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Wages or Gift? (Romans 6:23) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  Today we're doing one of our deep dives and we're looking at
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  a single sentence. Just one.
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  It's a sentence that I think almost everyone listening will
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  know by heart, but it's theological scope is just
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  immense, and I think we often sort of skate over the surface
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  of it. We're going to be in Romans
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  6.23. For the wages of sin is death,
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  but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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  It's probably the most condensed summary of the gospel you can
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  find anywhere in Paul's writings.
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  You can almost picture it as a balance sheet for all of
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  humanity. And there are only two columns
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  on it. What we earn and what God just
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  gives. And it's not just a stand alone
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  saying. It's really the climax of this
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  whole argument Paul's been building in Romans 6 about grace
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  and holiness. I think that's why we need to
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  spend some real time with it, because it just cuts right
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  across our, you know, our default setting as human beings.
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  Most of us operate on a kind of moralistic system.
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  You know, if I'm a good person, if I do good things, I'll get a
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  good outcome. I'll, I'll earn my way.
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  And Paul comes in here and just completely dismantles that.
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  He says, yes, you do earn something.
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  You absolutely get wages, but your paycheck is death.
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  And then on the complete other side of the Ledger, you have
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  this free gift. It's a total reversal of how we
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  think. It is.
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  So to really get it, we have to see where it comes from.
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  We have to set the stage in Romans.
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  OK, so let's do that. Where does this verse fit in the
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  grand scheme of Paul's letter? Well, the first five chapters
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  are they're like a systematic demolition project.
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  Paul proves that everyone, Jew and Gentile, is under the power
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  of sin. There are no exceptions.
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  And then he ends chapter 5 with this incredible declaration that
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  we're justified. We're declared righteous not by
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  our works, but by faith in Christ.
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  It's a free act of God's grace, right?
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  Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.
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  And if you're a 1st century reader, or even a 21st century
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  reader hearing that for the first time, a certain question
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  just immediately pops into your head.
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  It does. Paul knows it's coming.
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  He brings it up right at the start of chapter 6.
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  Basically. OK, Paul, if more sin means more
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  grace, then shouldn't we just keep sinning to give grace more
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  chances to shine? It's a logical question if you
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  misunderstand grace. A dangerous one, but logical.
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  It is, and Pauls answer is one of his most forceful denials in
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  all of his letters he says Muja nueto.
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  It's often translated. Certainly not, or by no means.
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  It's this this expression of absolute horror at the
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  suggestion he's revolting against this idea that God's
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  grace gives us a license to live however we want, what we
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  sometimes call antinomianism. So his whole argument chapter 6
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  is the answer to why we can't continue in sin.
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  He's moving from the legal reality of justification being
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  declared righteous to the living reality of sanctification, which
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  is being made righteous. That's a great way to put it,
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  from the courtroom to the operating room.
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  His point is that when you are united to Christ by faith,
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  something fundamental changes, he says.
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  You're baptized into Christ's death.
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  That old self, the one who loved sin, died.
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  And just as Christ was raised from the dead, you are raised to
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  walk in a new kind of life. So this union with Christ means
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  you have to break with your old boss.
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  And he doesn't just talk about it in terms of, you know, making
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  better choices. He uses this really strong, kind
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  of jarring imagery to make his point.
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  He talks about slavery. He does, and it completely
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  dominates the second-half of Romans 6.
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  His point is that there's no neutral territory.
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  There's no such thing as a spiritually independent person
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  in the universe. You are always serving a master.
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  Everyone is a slave to something.
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  So he lays out the two options, the 2 masters.
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  That's right, Master. Number one is sin personified.
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  He says that by nature, before you came to faith, you were a
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  slave of sin. You offered up the parts of your
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  body as instruments, or you could even translate it as
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  weapons for unrighteousness. And the outcome of serving that
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  master. The outcome is death.
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  That's the wage, That's the paycheck that Master Sin always
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  pays. And then there's the second
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  master. The second master is obedience,
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  or God himself. He says that through the gospel,
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  believers have been set free from their slavery to sin.
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  But you're not set free to be your own boss.
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  You're set free to become a slave of righteousness.
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  Now I know that language sounds harsh to our modern ears.
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  We value freedom and autonomy. It does.
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  We think of freedom from slavery, not freedom into a
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  different kind of slavery. Right.
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  But Paul uses it to maintain this absolute contrast.
