Jesus was the source of eternal life

JESUS WAS THE SOURCEOF ETERNALLIFE
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
Romans 6:23 23
Forthe wages of sin is death, but the
gift of God is eternal life in ChristJesus our LORD.
BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
Covet The Best Gift!
Romans 6:23
S.R. Aldridge Contrast heightens effect, as artists by a dark background throw the foreground
into brighter relief. So the apostle places two careers in close proximity. He will not allow that it
makes little difference which path men tread, in which condition they are found, or what
qualifications they seek.
I. A MOMENTOUS BLESSING. "Eternal life." All life is wonderful Easy is it to destroy the
ephemeral life of a moth, but to restore it is beyond human skill. The disciples were assured of
eternal life, yet they died; consequently the life they received was not to be measured in ordinary
scales, nor to be probed by a material dissecting knife. Eternal life is a different kind of life from
mere transitory existence; it passes unharmed through the crucible of animal death, for spiritual
powers are untouched by earthly decay and corruption. Eternal life means the quickening of the
moral nature, its resuscitation from the sleep of trespasses and sins. And as ordinary life in its
fulness involves freedom from pain and sickness, and a vigorous activity, so spiritual life, when
fully realized, implies peace of mind and the power to do right. They are feeble Christians who
do not know the joyous energy of children "with quicksilver in their veins," delighting to
exercise their limbs and thus to develop their growing faculties.
II. THIS BLESSING RECEIVED AS A GIFT. By a sinful course of action we merit death, as a
soldier by his service earns his rations and his pay. We disobey the Law, and bring the sentence
upon ourselves. But we have no power available to procure for ourselves acquittal and favour.
Much as the youth joys to see his first-earned sovereign glittering in his palm, he could take no
delight in the stripes which his disobedience brings upon him. Human weakness has been
provided for in God's plan of salvation. He who breathed natural life into man comes again
graciously to inspire his creatures with spiritual life. God knows the needs of his creatures, and
the gift is pre-eminently suitable. The Romans loved the games of the amphitheatre; but when

famine threatened the city, the curses were loud and deep against Nero because the Alexandrian
ships expected with corn arrived instead with sand for the arena. And men like a beautiful
present; let us not, therefore, hang back from accepting the royal bounty so adapted to our wants.
Treat the gilt with care, prize and use the treasure.
III. THE BEARER OF THE GIFT. It comes "through Jesus Christ our Lord." He is the Channel
through which new life streams into us, the envelope containing the promise of life. Life in the
abstract we cannot comprehend; it is ever connected with some person or organism. "In him was
life; .... Your life is hid with Christ in God." Life has been scientifically declared to consist in the
harmonizing of our external and internal conditions. The chief condition on our part is sinfulness,
on God's part righteousness; and it is Christ who reconciles us unto God, putting away sin by the
cross, and investing us with the righteousness of the Holy One. In his words, example, and
offices we find all help and blessedness. As the navigator passing through the Straits of Magellan
into the Pacific connected its tranquility with the southern cross gleaming in the sky above, so
can we rejoice in the peace which Christ brings. It is not a creed we are invited to accept, but a
living Person, with whom we may hold converse, and be instructed in perplexity and cheered
when despondent. We have this earthly life as the period and opportunity of "laying hold on
eternal life." - S.R.A.
Biblical Illustrator
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life.
Romans 6:23
The wages of sin and the gift of God
J. Vaughan, M. A.I. THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH. "Wages" here means "the rations"
supplied as pay to a soldier. If sin is your commander, you will have "death" to eat as your pay.
"Sin" is treated as a person, even as "God" is, and the more we treat it as a living enemy, the
more we are likely to fight against it manfully. "Death" may be defined as separation. Spiritual
death is a present separation from God. Physical death is a separation of body and soul, and the
separation of both from this world. Eternal death is final, total separation of body and soul from
heaven, and from God forever. Now we are prepared to unravel the sentence.
1. God treats "sin" as a master. "Whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin," and "his
servants ye are to whom ye obey." Now sin is any violation of God's will which a man does with
his eyes open. We can make no scale of sin. The only measure of the sin is the light which it
darkens, and the grace which it resists. Bad temper at home — pride and unkindness — want of
truth — self-indulgence and sloth — lust and uncleanness — meanness — "covetousness, which
is idolatry" — a cherished scepticism — and all the negatives — no prayer, no love to God, no
usefulness — all, and many else, are equally "sin."

2. Every "sin" has its "wage"; and the devil is the paymaster.(1) He promises, indeed, very
different "wages" from what he gives. He promises the gay, and the affectionate, and the
satisfying. But God has drawn up the compact, and He has shown it to you, "The wages of sin is
death."(2) Now the expression implies that there is a deliberate engagement — a title. You have
a right to your "wages." A servant can claim his "wages," and the master must give them: for
whosoever "sins" is doing his employer's work.(3) Let me tell you what it is. First, to destroy
your own soul; then to spread a contagion, and hurt others' souls, so to increase your master's
kingdom, and give him another and another victim! Is that all? No. To insult God — to grieve
the Holy Ghost — to rob Christ of a jewel — that is the work which everyone who "sins" is
doing for his employer.(4) And often it is very hard work. How hard a man of the world is
working; and how little he knows of the employer he is working for. And shall not the wages be
a proportionate wages? — the more work, the more pay.(5) The "wages" generally given are to
be paid soon; not all at once, they accumulate. Happy are you if you at once recognise it as your
"wages," and determine that you will earn no more of them! Happy if you resolve, "I will quit the
service!" For, if not, the "wages" will go on being paid. Little by little, the separation from the
good and the pure will widen. The Bible will be put further and further aside. Gulfs will come in
between you and God. And out at that distance, the soul will have got very cold; heavenly things
will wither! But there is a great deal unpaid yet. Perhaps there will come a separation
unmitigated by any real hope of a reunion: to go out — where? To a land of darkness! No voice
in the valley! no arm in the crossing! And, then, separation forever! Separation from that father
of yours, that mother, that husband, that wife, that child, that saint, that church, that happy
fellowship, that God!
II. "THE GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE." Here, too, is service — real, severe, lifelong.
And "wages"? Yes; certain wages — wages in a most just degree. But it would not be right to
call them so. "Wages" do not precede the work. But here the "wages" do precede the work. You
do not work to get your "wages," but you work because you have them. But they are infinitely
disproportioned to the work; rather, all the work is so bad, that it wants to be forgiven, and a part
of the wages is that God does forgive. But were it "wages," and deserved, it would not be half so
happy as now — to be an unearned thing — a gift of the love of God! What would heaven be,
were it not a gift? Nevertheless, it is "wages." God is just to give it, because deserved by "Jesus
Christ our Lord."
(J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The wages of sin and the gift of God
J. Burbidge.I. THE FIRST FACT. St. Paul does not say, "The punishment of sin is death,"
however true that may be. He uses the word "wages." These we earn —
1. When we dishonour our bodies.(1) We do this when we forget them, or withhold from them
that on which their health, and vigour, and usefulness depend. We see this on a large scale when
we face the terrible effects of preventable disease. Now, is it not a sin to allow bad air, water,
drainage, filth, and overcrowding to court these fiends, and bid them come and do their work
among us? We say pestilence is the judgment of God, and so it is; but it is His judgment on
wilful neglect, blindness, selfishness, and wrong.(2) When you give way to drunkenness,
destroying thereby the high faculties of your manhood; when you yield to lust, surrendering
yourselves to "the strange woman"; when you throw the reins on the neck of pleasure, and chase
it wherever it may lead you; when in this way you lay deep and sure the seeds of premature
decay, are you not learning by the bitterest experiences that "the wages of sin is death"? Trifle

