For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
The death that is paid as wages for sin is the second death set over against everlasting life, not the temporal death that lays all alike in the grave. It is justly earned by every violation of God's law, and it means eternal death at the end — forever cut off from the presence of Jesus with happiness and glory lost — ending in utter extinction as though the lost had never been, not endless life in torment. Over against it stands eternal life as God's free gift through Jesus Christ our Lord, never earned by service, wealth or intellect and never purchasable, but secured at infinite cost by His sacrifice, blood and suffering. In that sacrifice the spotless Christ took the sinner's place as substitute, bore the guilt of the whole world with the hiding of the Father's face and the wrath against sin, and by His death magnified the unchangeable law while breaking Satan's power and opening probation for return to loyalty. There are therefore two sides and two payments: to remain under sin is to serve a cruel master whose fruit ends in death, while to be freed from sin and yield to God in obedience brings holiness now whose end is everlasting life.
Meaning of Wages and Death
The death that is the wages of sin is the second death placed in contrast with everlasting life, not the temporal death pronounced upon Adam that brings all alike down into the grave. Because of Adam's sin death came to all, yet through the plan of salvation all are brought forth from their graves in a resurrection of both just and unjust. A distinction is then made between the resurrection of life for those accounted worthy, blessed and holy, who have through repentance and faith secured pardon and over whom the second death has no power, and the resurrection of damnation for those who have done evil and remain unpardoned. Eternal life is the inheritance of the righteous, while death is the portion of the wicked.
That death is eternal death, the wrath of God received at the end by personal choice. Those who refuse salvation and choose the pleasures and deceitfulness of sin for a season lose a life of happiness and sacrifice eternal glory, and will be forever separated from the presence of Jesus whose sacrifice they despised. They will then realize to the fullest extent the sinfulness of sin, with black despair like a pall of death gathering about guilty souls. It is not endless life in torment; to make sin earn immortal life in horrible torments distorts the verse, magnifies the horrors of hell, makes the Bible appear cruel, turns fearful sinners toward despair and gives opponents grounds for reproach. Disobedience brings that eternal death through forbidden knowledge, and obedience to God in the strength of Jesus avoids it.
Death is the earned due, just and certain penalty and retribution for every violation of God's law. God as Governor has a law with penalties and will not abolish or alter it to meet the sinner in his fallen state, nor save by passing over sin, and there is no excuse for trifling with His plain words in indifference. Even the least disregard incurs it, heeding the commandments is of great moment because the awful and unavoidable sentence will be enforced when the great books of judgment are opened and motives laid bare, while in contrast the righteous who do His commandments enter into life with right to the tree of life and entrance through the gates into the city. Those once enslaved to sin were free from righteousness with only shameful fruit ending in death, but those freed from sin and serving God bear fruit in holiness whose end is everlasting life. Loyalty brings blessing while disloyalty and unrepented presumption bring death, each person rewarded or punished according to works, and earnest effort toward the crown of life is called for rather than a useless life.
The decisive evidence that God will punish transgression and is not too merciful to execute justice is the cross of Calvary, where the spotless, sinless Christ took the sinner's place as substitute and surety, became sin, bore the guilt of the whole world and of transgression, endured the hiding of the Father's face and the wrath of an offended God until His heart broke and His life was crushed out. That sacrifice was made to redeem sinners and is the only way to be freed from the penalty, with the price of forgiveness being the punishment of Jesus Christ who was equal with God and became a sin-bearer, so eternal life comes only through Him received by repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Every soul who refuses to share in the atonement provided at such cost must bear guilt and punishment in his own person.
The unpardoned must receive the wages in punishment varying in duration and intensity according to their works, finally ending in the second death. Since God cannot consistently with justice and mercy save the sinner in his sins, He deprives them of the existence their transgressions forfeited and of which they proved unworthy. They sink into hopeless eternal oblivion and become as though they had not been, making a complete end of sin with all its woe and ruin, with no lost souls in never-ending torment to mingle shrieks with the universal anthem of praise.
What sin pays is not noble independence and eternal life but slavery, ruin, misery and death, though its promises flatter as seen when Ahithophel's wisdom and power could not save him from the end of the rebellion and crimes he helped bring about. At the final reckoning and final coronation this becomes evident to all, and the wicked see what rebellion forfeited: the peace, happiness, honor and far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory offered and despised but now appearing most desirable, exchanged for wretchedness, infamy and despair. Their exclusion from heaven is just, because by their lives they declared they would not have Jesus to reign over them.
Death is the sure result of sin itself working through character and circumstance. Every act of transgression reacts upon the sinner, works a change of character and makes further transgression easier, and by choosing to sin men separate themselves from God and cut themselves off from the channel of blessing, so ruin and death follow. God's laws were ordained to give life, but sin broke the order established for life, bringing discord, misery, desolation, suffering and danger of death, and while sin exists these results are inevitable. Disobedience opposes the well-being of God's government and its consequences follow those persisting in wrongdoing, and day by day disloyalty and choosing the way of the transgressor surely secures death as loss of future immortal life. Its execution is only delayed because God's kindness and longsuffering prolong mercy and patience to spare the sinner, and people can hope to escape only because the Redeemer bore sin's curse on their behalf, with mercy shown to thousands who love Him and keep His commandments and favor, forgiveness and healing for those who repent and turn to His service.
At the bar of God the whole wicked world stands arraigned for high treason against the government of heaven with none to plead their cause and no excuse, and the sentence pronounced against them is eternal death. That sentence of eternal death upon rebels against heaven's government is applied at the final judgment and final coronation when every case is decided, where transgression brings death while obedience is associated with life measured by the life of God.
Gift of Eternal Life
Eternal life is the inheritance of the righteous and the crowning blessing of redemption and salvation. It is God's free gift through Jesus Christ our Lord, set in contrast with death as the portion and wages of sin. That death is not the temporal death pronounced upon Adam which brings all alike down into the grave, but the second death placed in contrast with everlasting life. Through the plan of salvation all are brought forth from their graves in a resurrection of both just and unjust, yet with distinction between the resurrection of life for those accounted worthy, blessed and holy over whom the second death has no power, and the resurrection of damnation for those who have not through repentance and faith secured pardon. The unpardoned must receive the wages in punishment varying in duration and intensity according to works, finally ending in the second death in which God deprives them of the existence their transgressions forfeited and of which they proved unworthy, so they sink into hopeless eternal oblivion as though they had not been and there are no lost souls in never-ending torment.
The gift cannot be earned by years of service nor purchased with earthly wealth or corruptible things such as silver and gold, nor by intellect or education, and it gives no ground for selfish boasting or selfish claim. It rests on redemption by the precious blood of the Son of God, laid in sacrifice when Christ gave Himself and became poor that through His poverty believers might be made rich and be redeemed from all iniquity. It was secured by Christ's sacrifice by which He redeems from sin.
The gift comes only through Jesus Christ, purchased at infinite cost by His suffering, death, blood and sacrifice. Jesus Himself holds it out and invites people to come to Him in humility and faith, to receive Him as personal Saviour, putting the hand in His hand to be led and followed, yielding the will to Him. He paid the price for every person, opened the way, broke the tomb, possesses life to give to those who receive Him, and will lead His followers to perfect joy and glory until He sees the travail of His soul and is satisfied. Refusing Him is refusing life, yet refusal does not lessen the value of the gift nor remove responsibility and the call to respond. That life held out is an immortal inheritance and an undefiled, unfading treasure, the reward for a life of obedience.
Immortality was promised on condition of obedience and was forfeited by disobedience, so Adam became subject to death and could not transmit to his posterity what he no longer possessed, leaving the fallen race without hope. By the sacrifice of the Son immortality was brought within reach. It can be obtained in no other way except through Jesus Christ, yet every person may possess it by complying with the conditions, by patient continuance in well-doing seeking glory and honor and immortality.