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  He wants to eliminate any wiggle room.
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  If he just said you're free now, that could lead right back to
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  the question from verse 1, great, I'm free to do whatever I
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  want. But Paul says, no, you've just
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  changed your allegiance. You have a new master.
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  And when you're a slave to righteousness, your entire being
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  is now at the disposal of God, and the fruit of that service is
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  holiness, and the final end of it is everlasting life.
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  So Romans 6.23, the verse we're looking at, it basically
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  functions as the final summary. It's the bottom line for these
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  two different kinds of service, these two slaveries.
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  Exactly. It's the theological foundation
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  for the whole chapter. If you serve sin, your end is
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  death. If you serve God, your end is
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  life. It's the ultimate statement of
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  consequence on the one hand and grace on the other.
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  OK, so let's break down that first half of the verse.
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  The really heavy part, the wages of sin is death.
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  The word Paul picks for wages here is really specific, isn't
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  it? It's not just a generic word for
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  payment. It's not.
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  It's incredibly specific and the details here really matter.
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  The Greek word is up, Sonia. Now if he just wanted to say
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  salary or a worker's pay, he could have used a more common
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  word like misuthos. But he chose Upsonia for a
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  reason. And what's so loaded about that
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  specific word? Well, Upsonia in the 1st century
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  Roman world specifically meant a soldiers pay.
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  It was their ration money, the payment they received for their
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  military service. For Paul's audience in Rome,
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  living in the heart of the empire, this image would have
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  been instant and powerful. So SIN isn't just an employer,
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  it's a military commander. Precisely.
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  You've been enlisted in its service.
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  You're a soldier fighting for the cause of unrighteousness.
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  And at the end of your tour of duty, this Commander Sin pays
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  you exactly what your contract stipulated.
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  It's not cheating you. It's giving you precisely what
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  you have earned. So the payment is it's owed.
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  It's a matter of justice. It's a just recompense.
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  That's the terrifying part. This isn't an arbitrary
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  punishment God just decided on, it's the necessary just outcome.
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  Sin builds up a debt, and God, as the perfectly righteous judge
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  of the universe, is obligated to see that the debt is paid in
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  full. To do anything less would be for
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  him to be unjust. So in a way, God's judgement on
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  sin is a proof of his own righteousness.
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  He upholds the terms of the contract.
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  That's right, you signed up to serve sin, and your pay envelope
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  contains one thing Thanatos Death.
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  And when Paul says death, he means more than just our hearts
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  stopping, right? This is a really comprehensive
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  term. It is.
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  Thanatos is his summary word for the entire curse that fell on
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  humanity because of sin, going all the way back to the Garden
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  of Eden. And the sources usually break
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  this down into three sort of interwoven dimensions.
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  OK, so. Let's start with the first one,
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  the one that's a present reality for someone who's not a
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  believer. That would be spiritual death.
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  This is the state of being separated from God, the source
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  of all life. Right now.
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  When Paul says in Ephesians that people are dead in trespasses
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  and sins, this is what he means. You're physically alive, you're
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  breathing and thinking, but your spirit is alienated from God.
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  It's unresponsive to him. You're cut off.
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  And in that state you can't please God.
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  You are by nature still serving that old master sin.
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  So spiritual death is the quality of your life under the
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  wage system. Yes, the second dimension is
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  what we all think of first physical mortality, the
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  cessation of our bodily life, the decay and eventual death of
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  our physical bodies. And this connects directly back
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  to Genesis and the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die,
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  and then to dust you shall return.
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  Sin brought this process of decay and death into God's good
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  creation. It's the visible, universal
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  evidence that the wage system is real and active.
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  And then there's a third dimension, the final one.
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  The third is eschatological death or internal death.
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  This is the final, irreversible exclusion from God's presence
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  and favor. In the Book of Revelation.
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  It's called the second death. It's the full and final payment
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  of the wages. It's the permanent state of
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  separation from God under His just wrath.
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  It's the ultimate end, the T less of being a slave to sin.
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  And the way Paul phrases it, the wages of sin is death, that is,
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  acts like an equal sign. There's no negotiation.
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  None. And this is where the law fits
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  into his argument. The law comes in and shows us
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  just how massive our debt is. The law speaks in terms of
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  wages. The soul who sins shall die.
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  It diagnosis our condition. It proves our guilt and shows us
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  our liability. And this verse confirms that
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  verdict is just and it's total spirit, body and eternity.