not with the body. Forget not it was made by God's hand, and redeemed by Christ's blood.
Dishonour not that which should be the temple of the Holy Ghost. The sins of the body will
bring their awful retribution. It will come as a curse upon yourselves, and, perhaps, upon your
children.
2. When we stifle the voice of conscience within us.(1) Every time you do what you know to be
wrong, every time you surrender yourselves to a thought which you know to be evil, you are
earning the wages of sin which are death — death to all peace of mind, to all noble feeling, to all
nobility of character, to all solid success in life. You go off with companions and give way to
drink. Well, what of the morning? You feel that you have lost caste at home, among the friends
whose respect you value, and you hate and loathe yourself.(2) And so it is whenever a duty is
sacrificed to a selfish pleasure, whenever there is the least departure from strict integrity, for the
consequence must be uneasiness of mind, a load upon the heart which cannot be laughed off or
drunk away; for God has ordered it. Let me beg you not to stifle the voice of conscience. It will
surely, sooner or later, be heard. If you do not heed its gentle remonstrances, it will thunder
condemnation. Say not that you make good resolutions, but that you are too feeble to keep them.
Ask God, by His Spirit, to make you a man, and not suffer you to be a miserable weakling. Trust
to yourselves, and you are no match for the devil.
3. When we reject the offers of the gospel (Proverbs 1:24, etc.). There is no sin so awful in its
character and so terrible in its results as unbelief. That sin some of you are committing every
day, every hour; and its wages are death — death to that peace which a man can only know when
he has been cleansed by the blood of Christ; death to that hope of a happy hereafter which a firm
trust in his Saviour alone can bring to him, and the death which never dies. What I have as the
consequence of my sin, either here or hereafter, I have earned, and must have. I may, by God's
grace, give up my sin, but the wages of sin are shown in my shattered health, and, it may be, by
the sickliness of my children. And if the death of the body sees me unsaved, how my misery will
be deepened when I am constrained to say, "I have earned damnation."
II. THE SECOND FACT. Poor, lost, unworthy sinners may have eternal life in Christ, and that
as a gift from God, and not as something which is to be had in another world, but something
which may be had in this. See you not what a grand, brave, and noble thing it is to live in this
world knowing that we belong to God, that our bodies are His, our minds His, our souls His, and
that, by His grace, we are using them to His glory? Then choose ye this day whom ye will serve.
(J. Burbidge.)
Wages? -- or gift
J. A. Kerr Bath, M. A.? — The more important any matter is, the more need there is that we view
it in a right light. A human face rich with expression, or a monument of architecture rich with
grandeur, or a bit of landscape rich with beauty, cannot have all that is in them set forth in one
picture. Even a picture cannot set forth the Christian life: it must be experienced to be known.
I. THE WAGES SYSTEM OF HUMAN EXISTENCE. In all departments work is a marketable
article, of which wages is the price. The one balances the other. Wages, as distinguished from
other modes of income, is something that stands due though the account is seldom presented:
they are paid directly to the man after a period of work is finished. St. Paul says that sin is an
employer of labour. It pays wages, is bound by strong law to do so. True it does not pay in full as
work is done, but will in the end clear up the debt. This is one system under which men live. Not
always is this a matter of definite purpose, but it is of prevailing disposition. Their trust in this

system is not always strong — are they likely after all to earn much that is desirable? But things
cannot drive them hard under a God who is good. Unhappily they are not apprehending what
their decision means — that it is wages and the paymaster sin. Let us remove any ambiguity
about the terms of this contract: the wages of sin is death. These wages are openly paid. The
installments he pays hint the kind of final recompense to be paid in the end: he now pays in
disorders, loss, calamity, disease, discontent, hatred, uneasy forebodings. He cannot hide the
character of these payments. God has revealed this as the recompense. This system goes on
unchecked because sin is what it is; it rests upon the nature of things, God is the one source of
life; if He is forsaken death must be the result. Am I working for so sad a result?
II. THE FREE GIFT SYSTEM OF HUMAN EXISTENCE. We now pass into a different climate
of things. It is as if we had been walking along the northern side of a mountain in the springtime,
within the chill shadow of its peaks, where the lingering wind of winter is blowing across the
slushy snow, the fields bare — and now had travelled round the mountains into the southerly
sunshine. We have removed from the presence of a rigorous employer to that of a most
munificent friend; from hard earned wages to generous gift; life instead of death. It seems very
evident that the gift system of living is brighter than the wages system of living. There must be
some powerful prejudice to make men choose the latter. In other matters between God and men
in the world the gift system is actually at work and men do not quarrel with it. Providence not
less than grace is pervaded by this system. What do we render for the sunlight; are weal of body
or mind, safety, earned? A pure wages system in the world would mean death. Sin pays like sin;
God gives like God. He will give life, real, unbounded, happy. It is too great to be earned. And
this is a gift from Him whom we have greatly wronged. In Christ the wages system has been
broken down. Christ has earned the gift for us.
(J. A. Kerr Bath, M. A.)
Wages versus gift
J. H. Rogers, M. A.I. SIN AND ITS WAGES.
1. Sin a service.
(1)Not an independence, as the world thinks.
(2)A service to which wages are attached; each sin has its consequence.
2. These wages are "death," and are invariably paid.
II. GOD AND HIS GIFT. A gift —
(1)To those who are not earning it, for they are in the service of another.
(2)To those who do not want to earn it, for they have yielded themselves to another service.
(3)To those who cannot earn it, for they cannot atone for one sin, and their very efforts to do so
impair God's one condition (Ephesians 2:8, 9).
(4)Which all may have for the taking (Isaiah 55:1; Revelation 22:17).
2. That gift is eternal.(1) Christ Himself. Life
(a)From Christ, depending solely on His substitution.
(b)In Christ, ours only by appropriation.
(c)A part of Christ, continued to us only by indwelling.(2) Eternal life.