The gift is received by trusting God's unchanging word and believing on Christ, by entire surrender to God and to Christ, by cooperation of the human with the divine, and by conversion and transformation through sanctification in union with Christ that Satan cannot break. Faith and works go together and each is dead alone, for works do not save but are the fruit of faith, and living faith will show itself in action in patient humble keeping of His law. The Bible makes the gift apparent and the pathway of life plain, so even a simple inquiring person without extra helps can find the path to heaven without erring. Because it is a gift, self-exaltation is entirely out of place, for where faith in Christ is exercised selfishness cannot live. Time, talents and abilities belong to God and are entrusted for use in His service and return to Him, not as a reason for selfishness or a claim that service earns salvation.
The gift means life, health, friends, reason and happiness now, with peace and rest and assurance in this life, God going before and the glory of the Lord as rearward, and immortal glory hereafter. It is dwelling in His presence and seeing the King in His beauty, coming forth victorious over death and the grave in the morning of the resurrection when the gates open, to appear with Christ in glory, partake of the divine nature having escaped corruption through lust, and praise Him with an immortal tongue. It is an immortal inheritance as heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ that makes worldly wealth worthless by comparison. It is won by overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil in warfare where Christ helps at every step, angels surround, and the divine nature is laid hold of by faith through His merits, giving the whole life with mental, moral and physical powers laid at His feet and used in His service to win souls in return for His giving His life, until Christ is formed within as the hope of glory.
Servants Sin and Holiness
Those once enslaved to sin were free from righteousness, gaining only shameful fruit that ends in death, but those freed from sin and made servants of God bear fruit in holiness whose end is everlasting life. Death is what sin pays as its due, while eternal life is God's gift through Jesus Christ and never sin's wage. Holiness grows as the freed submit to the Holy Spirit and depend on God's power. The contrast calls for obedience to God, avoidance of His judgments, and earnest effort toward the crown of life rather than a useless life. Those who take the side of the great rebel receive sin's wage, while those who take the side of Christ and belong to Him receive God's gift.
Those joined to Christ by baptism into His death are buried with Him and raised to walk in newness of life, with the old self crucified so that the sinful body is destroyed and sin is no longer served. Being dead with Christ brings freedom from sin and life with Him, for Christ died to sin once and now lives to God with death having no more rule over Him. Such must reckon themselves dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ, and must not continue in sin that grace may abound. They must not let sin reign in the mortal body to obey its lusts, nor yield their members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but must yield themselves to God as alive from the dead and their members as instruments of righteousness to God. The one obeyed becomes master, whether sin ending in death or obedience ending in righteousness, and sin shall not rule over those who are under grace and not under law. Those who have put on Christ by baptism in separation from the world and covenant to walk in newness of life, yet unite with the foes of Christ, reject the perfect righteousness Jesus offers and choose ways He condemned, earning guilt and punishment proportionate to light and privileges received more severe than those who never knew God or His law.
Sin is darkness from separation from God and transgression of the law, and it cannot be turned or changed into righteousness. It must be taken away and replaced by the righteousness of Christ, who was manifested to remove sin and in whom all fullness dwells. That life and healing come only through His righteousness, received by coming to Him and walking in Him, and trusting in own righteousness as the Pharisees did cannot bring entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Practicing the virtues of Christ's character by receiving His grace in the name of Jesus is life, eternal life, to impart to young and old, while clinging to sins is eternal death. This is especially true of sins that give youth the apples of Sodom and oppose Christ's work of saving sinners from their sins.
Choosing a course of disobedience to God's law decides future destiny, sowing to the flesh and earning as wages eternal destruction, the opposite of life eternal. Submission to God and obedience to His holy law bring the sure opposite result, the gift of eternal life. That eternal life is knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.
Adam Fall and Sacrifices
Romans 6:23 declares the penalty of sin to be death, and God gave Adam that warning beforehand that disobedience would bring sure death. By breaking the divine command Adam forfeited his life and fell from his high and holy estate, though before the fall he had been created perfect in thought and action and free from the results of the curse and from any effect of sin when assailed by the tempter. Having believed Satan's word that God would lie, Adam and Eve transgressed and fell from innocence to guilt, gaining no strength but great weakness, with far less strength to remain true in conscious guilt than to keep integrity in holy happy innocence. They forfeited all right to Eden and opened a way for Satan to gain readier access to them, and because it was not safe in sin for them to reach the tree of life and perpetuate a life of sin they faced loss of their Eden home and understood with keenest anguish and remorse that death was their due punishment. That transgression brought the sentence of death, wretchedness and curse upon humanity, demonstrating that God's law cannot be transgressed without consequence and was binding then just as now, yet God's goodness and mercy kept its consequences from plunging humanity into hopeless despair.
Adam learned the penalty when God directed him to make an offering for sin and he witnessed death for the first time in the bleeding victim writhing in agony. Taking that life gave him a deeper sense of his transgression of God's holy law and showed that nothing less than the death of God's dear Son could pay for sin, for had he remained steadfast and true to the holy law there would have been no death of beast nor of man. The sacrificial offerings reminded people of sin and expressed repentance and faith in the promised Redeemer, and Adam's first sacrifice made him feel the cost of his sin because the innocent victim's death pointed to the death of God's spotless Son as the only sacrifice that could expiate sin. Without sin humanity would not have known death, and the innocent victim's death represented the death of God's Son on behalf of sinners, through whose ransom and divine offering salvation is provided as the sinner recognizes the law's unchanging character, confesses sin, and relies on the Lamb of God to take away sin. In that great and perfect offering pointed forward to by faith there appeared a star of hope to relieve utter hopelessness and ruin, revealing infinite goodness and matchless love giving such a ransom to save the guilty.
The death of the sacrificial victim made sin's penalty evident, while the sinner's offering acknowledged guilt and expressed faith in the Son of God's perfect sacrifice which the animal offering prefigured, for without Christ's atonement there could be no blessing or salvation from God. Abel saw in the slain victim's death the result of transgression which had separated humanity from its Creator, understanding that the sacrifice of a life met the claims of the broken law and pointed by faith to the Son of God dying for the guilty, since no human offering or achievement could atone for sin. Those offerings pointed forward to a Redeemer and served as a typical atonement for fallen humanity at that time, opening a door of hope even as death entered through disobedience letting Satan plant his rule in the first family. Death was not only threatened but experienced as the result of transgression, yet God gave hope of life through a coming Redeemer foreshadowed by those offerings as a temporary atonement. God's law could not be changed or set aside to remove the consequence Adam and Eve's transgression brought upon humanity, so Christ gave His life to bear the punishment due sinners and open a way to live through faith in His atonement, and through His sacrifice life and immortality are brought to light. A substitute had to bear the sentence of death, and the sacrificial animals represented Christ whose death for human sin would uphold God's law, for animal blood had no power to save but pointed forward to Christ the sinless Redeemer whose blood alone could atone.
Disregard of God's commands brings death as the reward of transgression, illustrated by lightly regarding the seventh day which God sanctified, blessed, and commanded to be kept holy. All the precepts of His law are sacred, so transgression of His commands brings death as its penalty. Although God may not now punish violations of His law with temporal penalties, the final judgment will bring death to those who violate His sacred precepts, and deliberate violation of the Sabbath commandment illustrates this consequence.
Cross Law and Atonement
The spotless Christ took the sinner's place as substitute and surety, becoming sin and bearing the guilt of the whole world with the hiding of the Father's face and the wrath of an offended God and the curse until His heart broke and His life was crushed out in agony in Gethsemane and on Calvary. The horror and extent of that retribution are measured by what He bore, a suffering no finite being could endure or atone because in Him humanity existed in divinity with greater capacity to suffer what the sins of a lost world brought, and His agony came from the weight and evil of sin itself and not merely from fear of dying, for death is the consequence of sin and not an angel of mercy. His death fulfilled the covenant made before the world began and ended not in defeat but in glorious eternal victory, and it is the only way any can be freed from the penalty, so that every transgressor who continues in sin must die and every soul refusing to share in the atonement provided at such cost must bear guilt and punishment in his own person. God will not abolish or alter His law to meet the sinner in his fallen state, for as Governor of the universe He has a law with penalties for transgression and does not save by passing over sin.
