God must save you. He must have mercy on you. He
must love you. If He loves His Son, He loves
you. Because He died in your place and became, when He was
born into this earth, He was the last Adam. He represented
us just like Adam did. In Adam we died, but in Christ
we're made alive. He justified us, but outside
of Christ, if we die in our sins, if we die guilty, of all of our
sins, the greatest and the culmination of which is murdering the Son
of God. This is the condemnation that
light came into this world and you put it out. You thought you
did. You did everything you could to put it out because you loved
your darkness rather than His light. That's the condemnation. God, if we die outside of Christ,
if we die in ourselves, if we die of the law, as Paul put it
previously in our lessons, if we're of the law and not of His
mercy and grace in Christ, then God must be just and pour out
His unrestrained judgment, His unmitigated punishment upon us
for our sins. The wages of sin is death. And every servant will get what's
coming to him. We'll get what's coming to us
in ourselves, Or by God's grace, I won't get what's coming to
me. I'll get what's coming to him. I'll get what he earned
in his life and death as my representative. That's what we need. That's what
we must have. Eternal life. Eternal life is the consequence
of sinlessness, of justification in Christ. And here it's called
the gift of God. God's gift is eternal life through
Jesus Christ. The gift, as opposed to wages
which are earned, comes freely. We have life and all spiritual
blessings in Christ simply because God loves us and freely chose
us in Christ, called us to Christ, put us in Christ, revealed Christ
in us, and counts us in Christ to be holy, unblameable, and
unreprovable in his sight. It's the free gift of God. We just had what we call Christmas
and gifts were bought and given. You don't give a gift because
you have to. People feel obligated to now, you know, during the
Christmas season because it's become something that it shouldn't
be. But a gift is free. It's freely given. I gave my
children gifts, not because it was Christmas, not because I
needed to or had to or was obligated to, because I wanted to. Because
that's why God put us in His Son. That's why God had mercy
on us in Christ. That's why Christ came down here
and died for us. Just because He wanted to. Why did He want
to, Brother Chris? Because He loved us. That's why.
Because He so loved us that He gave His Son. Herein is love. Not that we loved God, but that
He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our
sin. That's why He came down here. Because He loved us. That's
why I bought things for my children. because I love them, and I wanted
them to have them because I love them. What we deserve is everlasting,
infinite death, but because of Christ, what we receive is eternal
life. What a difference. What we've
earned, what God ought to do is put us in hell, but what he
does instead, because through our Lord Jesus Christ, is freely
give us life. He passes by us in our sin, in
our vileness, in our corruption, and says, live, because Christ
died in our stead. And just as this death is much
more than just a cessation of physical life, this life is a
lot more than a perpetuation of physical life, much more. It's not about quantity only,
it's about quality. Christ himself is our life, the
scripture says. Eternal life is through him,
that is because of what he's done for us. He said, through
our Lord Jesus Christ, because we can't have eternal life any
other way. If considered in ourselves before God, even in our best
selves, even if we could, you know, check off everything that
we didn't want God to consider about us, if we left anything,
he'd have to put us in hell. In our very best, if we just
thought of what's the best thing you ever did? If God just looks
at that, you know, we'll scrap everything else off the record
except the best thing you ever did. You go into hell. Me too. If we're going to have life,
it's going to be through Him. It's by virtue of what He's done
for us and by virtue of us being in Him as our representative
and substitute. And this life itself, it's to
be with Him. It's to be in Him. He is life,
so to be with Him and in Him is life. And I can't explain
that. I can't describe it. I said a
while ago, we don't have any idea really what death is. We
don't know much what life is either. Not yet. Not yet we know
who it is. We know how it is, how it comes,
how we have it. Oh, but we don't see it yet,
do we? It does not yet appear what we shall be. And what we
shall be is alive in Christ, sure enough. The truth is, we
really don't much know. We can describe it accurately.
But what would you compare to this life he's talking about?
Physical life here? No. There's no comparison there,
is there? We know that life is a person.
And we know the person. We know him. But we don't yet
know Him as we're known. We see through a glass darkly,
and so we don't really understand. We have eternal life now. We
have the gift, but we don't experience it now like we will. I know this,
1 John 5, 11. This is the record that God hath
given to us eternal life. And this life is in His Son. Again, can language be more simple
than that? Can it be more plain? God's gift to us is life. He has given us eternal life. And this life is in His Son,
Jesus Christ. He that hath the Son hath life.
And he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. You know
what that makes me want to do? It makes me want to have Him. lay hold of Him, to have the
Son. God, give me the Son. Enable
me to lay hold of the Son by faith. Cause me to bow to the
Son. Put me in the Son. In the Son
is life. Without the Son, there's no life.
So simple and so clear. Christ is all. He's all. Well,
we don't have much time, but just listen to the language of
Romans 7 verse 1. Know ye not, brethren, for I
speak to them that know the law, how that the law hath dominion
over a man as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath a husband
is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth. But if
the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
You remember now in all of chapter 6, and still, wages, gift, in
this verse we just looked at, he's talking about Our relationship
to the law, what we've earned by the deeds of the law, by our
pathetic attempt to keep God's law and what God freely gives.
But it's all about our relationship to God's law and the righteousness
that God requires, the righteousness that He supplies, the righteousness
of Christ, and our blessings because of His righteousness.
And this is another analogy that he's using to show our relationship
to the law before and after our experience with Christ, our coming
to know the Lord Jesus Christ. This was true. We've never been
seen by God as under the condemnation of the law, but this is our experience.
We were, Paul said, I was alive once without the law, even though
he knew the law, he thought he kept the law, but he didn't keep
the law like God requires. And so he was without an understanding
of the law. But then he said, sin came, the
law came and sin revived and I died. All my hope of keeping
God's law, all my hope of pleasing God by the deeds of the law died
in my heart. And that's what he's talking
about here. We experienced this. We're married to the law in time
before we know Christ. And then when we meet him, we
die to the law and we're married to him. That's what he's saying.
So then verse three, if while her husband liveth, she'd be
married to another man, she should be called an adulteress. If you
can't be under the law, you can't be trying to say, okay, I'm going
to keep the law to please God and be married to crap. You're
an adulterer or an adulteress. You got to, you got to be dead
to one before you can marry the other. But if her husband be
dead, the last part of verse three, she is free from that
law, so that she is no adulteress. That's true on so many levels,
isn't it? Not only in this analogy is that
true, but by nature we actually are adulterers and adulteresses,
but in Christ we're not, because he's not. Though she be married
to another man, married to somebody else now, but dead at the same
time to the other one. That's where the analogy kind
of breaks down, doesn't it? Because you can't be dead to
one husband and alive to another in this life, but that's what
we are in Christ. As far as our relationship to
the law is concerned, we're dead to the law. Verse four, wherefore
my brethren, you also are become dead to the law by the body of
Christ. Isn't that clear? What a beautiful
analogy that you should be married to another. even to him. Isn't that precious? We're married to him. We don't
want to fool around with the law anymore. We're married to
him. Is that enough for you? Does
that satisfy you? And what a husband he is, even
to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth
fruit unto God. By God's grace, we'll look at
that next week. Let's bow in prayer.