(a)Begun when Christ began.
(b)Begun to us when we grasped it.
(c)Continuing till — eternity.
(J. H. Rogers, M. A.)
Death and life: the wage and the gift
C. H. Spurgeon.I. DEATH IS THE WAGES OF SIN.
1. Death is the natural result of all sin. When man acts according to God's order he lives; but
when he breaks his Maker's laws he does that which causes death.(1) The further a man goes in
iniquity, the more dead he becomes to holiness: he loses power to appreciate the beauties of
virtue, or to be disgusted with the abominations of vice. You can sin yourself into an utter
deadness of conscience, and that is the first wage of your sin.(2) Death is the separation of the
soul from God. Can two walk together except they be agreed? Man may continue to believe in
the existence of God, but for all practical purposes God to him is really non-existent.(3) As there
is through sin a death to God, so is there a death to all spiritual things (1 Corinthians 2:14).(4)
Inasmuch as in holy things dwells our highest happiness, the sinner becomes an unhappy being;
at first by deprivation of the joy which spiritual life brings with it, and afterwards by suffering
the misery of spiritual death (Romans 2:9).
2. The killing power of some sins is manifest to all observers.(1) See how by many diseases and
deliriums the drunkard destroys himself; he has only to drink hard enough, and his grave will be
digged. The horrors which attend upon the filthy lusts of the flesh I will not dare to mention; but
many a body rotting above ground shall be my silent witness.(2) We have all known that sins of
the flesh kill the flesh; and therefore we may infer that sins of the mind kill the mind. Death in
any part of our manhood breeds death to the whole.
3. This tendency is in every case the same. Even the Christian cannot fall into sin without its
being poison to him. If you sin it destroys your joy, your power in prayer, your confidence
towards God. If you have spent evenings in frivolity with worldlings, you have felt the
deadening influence of their society.
4. Death is sin's due reward, and it must be paid. A master employs a man, and it is due to that
man that he should receive his wages. Now, if sin did not entail death and misery, it would be an
injustice. It is necessary for the very standing of the universe that sin should be punished. They
that sow must reap. The sin which hires you must pay you.
5. This wage of sin is in part received by men now as soldiers receive their rations, day by day.
"If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die" — such a life is a continued dying. "She that liveth in
pleasure is dead while she liveth." The wrath of God abideth on him that believeth not on the Son
of God; it is there already.
6. But then a Roman soldier did not enlist merely for his rations; his chief pay often lay in the
share of the booty which he received at the end of the war. Death is the ultimate wage of sin. Sin
will perpetuate itself, and so forever kill the soul to God, and goodness, and joy and hope. Being
under the ever-growing power of sin, it will become more and more a hopeless thing that you
should escape from death which thus settles down upon you.
7. The misery of the misery of sin is that it is earned. If men in the world to come could say,
"This misery has come upon us arbitrarily, quite apart from its just results," then they would

derive some comfort. But when they will be obliged to own that it was their own choice in
choosing sin, this will scourge them indeed. Their sin is their bell.
8. It will be the folly of follies to go on working for such a wage. Hitherto they that have worked
for sin have found no profit in it (ver. 21). Why, then, will you go further in sin?
9. It ought to be the grief of griefs to each of us that we have sinned. Oh, misery, to have
wrought so long in a service which brings such terrible wages!
10. It must certainly be a miracle of miracles if any sinner here does not remain forever beneath
the power of sin. Sin has this mischief about it, that it strikes a man with spiritual paralysis, and
how can such a palsied one ward off a further blow? It makes the man dead; and to what purpose
do we appeal to him that is dead? What a miracle, then, when the Divine life comes streaming
down into the dead heart I What a blessedness when God interposes and finds a way by which
the wage most justly due shall not be paid!
II. ETERNAL LIFE IS THE GIFT OF GOD.
1. Eternal life is imparted by grace through faith.(1) The dead cannot earn life. Both good works
and good feelings are the fruit of the heavenly life which enters the heart, and make us conscious
of its entrance by working in us repentance and faith in Christ.(2) Since we received eternal life
we have gone on to grow. Whence has this growth come? Is it not still a free gift?(3) Yes, and
when we get to heaven, and the eternal life shall there be developed as a bud opens into a full-
blown rose; then we shall confess that our life was all the free gift of God in Christ.
2. Observe what a wonderful gift this is, "the gift of God."(1) It is called "life" par excellence,
emphatically "life," true life, real life, essential life. This does not mean mere existence, but the
existence of man as he ought to exist — in union with God, and consequently in holiness, health,
and happiness. Man, as God intended him to be, is man enjoying life; man, as sin makes him, is
man abiding in death.(2) Moreover, we have life eternal, too, never ending.
3. It is life in Jesus. We are in everlasting union with the blessed person of the Son of God, and
therefore we live.Conclusion:
1. Let us come and receive this Divine life as a gift in Christ Jesus. If any of you have been
working for it, end the foolish labour. Believe and live. Receive it as freely as your lungs take in
the air you breathe.
2. If we have accepted it let us abide in it. Let us never be tempted to try the law of merit.
3. If we are now abiding in it, then let us live to its glory. Let us show by our gratitude how
greatly we prize this gift.
(C. H. Spurgeon.)
Death and life
W. Conway, M. A.The Word of God abounds with striking contrasts, which picture the opposite
character and portion of the two great classes into which all mankind are divided before God.
Poverty and riches, slavery and freedom, darkness and light; but no contrast is so forcible as that
between death and life.
I. DEATH.
1. Its origin. It is the wages of sin. The apostle sets before us what fallen man loves, what he
dreads, and the union between the two. Fallen man loves sin and dreads death. Yet the death he