The cross of Calvary is decisive evidence that God will punish transgression and declares the law unchangeable, for Christ died as the sinner's substitute to bear that penalty and His death shows both love for sinners and the unchanging claims of the law that could not be abolished or altered to save transgressors. By bearing the penalty Christ magnified and honored the law and showed God both righteous and merciful, maintaining justice while giving mercy so that justice and mercy unite in His government. His death broke Satan's power and sounded his death-knell, deciding the long controversy over evil and making certain its final eradication with all who cling to sin, announcing that penalty to the whole universe. Breaking the law places the sinner under its condemnation, and the law has no power to pardon the transgressor but points him to Christ, with guiltiness to be felt or there will never be repentance.
By accepting Christ as Substitute and Surety the sinner has sin borne by Him and His righteousness imputed, restoring allegiance and bringing obedience, loyalty and completeness in Him, justified freely by grace through faith and not by works or anything giving ground to boast. The way back to life is repentance for sin and faith in Christ's sacrifice, with the repentant accepted through Him and salvation joined with obedience to the commandments, for His blood avails for the repentant but does not excuse continued disregard of the law, and pardon comes by turning from transgression to obedience through His propitiation. By bearing the penalty Christ secured a period of probation and second probation, postponing the day of arraignment for trial and giving opportunity in this present life to prove loyalty, return to allegiance and gain back life, with no escape from ruin apart from redemption. He volunteered as substitute and surety and propitiation, bearing the curse and condemnation for sin in which He had no share, numbered with transgressors and treated as a transgressor in agony on the cross, paying the penalty for every soul desiring freedom from Satan's power that repentant sinners might be clothed with His righteousness and justified by a righteousness in which they had no part, so even guilty sinners have every reason to hope in His mercy.
Only Christ because equal with God could meet the law's claim and exhaust the penalty, for the broken law demands the sinner's life and no finite being could make atonement, with only Deity able to exhaust sin's curse. An angel coming to pass over the ground where Adam stumbled could not have removed one stain of sin or brought one hour of probation, and there was no other way to remove dishonor, satisfy justice and restore what Adam forfeited except by the humiliation of the Prince of heaven. Justice requires the penalty be executed and not merely pardoned or unconditionally excused, for it was the righteousness of God to maintain His law by inflicting that penalty as the only way the law could be maintained and pronounced holy and just and good, sin made to appear exceeding sinful, and the honor and majesty of divine authority maintained. As the Good Shepherd He gave His life a ransom for many and laid down His life for the sheep, voluntarily divesting Himself of glory and assuming human nature that could suffer, sustained by divinity without one taint of disloyalty or sin and triumphing in man's behalf, and by dying in man's stead He fully exhausted the penalty due for sin and at the same time provided a pardon, exalting the law and making it honorable while securing eternal life.
Resurrection and Final End
Through the plan of salvation all are brought forth from their graves in a resurrection of both the just and the unjust, for Adam's sin brought death upon all mankind yet provision is made for all to be raised. A distinction is made between those who have done good and are accounted worthy, blessed and holy unto the resurrection of life over whom the second death has no power, and those who have done evil and have not through repentance and faith secured pardon unto the resurrection of damnation. Eternal life is the inheritance of the righteous as God's gift through Jesus Christ, given to the righteous nation that has kept God's law, who are brought through the gates of the holy city to be crowned with immortal life and joy in the presence of God and the Lamb. Those who remain without pardon then receive the penalty for their sins, which is not the first temporal death pronounced upon Adam that passes upon the whole race and brings all alike down into the grave, but the second death placed in contrast with everlasting life.
Every soul who refuses to share in the atonement provided at such cost must bear in his own person the guilt and punishment of transgression, for the spotless Christ's death on Calvary to redeem sinners is the only way to be freed from the penalty of sin. Guilt and punishment are proportionate to light and privileges received, so those who have known forgiveness, tasted a Saviour's love and covenanted to walk in newness of life, then unite with the foes of Christ and choose ways He condemned, are more severely judged than the heathen who never knew God or His law. Those who hear the warning message yet refuse to repent and keep God's commandments must themselves bear the penalty of transgression, even eternal death, for breaking God's law brings eternal death and His law is immutable and must be obeyed by all who would be saved.
At the second resurrection and final confrontation outside the holy city the wicked recognize the contrast between their end and the reward of the just. The redeemed are inside the City, clothed with glory, honor, immortality and eternal life as God's gift, while the wicked are outside, having lost that glory and eternal life and that exceeding weight of glory offered and despised, with death as their own end as sin's wage.
Satan and all who choose to follow him are finally cut off, so that sin with all its woe, suffering and ruin is ended. Christ's death on Calvary announces sin's penalty of death to the whole universe while declaring God's law unchangeable, decides the long controversy over evil, sounds Satan's death-knell and condemns sin's originator to eternal death, making certain the final eradication and utter extermination of evil and of all who cling to sin. When this is accomplished evil will never manifest again, and the whole universe becomes witness to the nature and results of sin, vindicating God's love and honor before beings who delight to do His will.
Since God cannot consistently with justice and mercy save the sinner in his sins, He deprives those proving unworthy of the existence their transgressions have forfeited and of which they have proved themselves unworthy. They become as though they had not been and sink into hopeless eternal oblivion, making a complete end of sin and woe.
Choice Obedience and Warning
There are two sides with two different payments, and every person by voluntary choice comes under the control of one or the other, which decides eternity. Those who take the side of the great rebel, living for self and serving sin, Satan and the flesh, receive death as the earned wage of sin, which is great loss and no profit, the loss of life and Heaven, grace and glory and everlasting life bought at a dear price. Those who take the side of Christ, living for God and heaven and belonging to Him, receive eternal life as the free gift of God, which is the payment to want from the Lord, ample reward for the obedient. Apostates on the rebel side may flourish briefly in childish toys, meager unsatisfactory pleasures of earth, foolish sports and exciting pleasures that separate from God, but their happy days are almost over and they will soon come to the length of their chain, leaving them miserable and to be pitied because they have enough misery to bear. Unconverted youth who think they are Christians turn from that precious promise because they do not know its value and have not meditated on the precious things of Heaven, and so choose death instead of life, failing to reason about the future because the eternity they are entering will be death rather than life.
Sin brings death as its penalty by God's decree, and this solemn warning of danger must be told plainly to a brother continuing in wrongdoing so he may turn from it and live, and must not be withheld to let him go on unwarned. Seeing the end of the transgressor would awaken alarm and turn a person from sin, for indulging in sin is no advantage however pleasant it may seem, and sin is to be feared and not done. The warning is to be given to youth in gentleness and love, to lead them for their eternal good to follow the path marked out and to do their whole duty to God and fellow men, alongside the warning that sin grieves the heart of the Redeemer. A person must stand in awe before God and stop sinning, turning thoughts inward in diligent, critical self-examination through all past years to see whether every action will bear the test of the grand and solemn review, and it is best to bow in allegiance to heaven and keep God's standard and stand His test even if in the minority.
Choosing sin means choosing death instead of the eternal happiness held out to those who inhabit heaven, while heeding God's commandments is of great moment because death is the awful and unavoidable sentence decreed upon the transgressor. That sentence will be enforced when the great books of judgment are opened and the motives of every heart are laid bare, with no excuse for those who trifle with plain words in indifference, while in contrast the righteous shall enter into life with right to the tree of life and entrance through the gates into the city by doing His commandments. Sin is transgression of the law; disobedience has brought misery, while obedience to God brings peace and joy, and everlasting life and eternal glory are promised to those who do His will, whereas God's wrath hangs over those who defy His law. Eternal life is God's gift, not a wage earned by years of service or a claim to greater reward, yet it is given on condition of entire obedience, patiently and humbly accepting it and keeping His law, for all time, talents and abilities belong to God and give no ground for selfish boasting or murmuring over the reward.
