View source for Romans Verse twenty-three

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

Sin pays off in loss of the Presence of God (which is loss of eternal life), every conceivable distress, agony, corruption, futility, and finally physical death.

The gift of God is the eternal Life that is the Presence of God in Christ.

The word "gift" must be defined by all that Paul has written in the sixth chapter of Romans. Eternal life is not a gift handed to us that requires no action on our part. The gift of eternal life is like the gift of a piano. The gift of a piano does not enable us to play Beethoven and Bach. Rather, the gift of a piano opens a window of opportunity so we may learn, after numerous hours of disciplined practice, to play Beethoven and Bach.

To receive the fullness of eternal life at the coming of the Lord requires that we sow our body to the death of the cross and our inner nature to the resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus.

The approach to eternal life is not one of mental orientation to correct facts of theology but of sowing to the Spirit of God. 

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: (I Corinthians 15:42,43)

For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. (Galatians 6:8)

Galatians 6:8 parallels Romans 6:23 and Romans 8:13. If the Christian chooses to live in the appetites of his flesh he will reap corruption in the Day of the Lord. Grace and mercy operate now, not in the Day of the Lord. What we reap in the Day of the Lord depends strictly on what we sow today.

The believer who spends time each day seeking to follow the Holy Spirit of God will grow in eternal Life today, and in the Day of the Lord he will be crowned with eternal Life, with the Presence of God in Christ. Think of living in the holy, glorious, joyous, peaceful Presence of God for the eternity of eternities! 

Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. (I Timothy 6:12)

"Lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called."

We are called to eternal life and we have to fight the good fight of faith in order to lay hold on it. Eternal life is not just handed to us because we say Jesus is Lord. The concept that eternal life is handed to us because we say Jesus is Lord comes from taking one or two verses from the Gospels or from the writings of Paul, removing them from their contexts, and using them as "key verses" from which we deduce a formula.

As a brother once explained, every verse of the Scriptures must be interpreted in the light of the entire Scriptures. Every verse of the Scriptures has an assigned weight, a specific value in the equation that equals eternal life. When we give a verse or passage a value different from its assignment in the entire Scriptures the equation no longer is correct.

All men are dead spiritually because all have sinned. But God, through the Lord Jesus Christ, has made it possible for us to turn from death and embrace the ways of eternal life. The unsaved have no choice. Only those who are of Christ have the choice to continue to yield to darkness and spiritual death, or to turn away from the darkness and become the slave of righteousness, thus attaining eternal life.

As we began our discussion of the sixth chapter of the Book of Romans we quoted Paul as stating that we are "dead to sin." Then we gave three possible interpretations of Paul's statement:

The sin nature is dead in us and we no longer have sinful desires.

It does not matter too much if we sin because God does not regard what a believer does as being sinful.

Sinful behavior is not appropriate, reasonable, expected, or desirable because we have taken our place with Christ on the cross and in so doing have declared our adamic personality to be dead with Christ and our new nature to be risen with Christ.

From our comments above, what do you believe would be the likely interpretation?