dreads is the inevitable consequence of the sin he loves. Sin is discovered under two distinct
aspects. It is —(1) Whatever is not in accordance with the character of God. All deviations from
truth and holiness.(2) Whatever is not in accordance with the law of God. All that goes beyond,
and all that falls short of this Divine standard, is sin.(3) Now death is not, therefore, what men
sometimes call it, the debt of nature. It is the righteous recompense by which God shows His
displeasure against sin. He has set such a mark upon it as compels every individual to feel and
show in his own person the guiltiness of this accursed thing.
2. Its nature. Death is separation. We call it dissolution.(1) Bodily death is the separation of the
soul from the body.(2) Spiritual death is the separation of the soul from God, in whose favour is
life.(3) Eternal death is the perpetual separation of both body and soul from God's presence and
favour. This is called in Scripture "the second death" (Revelation 20:14).
II. LIFE.
1. How is it procured?(1) At the first, life was the gift of God. It was solely of His goodness, and
for His glory. And, as at the first creation, so in the new. Life is not the wages of our obedience.
It was forfeited by sin; it can never be recovered on the ground of our own merit. Death is
rendered to us in justice. Life can only be restored to us in grace. The very God whose honour
we have outraged by sin, comes forward to "seek and save the lost."(2) It is a free gift so far as
we are concerned, but not so far as Christ was concerned. Before He could obtain life for us, He
must taste death for every man (Hebrews 2:9).(3) Christ is also the fountain that contains this
life. It is treasured up in Him for all who will come to Him for it (1 John 5:12; John 10:14).
2. In what does it consist? It is in all respects the opposite to the death. It is the antidote to
spiritual death, for it brings us into union with God. It is the destruction of bodily death; for it
secures to the glorified body and soul an everlasting home in God's presence, where is fulness of
joy and pleasure for evermore. "
(W. Conway, M. A.)
Hard work and bad pay; no work and rich reward
A. G. Brown.I. HARD WORK AND BAD PAY.
1. Who are the servants who receive the pay?(1) All by nature. We are slaves born upon the
estate of sin.(2) But we are servants also by voluntary choice.(3) The servants of Satan are many.
His workshop is the world. Go where you please you find his liveried servants. Unlike other
employers he never diminishes the number of his hands, for if any are by grace persuaded to
leave his service it goes much against his grain. It matters not to him whether trade be slack or
otherwise, he can always find employment for all.(4) They belong to all ages. Children not in
their teens, and lads not out of them, are every day through the medium of our police courts
astonishing even a sinful world with their proficiency in guilt; and side by side with them stands
the criminal whose locks have grown white in the service of the same relentless master.(5) They
belong to all grades of society. In the sight of God there is not much to choose between Bethnal
Green and Belgravia, Westbourne and Whitechapel. Kings, princes, statesmen, and paupers are
all equally his servants.
2. The work they have to perform. To be Satan's servant is no sinecure.(1) To one he says, "Get
rich": and at the word of command the poor wretch at once begins to toil, and laborious toil it is.
The miser is a lump of incarnate misery.(2) To another he gives an order summed up in the word
drink, and there is no slavedom more killing both to body and soul than slavedom to the drink.

He who enters a drunkard's grave has worked hard for the result.(3) He sets another to obtain
pleasure. Men will even in the most lawful pleasures do that which if required of them in an
ordinary day's work would be the subject of much grumbling. Who does not know by experience
that a day's pleasuring is more tiring than an equal number of hours' work? And how much more
is this true with the gay man of the world. Possessed with the evil spirit, he goes hither and
thither seeking rest and finding none. The quiet of the home he terms slow, so he launches into a
whirlpool of dissipation, and singing "Begone, dull care." The pleasure that once enchanted him
by frequent indulgence becomes insipid; something stronger, more vicious is needed to stimulate
his jaded spirits. He goes from bad to worse, until at last every sinful pleasure has in its turn been
tried, and in its turn grown tame. Of all the miserable sights on earth that of an aged roué is the
most miserable.(4) Satan sets a fourth to act the hypocrite, and for this service he pays the
highest wages, and right he should, for the work must be tremendous. How great a strain to have
always to remember the part he has to act. But whatever the work may be to which the sinner is
set it is work without a pause. Satan has no old pensioners permitted to end their days in peaceful
idleness.
3. The wages paid them.(1) The death of the body is but the result of sin. For six thousand years
men have been receiving the wages of death. But death here is placed in contrast to "eternal life,"
and means eternal death.(2) Sin pays some of its wages on account, it gives sometimes an
instalment of hell on earth. The wretched debauchee often finds it so. Mark his haggard
countenance, his trembling gait, follow him to the hospital — nay, don't — let his end remain
secret; terrible are the wages he receives on account. And yet after all this is nothing. Eternity is
one long pay day, and the wages paid is death.
II. NO WORK AND RICH REWARD.
1. The pivot word is "gift." God absolutely refuses to sell salvation. He will give to any, but
barter with none.
2. The blessing specified. "Eternal life"; and this the Lord permits His children to enjoy on earth;
for as part of the wages of sin is paid on account in this life, so even in this life foretastes of the
gift of God are enjoyed by the saints. Peace with God, quiet trustfulness as to the future, beside a
thousand other joys, are some of the clusters of the grapes of Eschol, that refresh the wearied one
on his journey to the land where the vine grows. And how about the end, when the gift is
received in full?
3. Forget not the channel through whom it flows; it is a gift to thee, because thy Lord paid all.
(A. G. Brown.)
The wages question
S. E. Keeble.Men are born to serve. The majority are materially. All are morally. Only a choice
of service open to us — the service of sin, or of righteousness. We are keen on "the wages
question" in matters material; much more ought we to be in matters moral. Of these two services
mark —
I. THE CONTRAST IN THEIR BEGINNINGS.
1. The service of sin is at first promising.(1) Its demands are easy. To serve Satan, self, the
world, is attractive to human nature. Like prospectuses promising 30 per cent.(2) And it begins
well. At first delightful. Pays dividends at first.