To the obedient Christ makes it possible to perfect Christian character through His name and to overcome as He overcame, leaving His own life as an example of how to overcome, with immortal glory and eternal life as the reward; Jesus has paid for sinners with His life and offers salvation, and those who obey Him can develop Christian character and overcome following His example. His victory over temptation, beginning where Adam fell, makes it possible for people to overcome in His name through cooperation with divine influence, and the gift set before everyone against the road to perdition is won by overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil in warfare where Christ helps at every step, angels surround, and divine nature is laid hold of by faith through His merits. Receiving it requires giving Jesus the whole life, mental, moral and physical powers laid at His feet and used in His service to win souls, in return for His giving His life, and then Christ is formed within as the hope of glory with peace here and the eternal reward when this life closes in the morning of the resurrection. To receive the gift men must imitate the perfect Overcomer, learn of Him, endure hardness as good soldiers, come off conqueror over all defects of character becoming perfect and entire wanting nothing without spot or blemish, which costs strong effort, constant watchfulness and persevering prayer, with increased happiness on earth through consciousness of duty performed; disobedience like Adam and Eve's, and sinful habits if not conquered, destroy those ruled by them.
Death is the wage of a course that professes to serve God while indulging appetite and passion and corrupting the ways despite clear light of truth, and persisting in sin for depraved appetite ends in death while everlasting life stands before the person as hope calling for overcoming sinful habits. Indulging perverted appetite pays in unhappiness, degradation and death, selling godlike manhood for momentary gratification as Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, for no one can serve God while indulging appetite, but yields to temptation, is overcome, backslides and yields the truth. Wavering between denying appetite and indulging it ends in defeat by the enemy, and covering that defeat with false excuses shows lack of moral courage to renounce hurtful habits. Indulgence of corrupt animal passions even inside marriage is sin earning dreaded wages that the marriage covenant does not cover or excuse, bringing suffering by one's own indulgence, health and life sacrificed on base passion, higher powers brought under animal propensities, a miserable existence making death seem preferable, and many premature deaths from excessive indulgence. Sacrificing love, benevolence and integrity to love of money is a life of sin and error, and it does not pay.
Satan contends for souls by casting his hellish shadow across the path so they do not behold the light, catch a glimpse of honor and glory, or taste even now a foretaste of heaven's happiness, and so choose sin and its death instead of heaven, though future honor and eternal glories are set before the mind to inspire hope, awaken desire and spur to effort. All he offers as pleasure, liberty, freedom, profit and success is a delusive snare ending in ruin and eternal ruin, hidden under transformation as an angel of light who bewilders minds with ideas of following inclination as the only path for happiness and worldly visions as the height of thought. Those who yield to the prince of darkness are led on blindfolded from step to step, with passions stirred to depravity and appetites clamoring for indulgence, until sin made attractive draws them farther from God and transgression proves their ruin. Those who are tempted then become tempters themselves, acting as agents of the tempter to solicit others into unsafe and forbidden paths that break the law of God. Sin serves a hard master and pays death as its sure wages, so lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God stand in Satan's ranks and cannot afford to keep sinning, because sin is expensive business ending in eternal loss.
Salvation from death was purchased by the suffering and death of the Son of God and might belong to sinners if they would accept it willingly and gladly, for none are compelled to yield obedience to the law of God. Those who refuse the heavenly benefit and choose the pleasures and deceitfulness of sin have their own choice, losing a life of happiness and sacrificing eternal glory for sin's passing pleasures, losing happiness, mansions Jesus has gone to prepare for those who love Him, and that life which measures with the life of God. They will then realize to the fullest extent the sinfulness of sin, with black despair like a pall of death gathering about guilty souls, much as Christ felt on the cross when the vials of wrath are poured out, and will be forever separated from the presence of Jesus whose sacrifice they despised. Refusing the freely offered salvation, remaining in sin and bold transgression, serving self, devoting time and strength and talents to Satan, and remaining enemies to God and the self-sacrificing Redeemer does not release obligation or lessen guilt but earns death, and to neglect salvation and sow to the flesh is to reap corruption; Jesus suffered an agonizing death on Calvary to save from death, His blood cleanses, and those rejecting His offered mercy choose death and lose the immortal inheritance after persistently grieving His Spirit. Those who choose the service of sin receive its wages of death and eternal loss, for sin's pleasures cannot prepare the soul for heaven, and delaying response to the gospel leaves people in sin's grasp.
Serving God is not slavery; sin is slavery to a cruel master, the prince of darkness. God owns every person by creation and by redemption, because Jesus paid the ransom with His precious blood, and through that inestimable gift all blessings come — life, health, friends, reason, happiness — only through Christ. Therefore no one should rob God of what is His own, but glorify God in body and spirit with willing heart service as a faithful soldier, working while time lasts and living an imperishable life hid with Christ in God, to appear with Christ in glory and partake of His divine nature having escaped corruption through lust. Eternal life is the saints' immortal inheritance and reward after their last trial in the last days, costing the agony and blood of the Son of God, and those enduring suffering and reproach for truth will count heaven cheap because present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed. Laying hold on everlasting life means putting abilities to work in His service rather than burying them in worldly pursuits, awaking from deception, resisting the Devil, standing at post and fighting manfully, refusing evil angels with their whisperings and lying dreams, and then laying off the armor for a victorious crown; it is God's great gift firmly based on Jehovah's promises, to be taken, sung, prayed and praised with thanksgiving welling up and spoken, putting silence upon lips to make no complaint, for complaining shows unsanctified lips and heart. A person's choices and influence affect whether others are led toward salvation or lost, and the joy of eternal life includes seeing souls redeemed through one's efforts, which is urgent because probationary time passes and cannot be recalled.
Receiving the gift comes by trusting God's unchanging word rather than feelings, for no sorrow, suffering or burden brought to God gives relief, and a person's own estimate of sin is worthless; God's estimate must be accepted, that sin is heavy and its guilt would crush the bearer. A sinless One takes the sinner's place and bears guilt He does not deserve, and by accepting the provision made the sinner stands free before God in the merits and virtue of the Substitute, with godly sorrow taking the place of hopeless discouragement, turning from sin with hatred and grief to go to God for help in true scriptural repentance. Against the wages of serving sin and the flesh and the devil, which bring poor wages with no real profit and end in death and being cut off, God is ready to accept, pardon all transgressions, cleanse from sin and give life to all who come to Christ, even the prodigal long separated, for He meets and invites such to come now without further neglect. Working for Satan earns wages tasted in falling into sin, learning personal weakness apart from Christ and learning what Satan is, yet those wages leave the sinner fallen but not hopelessly fallen, for coming to Jesus with contrite heart brings pardon, strength, fortitude and courage to lift up the fallen and work for Jesus as earnestly as for Satan, making a different record in heaven's books. All are sinners under sentence of death with no right to anything possessed or hoped for except through the Saviour's sacrifice, and only through Christ as Atonement is pardon and rightful claim to present blessings and future hope possible; when He takes away sin the heart is transformed and the robe of His righteousness is placed upon the person, whom He then acknowledges as His representative and bids do a work for Him, filling the submitted soul with repentance followed by pardon and pure holy joy, for He pities the sinner and is not willing that he should perish.
Day by day disloyalty to God and choosing the way of the transgressor surely secures death as the wages of sin, which is loss of the future immortal life, earned by disobedience and transgression, while present life is continued only because the kindness and longsuffering of God prolong mercy and patience to spare the sinner. Sin is a mortal disease whose wage is death, while God's gift in saving the soul is eternal life, and each person carries a soul of more worth than worlds can buy, with a soul to save or a soul to lose, so that if the soul perishes through unbelief it were better had that soul never been born. Jesus paid the ransom money for the soul with His own life and made every provision that those who come to Him and believe on Him as personal Saviour shall not perish but have life, which calls for immediate individual decision to cut loose from Satan, cease robbing God, and give heart and soul to Jesus as Owner in love and service. Sin is an expensive business that cannot be afforded because it pays death, and those believing in Jesus as personal Saviour have love flow from God's heart to theirs, turning them to serve God and keep His commandments so they will not be found as Adam and Eve were after transgression. Now is the opportunity to decide between eternal life and eternal death: eternal death comes from refusing transformation, looking to men of the world, cherishing worldly ambition, turning from God to human beings and continuing in sin until becoming an instrument of deception with no power to break the snare; eternal life comes when the sinner repents with full purpose of heart, takes hold of saving grace and lets Christ do a thorough work forming character after His, for God has thoughts of mercy and will abundantly pardon, though choosing life requires tremendous struggle of thorough repentance against flattery that would establish in sin.