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  So it completely does away with any idea that sin is just a
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  small mistake or a personality flaw.
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  It's a capital offense, a covenantal crime that demands
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  the ultimate payment. And that payment must be made
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  either by you personally or by a substitute.
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  And that's where the verse pivots in the most glorious way
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  possible. With that one little word, but.
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  Yes, that but is like a fault line running through human
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  history. It signals a complete break from
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  the entire system of earning and debt and justice.
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  We are about to leave that whole world behind and enter a new
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  one. And the contrast is so
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  important. It's not the wages of sin is
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  death, but the wages of righteousness is life.
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  No, that would still keep us in the wage system.
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  It would just be a different employer.
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  The contrast is between the entire wage principle and the
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  gift principle. It's a completely different
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  economic reality. We move from the realm of
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  justice, what is owed, into the realm of grace, what is freely
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  given. And the word he chooses for gift
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  is also very specific, just like Upsonia was.
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  Very specific. He uses the Greek word charisma,
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  and anyone who knows a little Greek will see that it's
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  directly related to the word charis, which means grace.
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  So by using Charisma, Paul is embedding the source of the gift
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  right into the word itself. It's a grace gift, it's not a
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  bonus for good performance. Not at all.
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  Let's look at the characteristics of this gift
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  because they stand in point by point opposition to the wages we
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  just talked about. First and most obviously, it is
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  unearned and not owed. If you could earn it, it would
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  be a wage up. Sonia The fact that it's a
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  charisma means it's something you can never, ever claim as a
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  right. Which is at the heart of the
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  doctrine of monarchism, right? The idea that God works alone in
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  salvation. It's the very foundation of it.
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  This gift principle establishes that salvation is by
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  monarchistic grace. That just means God is the sole
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  actor. The gift comes from His gracious
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  will and His alone. It isn't a cooperative project
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  where God does His part and we do ours.
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  That would be synergism. If we contributed even the
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  tiniest amount of merit to our salvation, it would cease to be
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  a pure gift. It would become in part a wage
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  and that would spoil the whole thing and take the glory away
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  from God. And Paul makes the source of the
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  gift explicit. He calls it the gift of God.
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  Yes, that's so crucial. The initiative is entirely with
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  God, and this creates this amazing theological situation.
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  The same God who is the righteous judge, whose justice
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  demands the payment of death, is also the gracious giver, the
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  benefactor who provides the gift of life.
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  The problem and the solution are both found in him.
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  The offended party is the one who provides the reconciliation.
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  So we have this unearned gift from God alone.
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  What is the actual content of the gift?
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  It's eternal life, a uniosoey. Right.
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  And again, this is the perfect opposite of death.
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  The word ishinios here means more than just duration, more
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  than just life that never ends. It points to a quality of life.
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  It's the life of the age to come.
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  It's participation in the life of God's new creation in His
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  Kingdom. So it's not just more of this
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  life, but without the dying part.
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  No, it's a completely different kind of existence.
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  It is reconciled fellowship with God.
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  Remember, death meant separation, alienation, curse.
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  Life means communion, relationship, blessing.
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  Believers possess this life in principle right now because
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  we're spiritually united with the risen Christ, but we are
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  still waiting for its fullness when our bodies are glorified.
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  The symmetry is just perfect. Wages versus gift, Death versus
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  life, Justice versus grace, Law versus gospel.
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  It lays out the two fundamental ways a person can relate to God.
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  There are no other options. And then Paul has to add one
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  final critical clarification. He has to tell us where this
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  gift is found. Which brings us to that last
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  little phrase in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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  And that little preposition in is doing a ton of theological.
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  Work. It's carrying the entire weight
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  of Paul's theology of salvation. That word NN signifies our union
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  with Christ. The gift isn't just floating out
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  there in the universe for anyone to grab.
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  The life is in Christ. You can't have the gift without
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  being united to the Giver, Son. This is the principle of
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  exclusivity with the Reformers called Soulless Christus Christ
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  alone. Why does Paul have to be so
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  narrow here? Why can't this gift of eternal
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  life be available more broadly? Because of how the wage was
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  paid, the debt of death was paid by a specific person at a
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  specific time, in a specific way by Christ on the cross.
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  Therefore, the gift of life that results from that payment can
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  only come through union with that same specific person.