2. The service of righteousness is at first unpromising.(1) Its demands are high. The opposite of
those of sin. Self-control, self-denial, self-sacrifice. Service of virtue and truth. Hence it begins
with sorrow, conviction of sin, penitence.(2) And no wages can be earned therein. An apparently
hard service, slow progress. When done all, unprofitable servants, (R.V.) "free gift." All we get
comes undeserved.
II. THE CONTRAST IN THEIR ISSUES.
1. The service of sin ends badly.(1) It issues in death. "The wages of sin is death." "Sin, when it
is finished, bringeth forth death." Death, physical, moral, eternal. Sinner like some decoyed
drudge worked to death. Yet the service has a fatal fascination for many.(2) And death deserved.
These wages are earned. Had power of choice, are responsible. Will be paid in full. But sin pays
them, not God. Hate it, not Him!
2. The service of righteousness ends blessedly.(1) It issues in eternal life. "Gift of God is eternal
life." A service which is its own reward, which ennobles, which confers "glory, honour,
immortality" upon its servants." The servant is taken into partnership, is lifted up to the throne,
partakes of the King's life. It has, if not wages, an exceeding great reward, passing all possible
desert.(2) Which not only consummates, but accompanies it. It is through and "in Jesus Christ
our Lord," who supplies the working strength. Hence this hard service becomes easy. Hence it
does not weaken and wear us out like human and sinful service, but we are renewed day by day.
"In Him is life."
(S. E. Keeble.)
The wages of sin inevitable
Canon Kingsley.Escape is contrary to the laws of God and of God's universe. It is as impossible
as that fire should not burn, or water run up hill. Your sins are killing you by inches; all day long
they are sowing in you the seeds of disease and death. There are three parts of you — body,
mind, and spirit; and every sin you commit helps to kill one of these three, and in many cases to
kill all three together. The bad habits, bad passions, bad methods of thought, in which they have
indulged in youth, remain more or less, and make them worse men, sillier men, less useful men,
less happy men, sometimes to their lives' end; and they, if they be true Christians, know it, and
repent of their early sins, and not once for all only, but all their lives long, because they feel that
they have weakened and worsened themselves thereby. It stands to reason that it should be so. If
a man loses his way and finds it again, he is so much the less forward on his way, surely, by all
the time he has spent in getting back into the road. If a child has a violent illness it stops
growing, because the life and nourishment which ought to have gone towards its growth are
spent in curing the disease. And so, if a man has indulged in bad habits in his youth, he is but too
likely (let him do what he will) to be a less good man for it to his life's end, because the Spirit of
God, which ought to have been making him grow in grace, freely and healthily to the stature of a
perfect man, to the fulness of the measure of Christ, is striving to conquer old habits and cure old
diseases of character, and the man, even though he does enter into life, enters into life halt and
maimed.
(Canon Kingsley.)
Sin and its wages
T. G. Horton.We have to notice three words.

I. SIN. "Sin is the transgression of the law." Its fundamental idea is deviation from the law, as a
standard of excellence or as a rule of conduct. Now, the law supposes a lawgiver, and the
possibility of God's law being disobeyed, i.e., that it has to do with moral agents. Well, then, we
have to think of them as failing from some cause or other to do God's will, which is sin. Sin is set
forth under three aspects.
1. As a principle or law (Romans 8:2).(1) As sin is the rejection of God's authority, the refusal to
let Him reign over us, it follows that by it we set up our own will in opposition to His. See, then,
what such autonomy involves.
(a)The basest ingratitude, for who can deny that we owe all our powers and happiness and our
very being to God?
(b)An imputation upon God's character, viz., that He is unworthy to govern us, that His will is
unjust, His law unkind.
(c)Rebellion against Him.
(d)Usurpation of His place; and hence idolatry and self-deification.(2) Why should any creature
throw off God's authority and govern himself? It must be for some object of self-gratification
incompatible with obedience to God. Now, God's law seeks the greatest good of all; and
therefore, to set it at nought for the sake of personal indulgence, is to violate the principle of
benevolence.(3) This selfishness may assume a great variety of forms. Many men have as many
different ways of enjoying themselves, yet all may be equally selfish. Some are sensual, some are
covetous, others ambitious, and not a few are fired with the intellectual passion for fame.
2. As an act or acts. The law, though in principle always one, has nevertheless many particular
precepts, and is outraged by the violation of any of those precepts. There are sins of deed, of
speech, of deportment, of looks, of motive, desire, imagination, thought, of negation, and
omission. All these are the outgrowth of that self-will and selfishness in which sin essentially
consists.
3. As state. Hence, we read of men being "born in sin," and remaining "dead in trespasses and
sins." Before we commit any acts of sin, and as the source of all we do commit, we have a sinful
nature — a bias to go and to do wrong. The thoroughly sinful soul may be said to live in sin
always. Sin is its element and vital air. It lives without God.
II. DEATH.
1. Spiritual death. The soul is dead when destitute of holiness and happiness; of the disposition to
do well, and of the power to enjoy God. It admits of degrees; the more it prevails, the more it
grows, and the commission of sin inevitably paves the way for the perpetration of many more;
and the final stage is reached when the conscience is seared as with a hot iron, proof against
every appeal, and resolutely bent on his own eternal destruction.
2. Eternal death. Let us suppose a man, whose soul is dead through sin, removed out of this
world into the next, and what shall we behold concerning him? His case is a million-fold more
terrible than before. For —(1) It is confirmed unalterably forever. Though countless ages roll
over his head, he that is unholy must be unholy still; he that is filthy must be filthy still.(2)
Besides, he is still the subject of the law of progress; and therefore, as the ages of his immortality
advance, each will leave him worse than it found him.(3) This development of evil will be
incalculably accelerated and aggravated by the absence of everything enjoyed on earth, and