The death that is paid as wages for sin is the second death set over against everlasting life, not the temporal death that lays all alike in the grave. It is justly earned by every violation of God's law, and it means eternal death at the end — forever cut off from the presence of Jesus with happiness and glory lost — ending in utter extinction as though the lost had never been, not endless life in torment. Over against it stands eternal life as God's free gift through Jesus Christ our Lord, never earned by service, wealth or intellect and never purchasable, but secured at infinite cost by His sacrifice, blood and suffering. In that sacrifice the spotless Christ took the sinner's place as substitute, bore the guilt of the whole world with the hiding of the Father's face and the wrath against sin, and by His death magnified the unchangeable law while breaking Satan's power and opening probation for return to loyalty. There are therefore two sides and two payments: to remain under sin is to serve a cruel master whose fruit ends in death, while to be freed from sin and yield to God in obedience brings holiness now whose end is everlasting life.
Meaning of Wages and Death
The death that is the wages of sin is the second death placed in contrast with everlasting life, not the temporal death pronounced upon Adam that brings all alike down into the grave. Because of Adam's sin death came to all, yet through the plan of salvation all are brought forth from their graves in a resurrection of both just and unjust. A distinction is then made between the resurrection of life for those accounted worthy, blessed and holy, who have through repentance and faith secured pardon and over whom the second death has no power, and the resurrection of damnation for those who have done evil and remain unpardoned. Eternal life is the inheritance of the righteous, while death is the portion of the wicked.
That death is eternal death, the wrath of God received at the end by personal choice. Those who refuse salvation and choose the pleasures and deceitfulness of sin for a season lose a life of happiness and sacrifice eternal glory, and will be forever separated from the presence of Jesus whose sacrifice they despised. They will then realize to the fullest extent the sinfulness of sin, with black despair like a pall of death gathering about guilty souls. It is not endless life in torment; to make sin earn immortal life in horrible torments distorts the verse, magnifies the horrors of hell, makes the Bible appear cruel, turns fearful sinners toward despair and gives opponents grounds for reproach. Disobedience brings that eternal death through forbidden knowledge, and obedience to God in the strength of Jesus avoids it.
Death is the earned due, just and certain penalty and retribution for every violation of God's law. God as Governor has a law with penalties and will not abolish or alter it to meet the sinner in his fallen state, nor save by passing over sin, and there is no excuse for trifling with His plain words in indifference. Even the least disregard incurs it, heeding the commandments is of great moment because the awful and unavoidable sentence will be enforced when the great books of judgment are opened and motives laid bare, while in contrast the righteous who do His commandments enter into life with right to the tree of life and entrance through the gates into the city. Those once enslaved to sin were free from righteousness with only shameful fruit ending in death, but those freed from sin and serving God bear fruit in holiness whose end is everlasting life. Loyalty brings blessing while disloyalty and unrepented presumption bring death, each person rewarded or punished according to works, and earnest effort toward the crown of life is called for rather than a useless life.
The decisive evidence that God will punish transgression and is not too merciful to execute justice is the cross of Calvary, where the spotless, sinless Christ took the sinner's place as substitute and surety, became sin, bore the guilt of the whole world and of transgression, endured the hiding of the Father's face and the wrath of an offended God until His heart broke and His life was crushed out. That sacrifice was made to redeem sinners and is the only way to be freed from the penalty, with the price of forgiveness being the punishment of Jesus Christ who was equal with God and became a sin-bearer, so eternal life comes only through Him received by repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Every soul who refuses to share in the atonement provided at such cost must bear guilt and punishment in his own person.
The unpardoned must receive the wages in punishment varying in duration and intensity according to their works, finally ending in the second death. Since God cannot consistently with justice and mercy save the sinner in his sins, He deprives them of the existence their transgressions forfeited and of which they proved unworthy. They sink into hopeless eternal oblivion and become as though they had not been, making a complete end of sin with all its woe and ruin, with no lost souls in never-ending torment to mingle shrieks with the universal anthem of praise.
What sin pays is not noble independence and eternal life but slavery, ruin, misery and death, though its promises flatter as seen when Ahithophel's wisdom and power could not save him from the end of the rebellion and crimes he helped bring about. At the final reckoning and final coronation this becomes evident to all, and the wicked see what rebellion forfeited: the peace, happiness, honor and far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory offered and despised but now appearing most desirable, exchanged for wretchedness, infamy and despair. Their exclusion from heaven is just, because by their lives they declared they would not have Jesus to reign over them.
Death is the sure result of sin itself working through character and circumstance. Every act of transgression reacts upon the sinner, works a change of character and makes further transgression easier, and by choosing to sin men separate themselves from God and cut themselves off from the channel of blessing, so ruin and death follow. God's laws were ordained to give life, but sin broke the order established for life, bringing discord, misery, desolation, suffering and danger of death, and while sin exists these results are inevitable. Disobedience opposes the well-being of God's government and its consequences follow those persisting in wrongdoing, and day by day disloyalty and choosing the way of the transgressor surely secures death as loss of future immortal life. Its execution is only delayed because God's kindness and longsuffering prolong mercy and patience to spare the sinner, and people can hope to escape only because the Redeemer bore sin's curse on their behalf, with mercy shown to thousands who love Him and keep His commandments and favor, forgiveness and healing for those who repent and turn to His service.
At the bar of God the whole wicked world stands arraigned for high treason against the government of heaven with none to plead their cause and no excuse, and the sentence pronounced against them is eternal death. That sentence of eternal death upon rebels against heaven's government is applied at the final judgment and final coronation when every case is decided, where transgression brings death while obedience is associated with life measured by the life of God.
Gift of Eternal Life
Eternal life is the inheritance of the righteous and the crowning blessing of redemption and salvation. It is God's free gift through Jesus Christ our Lord, set in contrast with death as the portion and wages of sin. That death is not the temporal death pronounced upon Adam which brings all alike down into the grave, but the second death placed in contrast with everlasting life. Through the plan of salvation all are brought forth from their graves in a resurrection of both just and unjust, yet with distinction between the resurrection of life for those accounted worthy, blessed and holy over whom the second death has no power, and the resurrection of damnation for those who have not through repentance and faith secured pardon. The unpardoned must receive the wages in punishment varying in duration and intensity according to works, finally ending in the second death in which God deprives them of the existence their transgressions forfeited and of which they proved unworthy, so they sink into hopeless eternal oblivion as though they had not been and there are no lost souls in never-ending torment.
The gift cannot be earned by years of service nor purchased with earthly wealth or corruptible things such as silver and gold, nor by intellect or education, and it gives no ground for selfish boasting or selfish claim. It rests on redemption by the precious blood of the Son of God, laid in sacrifice when Christ gave Himself and became poor that through His poverty believers might be made rich and be redeemed from all iniquity. It was secured by Christ's sacrifice by which He redeems from sin.
The gift comes only through Jesus Christ, purchased at infinite cost by His suffering, death, blood and sacrifice. Jesus Himself holds it out and invites people to come to Him in humility and faith, to receive Him as personal Saviour, putting the hand in His hand to be led and followed, yielding the will to Him. He paid the price for every person, opened the way, broke the tomb, possesses life to give to those who receive Him, and will lead His followers to perfect joy and glory until He sees the travail of His soul and is satisfied. Refusing Him is refusing life, yet refusal does not lessen the value of the gift nor remove responsibility and the call to respond. That life held out is an immortal inheritance and an undefiled, unfading treasure, the reward for a life of obedience.
Immortality was promised on condition of obedience and was forfeited by disobedience, so Adam became subject to death and could not transmit to his posterity what he no longer possessed, leaving the fallen race without hope. By the sacrifice of the Son immortality was brought within reach. It can be obtained in no other way except through Jesus Christ, yet every person may possess it by complying with the conditions, by patient continuance in well-doing seeking glory and honor and immortality.
