"The servants of righteousness."
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If we Christians choose to serve sin we will die. The inner spiritual life that has been given us in Christ will not abide in us. We will revert to being a natural man, a living soul.
If we Christians choose to serverighteousness we will grow in eternal life. The end of such growth is the redemption of the mortal body, the full attainment to eternal life. The full attainment to eternal life marks the restoration, the redemption of all that was forfeited in the garden of Eden.
Paul tells us that the wages of sin is death. He is speaking of Christians who, after having believed in Christ and been baptized, continue to walk in sin.
The gift of God is eternal life through Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23).
Does Paul mean we are handed the fullness of eternal life as an undemanding gift, apart from any change in our conduct, when we make a correct doctrinal profession concerning Christ, His atonement and His resurrection?
Not at all. Such a statement coming at the end of the sixth chapter would destroy the exhortation of the chapter.
Paul wrote Romans 6:23, and then turned to the Jews (in Chapter Seven) and explained that the Law was unable to bring us into life because the Law merely emphasized sin. The Law does not have the power to deliver us from sin. It is sin that results in both spiritual and physical death.
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Romans 7:24)
In the eighth chapter of Romans, Paul continues the exhortation that he began in the sixth chapter. Paul, in the eighth chapter, proceeds to explain what he meant by saying "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
In the eighth chapter, Paul pulls together his teaching concerning forgiveness as a gift through the atonement, and his exhortation in the sixth chapter that the attainment to eternal life is based on what we do after we are forgiven.
In Romans 8:1, Paul explains the conditional aspect of the attainment to eternal life:
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ, who walk not in the appetites of the flesh, but after the Spirit.
The forgiveness from wrath, of Chapters Three through Five, is balanced by the requirement of following the Spirit. Freedom from condemnation persists only as we walk in the Spirit of God. If we, having been forgiven by the blood of Jesus, continue to live in the appetites of the flesh, we will come back under condemnation.
Perhaps most of us have known of someone who accepted Christ and then neglected to walk after the Lord. The result of such neglect is obvious spiritual death. Such death can be observed in the worldly "believer." To then claim that the individual is not under Divine condemnation because he once made a profession of Christ is to depart from spiritual and scriptural reality.
We must pursue eternal life. We must attain to the resurrection.
Paul continues to state that "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2).
This means there is authority and power in the Spirit of God that will, if we live in the Spirit, enable us to overcome the sin and death that dwell in our personality. If we walk in the Spirit we can overcome the most cunning, the most powerful temptation to sin.
We walk in the Spirit by praying much, by meditating in the Scriptures, by gathering together with fervent saints as we have the opportunity, by presenting our body a living sacrifice so we may prove the will of God in our life, by serving the Body of Christ with the gifts the Spirit has given us, and by doing all else in our power to serve the Lord.
We must, if we would enter Divine Life, set aside our own adamic life, take up our cross, and follow Christ with total, unswerving diligence and dedication.
God gives His Spirit to those who obey Him. If we would abide in the Spirit of God we must obey God at all times, praying without ceasing.
It is only by such wholehearted serving of the Lord that we can walk in the Spirit, gaining victory over sin and death.
In the eighth chapter of Romans, as we have stated, Paul explains what he means by the expression, "the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ our Lord."
If we Christians live according to the lusts of our body and soul we will die spiritually.
God has given us through Christ the authority and power to turn aside from the ways of sin and death and pursue eternal life.
That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not in the appetites of the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:4)
If we do not walk after the Spirit, choosing instead to spend our life giving first priority to eating, sleeping, working, playing, and reproducing, abiding "in the flesh," the righteousness of the Law of Moses is not fulfilled in us. We have been divorced from the Law of Moses but have not been married to Christ. We are attempting to live as a spiritual "single," being wed neither to Moses nor Christ. We therefore are living under condemnation.
How many believers are wed neither to Moses nor Christ? They do not keep the Law and they are not living in Christ. They are hoping their doctrinal position will bring them to the spirit Paradise when they die. They are mistaken. They are dwelling in spiritual death. Their spiritual death will be revealed in the Day of Christ.
We who are living in the Spirit already have dwelling in us the potential for the redemption of our body.
But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken [make alive] your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. (Romans 8:11)
When we first receive Christ, God places the Spirit of resurrection life in us. If we nourish this inner life by following the Spirit of God, then, in the Day of Christ, our developed inner spiritual life will be extended to our mortal body making it alive. This is what Paul meant by attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
If we choose instead to live in the appetites of the flesh, our inner spiritual life will be weakened greatly and may, in fact, become nonexistent. In that case, we will be raised in the Day of Resurrection as a mortal, not possessing immortality.
Paul goes on to explain that because we are in pursuit of eternal life in our body, in pursuit of the resurrection from the dead, of that which will deliver us from "the body of this death," we do not owe our flesh anything. We are not obligated to give all of our attention to its appetites and desires.
For if ye live in the appetites of the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify [put to death] the deeds of the body, ye shall live. (Romans 8:13)
The end of our pursuit of Christ through the Spirit is the attainment to the resurrection, of readiness to be revealed in the fullness of resurrection life in the Day of Christ.
And not only they [the material creation], but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:23)
Let us review, for a moment, the definitions ofsalvation,grace,faith, andeternal life :
Salvation is deliverance from sin and death and entrance into union with God through Christ. Salvation is moral transformation.
Salvation comes to us as forgiveness, and then as development. Salvation forgives our sins, delivering us from the wrath of God. As development, salvation destroys out of our personality all unrighteousness, all spiritual uncleanness, and all disobedience to God, and creates a new personality filled with the Life of Christ. Salvation also brings us into marriage with God through Christ. Salvation is both instantaneous and progressive.
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