which helped either to restrain the malignity of the disposition or to relieve the wretchedness of
the feelings.(4) The positive infliction of punishment as a token of God's anger at sin.
III. WAGES. This word denotes a relation of equity between sin and death. The sinner earns
death as his rightful recompense. This connection is —
1. Natural. You have only to study the human mind, its laws of association and of working, to be
convinced that sin, when it is finished, must bring forth death.
2. Judicial. The wicked are turned into hell by a just and holy God; and the same reasons which
send them there must avail to keep them there. They have no power to make themselves good,
and being immortally evil they must be immortally shut out from heaven. Certainly God will not
lay upon the wicked more of these terrible "wages" than they individually deserve. But who shall
determine the full and adequate deserts of sin? Conclusion:
1. Christians should not live in sin, but utterly hate and discard it, and earnestly strive to perfect
holiness in the fear of the Lord. They have done with it as a state; let them have done with it as a
law, and in its individual acts.
2. Here is a message of warning to the ungodly. See for what wages you are working; part are
being paid now, but immense arrears are being treasured up in the future. You think you are
working for pleasure, for gold, for honour, but lo! it is for death.
(T. G. Horton.)
Death the wages of sin
R. South, D. D.I. WHAT SIN IS.
1. Original sin. Sin bears date with our very being, and indeed we were sinners before we were
born (Ephesians 2:3). There are some who deny this to be properly sin at all, because nothing can
be truly sin which is not voluntary. But original corruption in every infant is voluntary, not
indeed in his own person, but in Adam his representative. Pelagians, indeed, tell us that the sons
of Adam came to be sinners only by imitation. But, then, what are those first inclinations which
dispose us to such bad imitations?
2. Actual sin may be considered —(1) According to the subject matter of it.(a) The sin of our
words (Matthew 12:37).(b) The sin of our external actions, theft, murder, uncleanness; and to
prove which to be sins, no more is required but only to read over the law of God, and where the
written letter of the law comes not, men are "a law to themselves."(c) The sin of our desires.
Desires are sin, as it were, in its first formation. For as soon as the heart has once conceived this
fatal seed, it first quickens and begins to stir in desire; so that the ground and the principal
prohibition of the law is, "Thou shalt not covet." Indeed, action is only a consummation of
desire; and could we imagine an outward action performable without it, it would be rather the
shell and outside of a sin than properly a Sin itself.(2) According to the measure of it; and so also
it is distinguished into several degrees, according to which it is either enhanced or lessened in its
malignity.(a) As when a man is engaged in a sinful course by surprise and infirmity.(b) When a
man pursues a course of sin against the reluctancies of an awakened conscience; when salvation
waits and knocks at the door of his heart, and he both bolts it out and drives it away; when he
fights with the word, and struggles with the Spirit; and, as it were, resolves to perish in spite of
mercy itself, and of the means of grace (Isaiah 1:5; John 9:41).(c) When a man sins in defiance
of conscience; so breaking all bonds, so trampling upon all convictions, that he becomes not only
untractable, but finally incorrigible. And this is the ne plus ultra of impiety, which shuts the door

of mercy and seals the decree of damnation, Now this differs from original sin thus, that that is
properly the seed, this the harvest; that merits, this actually procures death. For although as soon
as ever the seed be cast in there is a design to reap; yet, for the most part, God does not actually
put in the sickle till continuance in sin has made the sinner ripe for destruction.
II. WHAT IS INCLUDED IN DEATH WHICH IS HERE ALLOTTED FOR THE SINNER'S
WAGES?
1. Death temporal. We must not take it as the separation of the soul from the body, for that is
rather the consummation of death, the last blow given to the falling tree.(1) Look upon those
forerunners of death — diseases; they are but some of the wages of sin paid us beforehand. And
to the diseases of the body we may add the consuming cares and troubles of the mind, all made
necessary by the first sin of man, and which impair the vitals as much as the most visible
diseases can do.(2) To these we may subjoin the miseries which attend our condition; as the
shame which makes men a scorn to others and a burden to themselves; which takes off the gloss
and air of all other enjoyments, and damps the vigour and vivacity of the spirit. Also the miseries
of poverty which leave the necessities and the conveniences of nature unsupplied. Now all these
things are so many breaches made upon our happiness and well-being, without which life is not
life, but a thin, insipid existence.
2. Death eternal, in comparison of which the other can scarce be called death, but only a transient
change; easily borne, or at least quickly past.(1) It bereaves a man of all the pleasures and
comforts which he enjoyed in this world. How will the drunkard, the epicure, and the wanton
bear the absence of those things that alone used to please their fancy and to gratify their lust!(2)
It bereaves the soul of the beatific fruition of God (Psalm 16:11).(3) It fills both body and soul
with anguish (Luke 16:24).
III. IN WHAT RESPECT DEATH IS PROPERLY CALLED "THE WAGES OF SIN."
1. Because wages presuppose service. And undoubtedly the service of sin is of all others the
most laborious. It will engross all a man's industry, drink up all his time; it is a drudgery without
intermission, a business without vacation. Such as are the commands of sin, such must be also
the service. But the commands of sin are for their number continual, for their vehemence
importunate, and for their burden tyrannical.(1) Take the voluptuous, debauched epicure. What
hour of his life is vacant from the slavish injunctions of his vice? Is he not continually spending
both his time and his subsistence to gratify his taste? And then, how uneasy are the consequences
of his luxury! when he is to grapple with surfeit and indigestion?(2) The intemperate drinker; is
not his life a continual toil? To be sitting up when others sleep, and to go to bed when others rise;
to be exposed to quarrels, to have redness of eyes, a weakened body and a besotted mind?(3) The
covetous, scraping usurper: it is a question whether he gathers or keeps his pelf with most
anxiety.
2. Because wages do always imply a merit in the work requiring such a compensation. It is but
equitable that he who sows should also reap (Galatians 6:8).(1) But to this some make the
objection that since our good works cannot merit eternal life, neither can our sins merit eternal
death. But to merit, it is required that the action be not due; but every good action being
commanded by the law of God is thereby made due, and consequently cannot merit; whereas, a
sinful action being altogether undue and not commanded, but prohibited, it becomes properly
meritorious; and, according to the malignity of its nature, it merits eternal death.(2) But some
further urge that a sinful action is but of a finite nature, and proceeds from a finite agent; and