The gift is received by trusting God's unchanging word and believing on Christ, by entire surrender to God and to Christ, by cooperation of the human with the divine, and by conversion and transformation through sanctification in union with Christ that Satan cannot break. Faith and works go together and each is dead alone, for works do not save but are the fruit of faith, and living faith will show itself in action in patient humble keeping of His law. The Bible makes the gift apparent and the pathway of life plain, so even a simple inquiring person without extra helps can find the path to heaven without erring. Because it is a gift, self-exaltation is entirely out of place, for where faith in Christ is exercised selfishness cannot live. Time, talents and abilities belong to God and are entrusted for use in His service and return to Him, not as a reason for selfishness or a claim that service earns salvation.
The gift means life, health, friends, reason and happiness now, with peace and rest and assurance in this life, God going before and the glory of the Lord as rearward, and immortal glory hereafter. It is dwelling in His presence and seeing the King in His beauty, coming forth victorious over death and the grave in the morning of the resurrection when the gates open, to appear with Christ in glory, partake of the divine nature having escaped corruption through lust, and praise Him with an immortal tongue. It is an immortal inheritance as heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ that makes worldly wealth worthless by comparison. It is won by overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil in warfare where Christ helps at every step, angels surround, and the divine nature is laid hold of by faith through His merits, giving the whole life with mental, moral and physical powers laid at His feet and used in His service to win souls in return for His giving His life, until Christ is formed within as the hope of glory.
Servants Sin and Holiness
Those once enslaved to sin were free from righteousness, gaining only shameful fruit that ends in death, but those freed from sin and made servants of God bear fruit in holiness whose end is everlasting life. Death is what sin pays as its due, while eternal life is God's gift through Jesus Christ and never sin's wage. Holiness grows as the freed submit to the Holy Spirit and depend on God's power. The contrast calls for obedience to God, avoidance of His judgments, and earnest effort toward the crown of life rather than a useless life. Those who take the side of the great rebel receive sin's wage, while those who take the side of Christ and belong to Him receive God's gift.
Those joined to Christ by baptism into His death are buried with Him and raised to walk in newness of life, with the old self crucified so that the sinful body is destroyed and sin is no longer served. Being dead with Christ brings freedom from sin and life with Him, for Christ died to sin once and now lives to God with death having no more rule over Him. Such must reckon themselves dead to sin and alive to God through Jesus Christ, and must not continue in sin that grace may abound. They must not let sin reign in the mortal body to obey its lusts, nor yield their members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but must yield themselves to God as alive from the dead and their members as instruments of righteousness to God. The one obeyed becomes master, whether sin ending in death or obedience ending in righteousness, and sin shall not rule over those who are under grace and not under law. Those who have put on Christ by baptism in separation from the world and covenant to walk in newness of life, yet unite with the foes of Christ, reject the perfect righteousness Jesus offers and choose ways He condemned, earning guilt and punishment proportionate to light and privileges received more severe than those who never knew God or His law.
Sin is darkness from separation from God and transgression of the law, and it cannot be turned or changed into righteousness. It must be taken away and replaced by the righteousness of Christ, who was manifested to remove sin and in whom all fullness dwells. That life and healing come only through His righteousness, received by coming to Him and walking in Him, and trusting in own righteousness as the Pharisees did cannot bring entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Practicing the virtues of Christ's character by receiving His grace in the name of Jesus is life, eternal life, to impart to young and old, while clinging to sins is eternal death. This is especially true of sins that give youth the apples of Sodom and oppose Christ's work of saving sinners from their sins.
Choosing a course of disobedience to God's law decides future destiny, sowing to the flesh and earning as wages eternal destruction, the opposite of life eternal. Submission to God and obedience to His holy law bring the sure opposite result, the gift of eternal life. That eternal life is knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.
Adam Fall and Sacrifices
Romans 6:23 declares the penalty of sin to be death, and God gave Adam that warning beforehand that disobedience would bring sure death. By breaking the divine command Adam forfeited his life and fell from his high and holy estate, though before the fall he had been created perfect in thought and action and free from the results of the curse and from any effect of sin when assailed by the tempter. Having believed Satan's word that God would lie, Adam and Eve transgressed and fell from innocence to guilt, gaining no strength but great weakness, with far less strength to remain true in conscious guilt than to keep integrity in holy happy innocence. They forfeited all right to Eden and opened a way for Satan to gain readier access to them, and because it was not safe in sin for them to reach the tree of life and perpetuate a life of sin they faced loss of their Eden home and understood with keenest anguish and remorse that death was their due punishment. That transgression brought the sentence of death, wretchedness and curse upon humanity, demonstrating that God's law cannot be transgressed without consequence and was binding then just as now, yet God's goodness and mercy kept its consequences from plunging humanity into hopeless despair.
Adam learned the penalty when God directed him to make an offering for sin and he witnessed death for the first time in the bleeding victim writhing in agony. Taking that life gave him a deeper sense of his transgression of God's holy law and showed that nothing less than the death of God's dear Son could pay for sin, for had he remained steadfast and true to the holy law there would have been no death of beast nor of man. The sacrificial offerings reminded people of sin and expressed repentance and faith in the promised Redeemer, and Adam's first sacrifice made him feel the cost of his sin because the innocent victim's death pointed to the death of God's spotless Son as the only sacrifice that could expiate sin. Without sin humanity would not have known death, and the innocent victim's death represented the death of God's Son on behalf of sinners, through whose ransom and divine offering salvation is provided as the sinner recognizes the law's unchanging character, confesses sin, and relies on the Lamb of God to take away sin. In that great and perfect offering pointed forward to by faith there appeared a star of hope to relieve utter hopelessness and ruin, revealing infinite goodness and matchless love giving such a ransom to save the guilty.
The death of the sacrificial victim made sin's penalty evident, while the sinner's offering acknowledged guilt and expressed faith in the Son of God's perfect sacrifice which the animal offering prefigured, for without Christ's atonement there could be no blessing or salvation from God. Abel saw in the slain victim's death the result of transgression which had separated humanity from its Creator, understanding that the sacrifice of a life met the claims of the broken law and pointed by faith to the Son of God dying for the guilty, since no human offering or achievement could atone for sin. Those offerings pointed forward to a Redeemer and served as a typical atonement for fallen humanity at that time, opening a door of hope even as death entered through disobedience letting Satan plant his rule in the first family. Death was not only threatened but experienced as the result of transgression, yet God gave hope of life through a coming Redeemer foreshadowed by those offerings as a temporary atonement. God's law could not be changed or set aside to remove the consequence Adam and Eve's transgression brought upon humanity, so Christ gave His life to bear the punishment due sinners and open a way to live through faith in His atonement, and through His sacrifice life and immortality are brought to light. A substitute had to bear the sentence of death, and the sacrificial animals represented Christ whose death for human sin would uphold God's law, for animal blood had no power to save but pointed forward to Christ the sinless Redeemer whose blood alone could atone.
Disregard of God's commands brings death as the reward of transgression, illustrated by lightly regarding the seventh day which God sanctified, blessed, and commanded to be kept holy. All the precepts of His law are sacred, so transgression of His commands brings death as its penalty. Although God may not now punish violations of His law with temporal penalties, the final judgment will bring death to those who violate His sacred precepts, and deliberate violation of the Sabbath commandment illustrates this consequence.
Cross Law and Atonement
The spotless Christ took the sinner's place as substitute and surety, becoming sin and bearing the guilt of the whole world with the hiding of the Father's face and the wrath of an offended God and the curse until His heart broke and His life was crushed out in agony in Gethsemane and on Calvary. The horror and extent of that retribution are measured by what He bore, a suffering no finite being could endure or atone because in Him humanity existed in divinity with greater capacity to suffer what the sins of a lost world brought, and His agony came from the weight and evil of sin itself and not merely from fear of dying, for death is the consequence of sin and not an angel of mercy. His death fulfilled the covenant made before the world began and ended not in defeat but in glorious eternal victory, and it is the only way any can be freed from the penalty, so that every transgressor who continues in sin must die and every soul refusing to share in the atonement provided at such cost must bear guilt and punishment in his own person. God will not abolish or alter His law to meet the sinner in his fallen state, for as Governor of the universe He has a law with penalties for transgression and does not save by passing over sin.
