Treasures of wickedness profit nothing: but righteousness delivereth from death.
Treasures of wickedness are stores of wealth gotten by wicked means, and they yield no lasting benefit and no true profit. They cannot save the one who holds them nor do them any ultimate good. Ill-gotten riches give no exemption from the consequences of the wrong by which they were gotten. Fraudulent gain brings trouble and guilt and an accusing conscience, so that the wrongdoer himself at last bears the cost of his sin.
Righteousness is right-doing measured by God's standard. That righteousness delivers from death. Righteousness and life belong together and cannot be separated, for righteousness leads to life and the labor of the righteous tends to life. Had all men always been righteous, none would ever have died. To become righteous is to begin eternal life, and all who receive immortal life shall live forever in conformity to righteousness.
The deliverance reaches beyond death itself to everything that brings death. Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, is the Saviour who delivers men from sin and its bondage. The righteousness that thus delivers from death is the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ, in which alone is found the power of endless life. By that endless life alone are men made priests and ministers of God.
Treasures of wickedness are stores of wealth gotten by wicked means, and they yield no lasting benefit and no true profit. They cannot save the one who holds them nor do them any ultimate good. Ill-gotten riches give no exemption from the consequences of the wrong by which they were gotten. Fraudulent gain brings trouble and guilt and an accusing conscience, so that the wrongdoer himself at last bears the cost of his sin.
Righteousness is right-doing measured by God's standard. That righteousness delivers from death. Righteousness and life belong together and cannot be separated, for righteousness leads to life and the labor of the righteous tends to life. Had all men always been righteous, none would ever have died. To become righteous is to begin eternal life, and all who receive immortal life shall live forever in conformity to righteousness.
The deliverance reaches beyond death itself to everything that brings death. Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, is the Saviour who delivers men from sin and its bondage. The righteousness that thus delivers from death is the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ, in which alone is found the power of endless life. By that endless life alone are men made priests and ministers of God.