THE WAGES OF SIN by Francis McClellan Wilcox

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 4, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 43.

THE WAGES OF SIN.

By Francis McClellan Wilcox

BY ELDER F. M. WILCOX.

Of all the doctrines preached in the world by which the character of God has been maligned and misrepresented, the doctrine of eternal torment for the finally impenitent is the most pernicious. It proclaims God a tyrant, unmerciful and implacable. It makes the execution of his righteous wrath vindictive instead of vindicative. The source of this doctrine it is not difficult to trace. It is the logical and legitimate sequence of the doctrine of inherent and natural immortality, and the doctrine of inherent immortality has for its source the first recorded utterance of Satan, spoken in deceptive falsehood to Eve, in the Garden of Eden, "Ye shall not surely die."

The reception of the doctrine of eternal misery by the Christian church came about by the almost total misconception of the work of Jesus Christ in the great plan of redemption, and the system of rewards and punishments growing out of the relation of that redemptive plan to fallen man. By Adam's fall the sentence of eternal death passed upon the race. Without the redemptive scheme all men at death would have been resolved back into the original elements composing their making, thus to remain forever, so that Adam and his posterity would have become and forever would remain as though they never had existed.

But "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16. Christ by the sacrifice of himself "brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." We will not stop here to consider how he did this. We note the fact that it is through him that life and immortality are brought to light, hence they could not have come through any other avenue or by any other means than through the gospel. It follows further that as life and immortality came through the gospel they are not therefore possessed by man naturally, and that only those will receive them who accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. And to this witnesses the Scripture; for while Christ saves all men from the Adamic death (1 Cor.

15: 22), and becomes in this sense the Saviour of all men (1 Tim. 4: 10), he becomes in a special sense the Saviour of those who believe, in that he gives to them "abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness [and they] shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." Rom. 5: 17. Only those who believe and receive therefor the gift of righteousness escape the second death, which is meted out to the wicked as the wages of sin.

Christ will render to every man according to his deeds. "To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life; but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish." Rom. 2: 6-9. Then it is those only who seek for immortality through Christ that shall receive eternal life. All who do not seek for it in obedience to the truth will feel the indignation and wrath of God, the just and merited deserts of their evil doings.

What these deserts are may be seen by reference to Rom. 6: 23: "The wages of sin is death." "But," adds the apostle, in striking contrast to the foregoing, "the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." As the righteous and wicked are opposite in character, so will each class receive a reward distinct of its own, the very opposite of the other. The reward of the righteous is life—the positive, while the wages of the sinner is death—the negative condition of life. One is reward earned, wages paid; the other is a gift, the bestowment of something unmerited and unpossessed.

But it is not by the pains of death alone that the punishment of the wicked is to be measured. In a fuller sense can we compute his punishment when we contemplate his loss. Death is cessation of being. Death deprives the sinner of life—of all that he might have enjoyed had he become a loyal citizen of the heavenly commonwealth. Had he accepted Jesus as his Saviour, and sought through him righteousness and immortality, eternal life, with its blissful joys and entrancing glories, would have been his, not as reward, but as full grace, throughout eternity’s endless cycles. A rejection of Christ has left the sinner under the sentence of death, a death eternal, unending, unbroken.

Death is the punishment of sin. This death is eternal in its nature, consequently the punishment is eternal. The wicked will come into that state where they shall be as though they never had existed. "They shall be as though they had not been." Obad. 16. And how much more merciful does the view of endless death as a punishment for sin, compared with eternal misery in hell fire, represent the character of God to be! In thus depriving the impenitent of life there is manifest toward them the highest exercise of infinite love. Sin brings sickness, sorrow, and misery. Life to the impenitent, fraught as it would be with all the evil vicissitudes of sin, would be unbearable and unendurable. God in mercy and love takes from his creatures that which is no longer a blessing, but a blight and a curse.

Thus does God forever rid his universe of sin and sinners. No more, after the glad consummation of his redemptive plan, will it know evil, sin, or iniquity. His creation will be holy, his creatures will be holy. Then shall righteousness cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Num. 14: 21. Then shall his people bask in the sunlight of his love, and nevermore shall they feel sin’s blighting breath or experience its withering curse. Dear reader, to which class will you belong in the day of final reckoning?