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  If the gift were generic, the atonement would have to be
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  generic, but it wasn't. It was a substitutionary death
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  of God's Son. So to move out from under the
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  rule of Adam, where we earned wages, you must be transferred
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  into the federal headship of Christ, where you receive a
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  gift. So all of salvation,
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  justification, adoption, all of it is found only in Christ.
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  That's the consistent message of Paul.
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  It rules out any kind of pluralism, any idea that there
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  are multiple paths to God. It rules out any system that
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  tries to get to God while bypassing the sun.
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  Eternal life is not a thing God hands out, it is participation
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  in the life of his risen Son. And the nature of the gift
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  itself is defined by being in him.
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  Yes, it's receiving his life, mediated to us by the Holy
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  Spirit. When you are in Christ, you are
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  no longer defined by the old Adam system of earning and
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  dying. You are defined by the new Adam
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  and his life becomes your life. And Paul finishes the entire
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  thought with that very formal, very full title, Christ Jesus
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  our Lord. That seems intentional.
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  It's not just in Jesus. It's very intentional.
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  It solidifies the relationship that comes with the gift.
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  You cannot separate Christ the Savior from Christ the Lord.
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  To receive the gift of life from Him means submitting to His
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  sovereign authority. That slavery language from
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  earlier in the chapter comes full circle.
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  We are freed from being slaves to sin to become willing slaves
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  of Christ Jesus our Lord. To accept the gift is to bow the
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  knee to the Giver. So receiving the gift and
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  acknowledging His Lordship are two sides of the same coin.
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  You can't have one without the other.
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  Our new master is the one who graciously bought us out of our
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  old slavery. Our obedience to Him is the
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  response of gratitude. OK, let's zoom out a bit.
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  How does this single verse Romans 6.23 kind of encapsulate
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  the bigger biblical story? It's really a perfect summary of
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  the giant contrast Paul already made back in Romans 5 between
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  Adam and Christ. He presented them as the two
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  representative heads of humanity.
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  This idea of federal theology, we are represented by one or the
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  other. Exactly.
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  And Adam, what happened? One man sinned, and through him
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  condemnation and death spread to all people.
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  That's the wage principle in action.
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  Everyone in Adam is on the payroll of sin.
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  Then you have in Christ he is the second Adam, through his one
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  act of righteousness, his perfect obedience, the free gift
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  of justification and life came to all who are united to him.
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  That's the gift principle. So this one verse is like a
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  miniature version of Romans 5. It distills that entire argument
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  down to its essence. It does, and because it does
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  that, it has huge implications for how we construct our
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  systematic theology. Take the doctrine of sin, for
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  example, what theologians call hamartiology.
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  That first phrase, the wages of sin is death, gives us a very
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  specific and serious definition of sin.
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  It does. It fights against all the modern
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  tendencies to reduce sin to just, you know, brokenness or a
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  psychological problem or a failure to live up to our
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  potential. Paul insists sin is a legal
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  problem. It creates guilt and liability.
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  It's a debt that demands payment.
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  If sin is just brokenness, then the solution is something like
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  therapy. But because sin's wage is death,
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  the solution has to be something as radical as a substitutionary
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  death and a resurrection. And then for the doctrine of
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  salvation suteriology, the contrast in the verse is
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  everything. It completely demolishes any
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  system of works, righteousness, any form of legalism, because if
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  salvation is a wage that we earn, that our works are the
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  basis. But Paul says salvation is a
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  charisma, a gift, And if it's a gift, it can only come from
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  God's grace. So lagratia, and you can't work
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  for a gift, you can only receive it.
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  And the way we receive it is by faith solified.
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  The two systems, wages and gift, they're mutually exclusive.
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  You can't mix them. You can't.
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  The moment you try to add even 1% of your own work to the gift,
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  you turn it back into a wage. You're essentially telling God
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  thank you for the gift, but it's not quite enough.
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  Let me top it off with my own efforts.
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  And that insults the giver and denies the nature of the gift.
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  A Christian who lives trying to earn God's favor is living as if
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  the second-half of the verse isn't true.
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  OK, let's think about some of the specific errors this verse
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  corrects. You could call these the
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  polemical applications. It seems like a direct challenge
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  to what we might call soft moralism.
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  It's the perfect antidote to that very common belief that you
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  know I'm a good person and God will accept me because my good
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  outweighs my bad. Romans 6.23 says the only thing
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  your goodness earns you is death because even our best works are
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  tainted by sin and fall short. A person has to 1st admit that
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  their own moral balance sheet is hopelessly in the red.