The cross of Calvary is decisive evidence that God will punish transgression and declares the law unchangeable, for Christ died as the sinner's substitute to bear that penalty and His death shows both love for sinners and the unchanging claims of the law that could not be abolished or altered to save transgressors. By bearing the penalty Christ magnified and honored the law and showed God both righteous and merciful, maintaining justice while giving mercy so that justice and mercy unite in His government. His death broke Satan's power and sounded his death-knell, deciding the long controversy over evil and making certain its final eradication with all who cling to sin, announcing that penalty to the whole universe. Breaking the law places the sinner under its condemnation, and the law has no power to pardon the transgressor but points him to Christ, with guiltiness to be felt or there will never be repentance.
By accepting Christ as Substitute and Surety the sinner has sin borne by Him and His righteousness imputed, restoring allegiance and bringing obedience, loyalty and completeness in Him, justified freely by grace through faith and not by works or anything giving ground to boast. The way back to life is repentance for sin and faith in Christ's sacrifice, with the repentant accepted through Him and salvation joined with obedience to the commandments, for His blood avails for the repentant but does not excuse continued disregard of the law, and pardon comes by turning from transgression to obedience through His propitiation. By bearing the penalty Christ secured a period of probation and second probation, postponing the day of arraignment for trial and giving opportunity in this present life to prove loyalty, return to allegiance and gain back life, with no escape from ruin apart from redemption. He volunteered as substitute and surety and propitiation, bearing the curse and condemnation for sin in which He had no share, numbered with transgressors and treated as a transgressor in agony on the cross, paying the penalty for every soul desiring freedom from Satan's power that repentant sinners might be clothed with His righteousness and justified by a righteousness in which they had no part, so even guilty sinners have every reason to hope in His mercy.
Only Christ because equal with God could meet the law's claim and exhaust the penalty, for the broken law demands the sinner's life and no finite being could make atonement, with only Deity able to exhaust sin's curse. An angel coming to pass over the ground where Adam stumbled could not have removed one stain of sin or brought one hour of probation, and there was no other way to remove dishonor, satisfy justice and restore what Adam forfeited except by the humiliation of the Prince of heaven. Justice requires the penalty be executed and not merely pardoned or unconditionally excused, for it was the righteousness of God to maintain His law by inflicting that penalty as the only way the law could be maintained and pronounced holy and just and good, sin made to appear exceeding sinful, and the honor and majesty of divine authority maintained. As the Good Shepherd He gave His life a ransom for many and laid down His life for the sheep, voluntarily divesting Himself of glory and assuming human nature that could suffer, sustained by divinity without one taint of disloyalty or sin and triumphing in man's behalf, and by dying in man's stead He fully exhausted the penalty due for sin and at the same time provided a pardon, exalting the law and making it honorable while securing eternal life.
Resurrection and Final End
Through the plan of salvation all are brought forth from their graves in a resurrection of both the just and the unjust, for Adam's sin brought death upon all mankind yet provision is made for all to be raised. A distinction is made between those who have done good and are accounted worthy, blessed and holy unto the resurrection of life over whom the second death has no power, and those who have done evil and have not through repentance and faith secured pardon unto the resurrection of damnation. Eternal life is the inheritance of the righteous as God's gift through Jesus Christ, given to the righteous nation that has kept God's law, who are brought through the gates of the holy city to be crowned with immortal life and joy in the presence of God and the Lamb. Those who remain without pardon then receive the penalty for their sins, which is not the first temporal death pronounced upon Adam that passes upon the whole race and brings all alike down into the grave, but the second death placed in contrast with everlasting life.
Every soul who refuses to share in the atonement provided at such cost must bear in his own person the guilt and punishment of transgression, for the spotless Christ's death on Calvary to redeem sinners is the only way to be freed from the penalty of sin. Guilt and punishment are proportionate to light and privileges received, so those who have known forgiveness, tasted a Saviour's love and covenanted to walk in newness of life, then unite with the foes of Christ and choose ways He condemned, are more severely judged than the heathen who never knew God or His law. Those who hear the warning message yet refuse to repent and keep God's commandments must themselves bear the penalty of transgression, even eternal death, for breaking God's law brings eternal death and His law is immutable and must be obeyed by all who would be saved.
At the second resurrection and final confrontation outside the holy city the wicked recognize the contrast between their end and the reward of the just. The redeemed are inside the City, clothed with glory, honor, immortality and eternal life as God's gift, while the wicked are outside, having lost that glory and eternal life and that exceeding weight of glory offered and despised, with death as their own end as sin's wage.
Satan and all who choose to follow him are finally cut off, so that sin with all its woe, suffering and ruin is ended. Christ's death on Calvary announces sin's penalty of death to the whole universe while declaring God's law unchangeable, decides the long controversy over evil, sounds Satan's death-knell and condemns sin's originator to eternal death, making certain the final eradication and utter extermination of evil and of all who cling to sin. When this is accomplished evil will never manifest again, and the whole universe becomes witness to the nature and results of sin, vindicating God's love and honor before beings who delight to do His will.
Since God cannot consistently with justice and mercy save the sinner in his sins, He deprives those proving unworthy of the existence their transgressions have forfeited and of which they have proved themselves unworthy. They become as though they had not been and sink into hopeless eternal oblivion, making a complete end of sin and woe.
Choice Obedience and Warning
There are two sides with two different payments, and every person by voluntary choice comes under the control of one or the other, which decides eternity. Those who take the side of the great rebel, living for self and serving sin, Satan and the flesh, receive death as the earned wage of sin, which is great loss and no profit, the loss of life and Heaven, grace and glory and everlasting life bought at a dear price. Those who take the side of Christ, living for God and heaven and belonging to Him, receive eternal life as the free gift of God, which is the payment to want from the Lord, ample reward for the obedient. Apostates on the rebel side may flourish briefly in childish toys, meager unsatisfactory pleasures of earth, foolish sports and exciting pleasures that separate from God, but their happy days are almost over and they will soon come to the length of their chain, leaving them miserable and to be pitied because they have enough misery to bear. Unconverted youth who think they are Christians turn from that precious promise because they do not know its value and have not meditated on the precious things of Heaven, and so choose death instead of life, failing to reason about the future because the eternity they are entering will be death rather than life.
Sin brings death as its penalty by God's decree, and this solemn warning of danger must be told plainly to a brother continuing in wrongdoing so he may turn from it and live, and must not be withheld to let him go on unwarned. Seeing the end of the transgressor would awaken alarm and turn a person from sin, for indulging in sin is no advantage however pleasant it may seem, and sin is to be feared and not done. The warning is to be given to youth in gentleness and love, to lead them for their eternal good to follow the path marked out and to do their whole duty to God and fellow men, alongside the warning that sin grieves the heart of the Redeemer. A person must stand in awe before God and stop sinning, turning thoughts inward in diligent, critical self-examination through all past years to see whether every action will bear the test of the grand and solemn review, and it is best to bow in allegiance to heaven and keep God's standard and stand His test even if in the minority.
Choosing sin means choosing death instead of the eternal happiness held out to those who inhabit heaven, while heeding God's commandments is of great moment because death is the awful and unavoidable sentence decreed upon the transgressor. That sentence will be enforced when the great books of judgment are opened and the motives of every heart are laid bare, with no excuse for those who trifle with plain words in indifference, while in contrast the righteous shall enter into life with right to the tree of life and entrance through the gates into the city by doing His commandments. Sin is transgression of the law; disobedience has brought misery, while obedience to God brings peace and joy, and everlasting life and eternal glory are promised to those who do His will, whereas God's wrath hangs over those who defy His law. Eternal life is God's gift, not a wage earned by years of service or a claim to greater reward, yet it is given on condition of entire obedience, patiently and humbly accepting it and keeping His law, for all time, talents and abilities belong to God and give no ground for selfish boasting or murmuring over the reward.