consequently there is no proportion between that and an eternal punishment. But we answer that
the merit of sin is not to be rated either by the act or the agent; but by the proportions of its
object, and the greatness of the person against whom it is done. Being committed against an
infinite majesty, it rises to the height of an infinite demerit.(a) Sin is a direct stroke at God's
sovereignty. We read of the kingdom of Satan in contradistinction to the kingdom of God, into
which sin translates God's subjects. No wonder if God punishes sin, which is treason against the
King of kings, with death; for it pots the question "Who shall reign?"(b) Sin strikes at God's very
being (Psalm 14:1). Sin would step not only into God's throne, but also into His room.
Conclusion: Sin plays the bait of a little, contemptible, silly pleasure or profit; but it hides that
fatal hook by which that great catcher of souls shall drag them down to his eternal execution.
"Fools make a mock at sin." Fools they are indeed for doing so. But is it possible for anything
that wears the name of reason, to be so much a fool as to mock at death too? In every sin which a
man deliberately commits, he takes down a draught of deadly poison. In every lust which he
cherishes, he embraces a dagger and opens his bosom to destruction, he who likes the wages, let
him go about the work.
(R. South, D. D.)
Eternal life
J. Rigg.I. ITS NATURE. A life of —
1. Perfect immunity from all the sufferings and dangers to which we are here exposed.
2. Preeminent intellectual enjoyment — "Here we know in part," etc.
3. Social happiness.
4. Unspotted holiness.
5. Incessant activity.
6. Endless improvement.
II. THE FREENESS OF ITS DISPOSITION.
1. It cannot be purchased.
2. It is not the reward of merit.
3. It is everything; leading to it is the gift of God.The promises by which the believer is led to
expect it — the great change by which he has become entitled to it and qualified for its
enjoyment — the Lord Jesus, by whose merit eternal life was purchased — all these are gifts of
God.
III. THE MEDIUM THROUGH WHICH IT FLOWS.
1. For this end — to put men in possession of eternal life — the Redeemer was given; for this
purpose He laboured, suffered, instituted His gospel, and sent forth His ministers.
2. We should, however, do great injustice to this subject, were we not to observe that Christ died
—(1) To procure our pardon, in consequence of which the sentence of the law is reversed, and
believers freed from that death to which their crimes had exposed them.(2) To deliver us from a
state of moral death.(3) To secure our adoption into God's family, which entitles to this eternal
life.(4) To create in us that holiness of heart and life which makes us "meet to be partakers of the
inheritance of the saints in light."(5) To communicate that grace which enables us to lay hold on
eternal life.

(J. Rigg.)
Eternal life
Prof. Herrick Johnson.I. IS NOTWHOLLY IN THE FUTURE WORLD. This life begins here at
the moment of conversion, when the soul passes from death into life. He that hath the Son hath
life. The righteous do enter into life, become heirs of life, enjoy ante-pasts of the infinite fulness
which is to be hereafter revealed. These foretastes involve freedom from condemnation,
communion with God, and growing likeness to Him. The soul is divested of the fear of death,
and Christ fills the believer with His joy, and that joy is full. Satisfaction comes from what we
are, and not from what we get. I have seen homes of princely wealth which were but brilliantly
garnished sepulchres, their luxury a solemn mockery; and I have seen homes of poverty full of
the joy of God, the peace of the eternal life begun. It is false to conceive of the Christian life as a
joyless way of self-denial trod by us to purchase a bliss beyond.
II. IS THE SAME AND IS NOT THE SAME TO EVERY SAVED SOUL.
1. Heaven is not a sea of bliss in which each of us is to float in equal content. In heaven, as here,
there is an infinite variety. What a vast transition from an oyster to the leviathan! There is one
glory of the sun, another of the moon, another of the stars. The penitent thief is saved as truly as
Paul; but one has built on hay, wood, and stubble, and is "scarcely saved"; the other receives "an
entrance abundantly"; one gives the tag-end of a godless life to Christ and is "saved so as by
fire"; the other can say, "I have fought a good fight." The riches, joys, and capabilities of the
celestial life are measured by the service rendered; "to every man according to his works," "five
cities," or "ten cities," as the case may be. Secular papers often make merry about the statement
that "scaffold penitents" are received to heaven. It is true that grace does save such. But their
heaven is not Paul's heaven.
2. In three respects heaven is the same to all.(1) In freedom from sin. Harlots and murderers,
washed in the cleansing blood, are as free from defilement as angels. The malefactor is made as
pure as a babe.(2) In freedom from physical and mental pain and sorrow. There will be no
anxiety, distrust; no pang or grief.(3) No death. Perpetual freedom from all these is a common
blessing to all.
3. It may be objected that if one is wholly happy, according to his capacity, what matters it if
there be those of larger capacities than his? A snail is happy, I answer, so is a lark. Is there
nothing to choose between them? There is a short radius to a child's circumference of happiness.
A man has a thousand-fold larger scope. Is there no preference? The ear of one is satisfied with a
rude melody; another man is thrilled to the depths of his being by delicious harmonies. Is there
no preference? There is no room for question. What a contrast between one who is a single
remove from a laughing idiot, and an angel of God! We are to "seek for honour and glory," even
an entrance that shall be "administered abundantly."
III. IS INCREASINGLY GLORIOUS FOREVER. Memory shall lose nothing, the mind pervert
nothing, and the heart shall repel nothing. All that God has shall be spread out and open to us
forever in riches of grace inconceivable in their glory and infinitude. The possibilities of the soul
are beyond conception. God reveals Himself to the righteous through the ages, their capacities
ever enlarging and the reality forever increasing — joy, power, blessedness, beyond all thought!
These all are the gift of God, bought, and given to believers,
(Prof. Herrick Johnson.)