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  They are earning death and they need to stop working and receive
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  a gift instead. What about systems that maybe
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  accept grace but deny that Christ is the only way?
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  Well, they run head first into that final phrase in Christ
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  Jesus our Lord. By locating the gift exclusively
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  in Christ, Paul shuts the door on any form of religious
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  pluralism or universalism. If you take Christ out of the
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  equation, the gift of eternal life vanishes with Him because
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  the gift is participation in His resurrected life.
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  He is not just the delivery boy for the gift, He is the gift.
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  And it also speaks to more modern errors like the
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  prosperity gospel. It does because it defines the
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  content of the gift. The ultimate gift of God is not
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  health, wealth and success in this life.
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  The gift is eternal life. It is spiritual, relational, and
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  eschatological. It has to do with communion with
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  God now and glory and the age to come.
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  It reorients our hope away from temporary earthly things and
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  toward our true inheritance, which is life in Christ.
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  So let's bring it all home. What are the pastoral
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  applications? How does this verse shape our
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  lives as believers, starting with evangelism?
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  This seems like it would be foundational.
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  It's the whole framework. It provides what you might call
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  a loving realism. Good evangelism has to start
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  with the bad news before the good news makes any sense.
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  You have to gently but clearly remove the false hope of
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  moralism. You have to show a person that
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  they are currently on a payroll and that payroll leads to death.
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  That's the news that wakes a person up.
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  That's what shows them their need for a savior.
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  Without the bad news of the wages, the good news of the gift
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  has no power. And once that reality sinks in,
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  the offer of the gift becomes so much more beautiful.
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  It does. The gospel then calls that
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  person to, in essence, resign from their old job to repent,
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  stop working for sin, and then simply receive the gift through
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  faith. And the assurance is wonderful
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  because a gift isn't based on the worthiness of the one
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  receiving it. It's all about the generosity of
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  the one giving it. So no one is too sinful to
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  receive this gift. And then for the Christian, for
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  discipleship. How does this verse shape our
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  daily fight against sin? This might be the most practical
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  part for us. It gives us the right
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  motivation. We do not fight sin in order to
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  earn life. That would be legalism.
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  That would be going back to the wage system.
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  No, we fight sin out of grateful obedience because we already
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  have life as a free gift. Our acceptance with God is
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  already secured, not by our performance, but by Christ.
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  So we work from our acceptance, not for it.
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  That's such a critical distinction.
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  It changes everything. The fight is an expression of
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  our new allegiance, not an attempt to pay off an old debt.
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  Exactly right, Christ paid the debt in full.
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  This truth protects us from 2 deadly enemies, pride and
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  despair. Pride looks at a good day and
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  says see what I did? I helped earn my keep.
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  This verse says no, you earned death, this life is a gift.
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  Despair looks at a bad day, a day you've sinned and says I've
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  lost it all. God must be angry with me, this
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  verse says. Your standing is not based on
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  today's performance, it's based on the unchangeable gift of God
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  in Christ. So are assurances in the giver,
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  not in ourselves. Always going back to that
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  balance sheet analogy for the Christian the wages column shows
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  a debt so massive we could never pay it, but underneath it it
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  says paid in full by Christ. And the gift column shows a
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  deposit of eternal life given freely because we've been
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  transferred from Adam's family to Christ's.
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  There are just two paths. That's what Paul makes so clear.
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  One is the path of earning, of debt, which ends in death.
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  The other is the path of grace, generosity, and it ends in life.
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  And there's no third option, no mixed economy.
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  That's right, every single person listening is standing in
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  one of those two realities. You are either still on the
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  clock working for that final lethal paycheck from sin, or you
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  are resting in grace, having received the free gift of life
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  that is only found in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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  And that leads to the final thought we want to leave you
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  with if you are a believer, if Christ is truly our Lord, how
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  does the reality of this verse change the way you look at your
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  decisions today? Are you still living like a
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  frantic wage earner trying to pile up enough good deeds to
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  feel secure? Or are you living with the
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  freedom, the joy, and the grateful obedience of someone
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  who has already received the most incredible gift imaginable?
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  That choice between living by the wage principle or the gift
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  principle is the choice we all face every morning we wake up.
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  Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into Romans 6.23.
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  We hope this has helped you see the awesome reality of God's
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  justice and the even more staggering beauty of His grace.