THE WAGES OF SIN AND THE GIFT OF LIFE.
By W. C. Mathewson
IN Romans 6:23, four words are contrasted: “wages” and “gift,” “death” and “life.” In the truest sense, God pays no wages for our services, because they are worthless. “All our righteousnesses” “are as filthy rags.” Isa. 64:6. He is too wise to pay wages; but He does offer gifts. The Scriptures speak of the “gifts of God” (Rom. 11:29), and the “gift of God.” The various gifts of God are all contributory to the one great gift, eternal life. There is a great distinction between wages and gifts. While the former is money or its equivalent paid as compensation for labor, the latter is always conferred gratuitously. The term “wages” is closely associated with the terms “master” and “servant.” Christ said, “No servant can serve two masters.” Luke 16:13. There are two masters in existence, Christ and Satan. The majority of mankind are servants of Satan, performing hard labor for him, to receive, O, such wages!—death. In Gal. 5:19–21 Inspiration furnishes us with a list of seventeen different sins, specified as the “works of the flesh.” Those who sin, work, and work hard, too; for “the way of transgressors is hard.” Prov. 13:15. Is it not strange that so many people seem contented to work hard for death, when without working they can receive life as a gift? “To him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.” Rom. 4:5. Christ, pitying the weary servants of this cruel master, heralds this joyful proclamation: “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” In Satan’s service men labor, become weary, and die; while in God’s service they cease laboring and rest, and to all eternity, live. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.” Josh. 24:15. “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life.” Which will you have? This query may now arise in the minds of many: Do not God’s servants work? Do they not keep the commandments, and do practical missionary work?—Yes; but not to earn or receive eternal life. Angels “do His commandments,” and “minister unto them who shall be heirs of salvation,” but they do not request wages nor receive any. Jesus Himself labors in the sanctuary above, receiving no compensation. The spirit of self-sacrifice, originating with God, and pervading all heaven, is infused into His earthly servants, who, like Christ and angels, labor gratuitously. What God gives them as gifts, they receive to impart to others likewise. Giving gifts is a feature of sinless human nature, while laboring for compensation is an element coherent with perverted human nature. Self-sacrificing labor, in contrast to compensation labor, is not exhausting. His “yoke is easy and His burden light.” Strange as it may seem, this labor is “rest unto our souls.” Satan’s servants, unlike the servants of Christ, labor solely for reward. They murder, steal, rob, defraud, violate the Sabbath, etc., all for reward, not realizing it to be death. When will God’s gift, eternal life, be presented? “He that heareth My Word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” John 5:24. “I give unto them eternal life.” John 10:28. “He that hath the Son hath life.” I John 5:12. When we cease our exhausting labor for death, and come unto Christ, He gives us refreshing rest and everlasting life. How much better to enjoy refreshing rest and live, than to suffer from exhausting labor and die. The same One that invited the Jews to come unto Him that they might have rest, said, “Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life.” John 5:40. Is not this the situation now? Rest and live, work and die. Which will you choose? “The wages of sin is death.” When is pay-day? Is it entirely future? “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” James 1:15. But when is sin finished? Every sinful deed is finished when it is committed, right then and there. “Sin is the transgression of the law.” I John 3:4. Our transgression finished, is our sin finished, and its result immediately follows—death. We can not sin to-day and reap the entire result at the end of the “thousand years.” To sin now is to die now, from which there is no escape. With every sin we commit, spiritual death ensues. Many sins bring forth physical death also. Naturally we are endowed with a limited amount of vitality, and like money in the bank it is gradually diminishing; there comes the day when the last vestige of life is drawn, and complete death ensues. The loss of the least particle of life means the reception of an equal quantity of death. Thus complete death is the development of a long-continued process, hastened or retarded at the sinner’s will, who may resist temptation and retain life, or sin and acquire death. “To be carnally minded is death,” not will be. Rom. 8:6. When we cherish a carnal thought, we sin; and there is absolutely no escape from its penalty, except by miraculous power. According to past discoveries in medical science, strong physical constitutions may be ruined by intemperate thoughts unaccompanied with outward acts. This close relation between sin and death is a revelation of truth originating in Eden: “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” Gen. 2:17. The death of the human race, beginning with the first sin, has slowly developed from generation to generation, until modern man, diseased and degenerated, bears but little resemblance to primitive man. Were this life, with its past increase of sin, suffered to continue, the inevitable day would not be far distant when the human race, created in the image of God, would be totally extinct—dead. But this sad state of things is not to continue much longer. Probation is about to close, and our Life-giver to come. Just now, for a short time, He offers us the gift of eternal life. “Ask, and ye shall receive.” W. C. MATHEWSON.