To the obedient Christ makes it possible to perfect Christian character through His name and to overcome as He overcame, leaving His own life as an example of how to overcome, with immortal glory and eternal life as the reward; Jesus has paid for sinners with His life and offers salvation, and those who obey Him can develop Christian character and overcome following His example. His victory over temptation, beginning where Adam fell, makes it possible for people to overcome in His name through cooperation with divine influence, and the gift set before everyone against the road to perdition is won by overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil in warfare where Christ helps at every step, angels surround, and divine nature is laid hold of by faith through His merits. Receiving it requires giving Jesus the whole life, mental, moral and physical powers laid at His feet and used in His service to win souls, in return for His giving His life, and then Christ is formed within as the hope of glory with peace here and the eternal reward when this life closes in the morning of the resurrection. To receive the gift men must imitate the perfect Overcomer, learn of Him, endure hardness as good soldiers, come off conqueror over all defects of character becoming perfect and entire wanting nothing without spot or blemish, which costs strong effort, constant watchfulness and persevering prayer, with increased happiness on earth through consciousness of duty performed; disobedience like Adam and Eve's, and sinful habits if not conquered, destroy those ruled by them.
Death is the wage of a course that professes to serve God while indulging appetite and passion and corrupting the ways despite clear light of truth, and persisting in sin for depraved appetite ends in death while everlasting life stands before the person as hope calling for overcoming sinful habits. Indulging perverted appetite pays in unhappiness, degradation and death, selling godlike manhood for momentary gratification as Esau sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, for no one can serve God while indulging appetite, but yields to temptation, is overcome, backslides and yields the truth. Wavering between denying appetite and indulging it ends in defeat by the enemy, and covering that defeat with false excuses shows lack of moral courage to renounce hurtful habits. Indulgence of corrupt animal passions even inside marriage is sin earning dreaded wages that the marriage covenant does not cover or excuse, bringing suffering by one's own indulgence, health and life sacrificed on base passion, higher powers brought under animal propensities, a miserable existence making death seem preferable, and many premature deaths from excessive indulgence. Sacrificing love, benevolence and integrity to love of money is a life of sin and error, and it does not pay.
Satan contends for souls by casting his hellish shadow across the path so they do not behold the light, catch a glimpse of honor and glory, or taste even now a foretaste of heaven's happiness, and so choose sin and its death instead of heaven, though future honor and eternal glories are set before the mind to inspire hope, awaken desire and spur to effort. All he offers as pleasure, liberty, freedom, profit and success is a delusive snare ending in ruin and eternal ruin, hidden under transformation as an angel of light who bewilders minds with ideas of following inclination as the only path for happiness and worldly visions as the height of thought. Those who yield to the prince of darkness are led on blindfolded from step to step, with passions stirred to depravity and appetites clamoring for indulgence, until sin made attractive draws them farther from God and transgression proves their ruin. Those who are tempted then become tempters themselves, acting as agents of the tempter to solicit others into unsafe and forbidden paths that break the law of God. Sin serves a hard master and pays death as its sure wages, so lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God stand in Satan's ranks and cannot afford to keep sinning, because sin is expensive business ending in eternal loss.
Salvation from death was purchased by the suffering and death of the Son of God and might belong to sinners if they would accept it willingly and gladly, for none are compelled to yield obedience to the law of God. Those who refuse the heavenly benefit and choose the pleasures and deceitfulness of sin have their own choice, losing a life of happiness and sacrificing eternal glory for sin's passing pleasures, losing happiness, mansions Jesus has gone to prepare for those who love Him, and that life which measures with the life of God. They will then realize to the fullest extent the sinfulness of sin, with black despair like a pall of death gathering about guilty souls, much as Christ felt on the cross when the vials of wrath are poured out, and will be forever separated from the presence of Jesus whose sacrifice they despised. Refusing the freely offered salvation, remaining in sin and bold transgression, serving self, devoting time and strength and talents to Satan, and remaining enemies to God and the self-sacrificing Redeemer does not release obligation or lessen guilt but earns death, and to neglect salvation and sow to the flesh is to reap corruption; Jesus suffered an agonizing death on Calvary to save from death, His blood cleanses, and those rejecting His offered mercy choose death and lose the immortal inheritance after persistently grieving His Spirit. Those who choose the service of sin receive its wages of death and eternal loss, for sin's pleasures cannot prepare the soul for heaven, and delaying response to the gospel leaves people in sin's grasp.
Serving God is not slavery; sin is slavery to a cruel master, the prince of darkness. God owns every person by creation and by redemption, because Jesus paid the ransom with His precious blood, and through that inestimable gift all blessings come — life, health, friends, reason, happiness — only through Christ. Therefore no one should rob God of what is His own, but glorify God in body and spirit with willing heart service as a faithful soldier, working while time lasts and living an imperishable life hid with Christ in God, to appear with Christ in glory and partake of His divine nature having escaped corruption through lust. Eternal life is the saints' immortal inheritance and reward after their last trial in the last days, costing the agony and blood of the Son of God, and those enduring suffering and reproach for truth will count heaven cheap because present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with the glory to be revealed. Laying hold on everlasting life means putting abilities to work in His service rather than burying them in worldly pursuits, awaking from deception, resisting the Devil, standing at post and fighting manfully, refusing evil angels with their whisperings and lying dreams, and then laying off the armor for a victorious crown; it is God's great gift firmly based on Jehovah's promises, to be taken, sung, prayed and praised with thanksgiving welling up and spoken, putting silence upon lips to make no complaint, for complaining shows unsanctified lips and heart. A person's choices and influence affect whether others are led toward salvation or lost, and the joy of eternal life includes seeing souls redeemed through one's efforts, which is urgent because probationary time passes and cannot be recalled.
Receiving the gift comes by trusting God's unchanging word rather than feelings, for no sorrow, suffering or burden brought to God gives relief, and a person's own estimate of sin is worthless; God's estimate must be accepted, that sin is heavy and its guilt would crush the bearer. A sinless One takes the sinner's place and bears guilt He does not deserve, and by accepting the provision made the sinner stands free before God in the merits and virtue of the Substitute, with godly sorrow taking the place of hopeless discouragement, turning from sin with hatred and grief to go to God for help in true scriptural repentance. Against the wages of serving sin and the flesh and the devil, which bring poor wages with no real profit and end in death and being cut off, God is ready to accept, pardon all transgressions, cleanse from sin and give life to all who come to Christ, even the prodigal long separated, for He meets and invites such to come now without further neglect. Working for Satan earns wages tasted in falling into sin, learning personal weakness apart from Christ and learning what Satan is, yet those wages leave the sinner fallen but not hopelessly fallen, for coming to Jesus with contrite heart brings pardon, strength, fortitude and courage to lift up the fallen and work for Jesus as earnestly as for Satan, making a different record in heaven's books. All are sinners under sentence of death with no right to anything possessed or hoped for except through the Saviour's sacrifice, and only through Christ as Atonement is pardon and rightful claim to present blessings and future hope possible; when He takes away sin the heart is transformed and the robe of His righteousness is placed upon the person, whom He then acknowledges as His representative and bids do a work for Him, filling the submitted soul with repentance followed by pardon and pure holy joy, for He pities the sinner and is not willing that he should perish.
Day by day disloyalty to God and choosing the way of the transgressor surely secures death as the wages of sin, which is loss of the future immortal life, earned by disobedience and transgression, while present life is continued only because the kindness and longsuffering of God prolong mercy and patience to spare the sinner. Sin is a mortal disease whose wage is death, while God's gift in saving the soul is eternal life, and each person carries a soul of more worth than worlds can buy, with a soul to save or a soul to lose, so that if the soul perishes through unbelief it were better had that soul never been born. Jesus paid the ransom money for the soul with His own life and made every provision that those who come to Him and believe on Him as personal Saviour shall not perish but have life, which calls for immediate individual decision to cut loose from Satan, cease robbing God, and give heart and soul to Jesus as Owner in love and service. Sin is an expensive business that cannot be afforded because it pays death, and those believing in Jesus as personal Saviour have love flow from God's heart to theirs, turning them to serve God and keep His commandments so they will not be found as Adam and Eve were after transgression. Now is the opportunity to decide between eternal life and eternal death: eternal death comes from refusing transformation, looking to men of the world, cherishing worldly ambition, turning from God to human beings and continuing in sin until becoming an instrument of deception with no power to break the snare; eternal life comes when the sinner repents with full purpose of heart, takes hold of saving grace and lets Christ do a thorough work forming character after His, for God has thoughts of mercy and will abundantly pardon, though choosing life requires tremendous struggle of thorough repentance against flattery that would establish in sin.