Eternal life
T. G. Horton.I. THE GIFT.
1. Life. Life, eternal life, and life everlasting, are very frequent designations of the salvation of
the gospel (John 17:1, 2). This life consists of —(1) A right state of affection and feeling toward
God, the Father of our spirits, combined with a happy consciousness of His love and favour
toward us. Where this life is, there is freedom from guilt.(2) A renewed state of the affections
and will: the law of God is approved, and the love of God is established in the heart, as its
supreme and governing motive.(3) Honour and happiness, the enjoyment of true pleasure,
derived from the purest sources of holiness, and love, and fellowship with heaven.(4) A blessed
activity of the soul, engaged in the worship and service of Jehovah. Where these exist, the soul
lives, fulfils its proper functions, answers the ends of its creation, and realises its most true and
noble bliss. We sometimes call this life integrity, which is wholeness or soundness of being:
sometimes rectitude, which is erectness and strength: and sometimes sanctity, which is
separatedness from evil and devotedness to God.
2. The epithet, "eternal."(1) This word denotes everlastingness of duration.(2) But where this is,
there must also be uncorruptedness or perfection of nature.(3) And where this perfection relates
to a spiritual creature like man, there must be incessancy of progress, or development.
II. ITS GRATUITOUS CHARACTER.
1. It is the gift of God, inasmuch as —(1) No man possesses it by nature.(2) No man could
procure it for himself.
2. We are to receive it as such, in simplicity of spirit and with grateful joy. And let us learn not to
look at anything in ourselves to justify our expectation of it: and let us not, when we find nothing
but demerit in ourselves, be disheartened, but believe that when we were fit only for everlasting
punishment, God stepped forward to grant unto us eternal life. This He has done from the
impulse of His own amazing generosity and love.
III. THE MEDIUM OF ITS BESTOWMENT.
1. God gives it to us through Jesus Christ, not in an arbitrary manner, but on the ground of what
He has done and suffered in our stead.
2. So, we accept it through Christ (1 John 5:11). Indeed, we may say that Jesus is our eternal life.
It is by being found in Him that we have pardon and holiness, happiness and heaven. When we
reach the celestial world, we shall find that there as well as here, Christ is "all in all."
(T. G. Horton.)
Eternal life a gift
R. S. Storrs, D. D.1. Men are so accustomed to the exchange of equivalents, that any other course
comes with an element of surprise. If the reward be not in the grosser form of money, or in that
which money can purchase, still it is true that one earns his wages. These may be the wages that
improved faculties would add — the reward of an approving conscience, of a sense of usefulness
— perhaps a sense of increased influence for good, by reason of that which has been faithfully
and unselfishly done; or in the very highest possible service of philosophic endeavour or
Christian duty. In all these there is that feeling of reward expected, because it has been earned.
The idea of a gift coming to one suddenly and undeserved he does not entertain, except as a
fiction, such as may amuse him as a daydream. And more than all is one surprised to find that he

is the recipient of such a gift from one unknown, or one to whom he has stood in the relation of
neglect, perhaps of hostility.
2. At the same time it is true that men are receiving gifts from another, where they cannot make
any return whatever. Everything that comes to us from the past is a gift. Individual minds have
toiled and studied, and we reap the fruits of their patience, skill, and success. We make the
lightning to run on our errands, and we take the vapour that lifts the lid of the kettle to propel the
mammoth ship across the sea, or the car which carries us over mountains, or sets in motion
thousands of factories all over our land. This we received from those to whom it came as an
inspiration of Providence, and an operation of intelligent, unwearied power. The institution of
society comes to us a grant from the past. We pay for our primary schooling; but for the great
thoughts of men who have lived, what returns can we make? What to any of the great
philosophers who brought us the laws and principles we possess? How shall we compensate the
artist whose gifts quicken our minds to higher perceptions of beauty, or the poet who sings us
into the Elysium of thought? There are still higher endowments that come to us from those whom
we only know by those impressions made upon us by their chivalric career, and to whom we can
make no more return than we by lighting matches can add to the splendour of the distant,
brilliant sun. So, if a man should say, "I expect only that which I have earned, and demand only
that which I have deserved and have properly acquired," and should that prayer be answered, he
would, today, be a beggared savage. Thus we see how many of the things which we enjoy have
come to us as gifts. And it is the desire of every noble, unselfish mind to carry on to the future
their beneficent influence that the coming generation may surpass the present,
3. Turn now to the things which come from God. For these many make no acknowledgments
whatever; while He continues to shower His gifts upon them. He gives life through Christ. The
life of the present is an undeserved gift. It is not the reward of our deserts. The faculties of mind,
all opportunities for enjoyment, and all inspirations of thought and effort — these are not earned
by us. No man can stand up and say, "I have done so and so, and God owes me that." God gives
the sunshine and the shower. They come, not because we deserve them. They come sometimes in
the face of protest. He gives the great inspirations of thought to man, and great deliverance to
nations from impending calamity. He gives to the individual soul all he possesses, and to society
all it has. This argument as to the right of the race to eternal life lies at the basis of our thought
this morning. The parallel in natural life is the same. No man has a right to exist in infancy. It is
the gift of God; and no man has earned the right to happiness in the present, and to hops in the
future. It is the gift of God. Eternal life, however, is the best gift of God. But it is a gift that
comes only on certain conditions. Sunshine requires the open eye, but a man may refuse to open
his eye; still it is God's gift. So we do not receive inspiration from any great mind, except as we
bring our mind into responsiveness to it. So we do not receive eternal life unless the conditions
are accepted with which God invests His gift — humble penitence for sin and faith in Christ. Sin
earns wages, but eternal life is the gift of God, as personal life is a bestowment: it crowns and
glorifies all others. Here is —
I. A SECRET OF THE CHRISTIAN'S UNREST. Life is not something to be earned. The soul of
the Christian who thus views it grows restless and troubled, like Galilee's waves, till the feet of
the Lord brought them to a level. It is dark, as was the mount, until the Lord rose, in the
luminous majesty of His presence, above it.
II. THE SECRET OF PEACE, in simply accepting this Divine gift from the source of infinite
compassion and grace. Sometimes this peace may come suddenly, filling the soul with glory;

sometimes it may come after long, weary searching for it; sometimes at the end of life; when the
light of life has almost gone out, as it flickers in the socket and speech falters, I say, "I can do
nothing; I take the gift of God!" Then comes "the peace which passeth all understanding."
III. THE BURDEN WHICH RESTS ON HIM WHO REJECTS ETERNAL LIFE. When one
comes to us with a great thought or a rare opportunity, and we turn away to a trivial theme, we
grieve him. Let us not thus treat God. Here is the gift of eternal life. Shall I put it aside as if it
were the merest summer breeze which by my hand I could arrest and push back into the air? I
may, as I may put aside sunshine itself, by shutting my eyes to it. The responsibility is mine.
IV. THE IMPULSE OF CHRISTIAN SERVICE. Freedom and gladness come from other gifts,
but here is the supreme one of all. When received by us, what service is too hard, what sacrifice
too vast, what worship too exultant! If this consciousness comes into our soul, then no sword or
stake can fright us, for our life is interlocked with heaven. The realisation of it dispels our
sorrows and forbids our tears.
V. THE SWEETNESS OF HEAVEN. Gratitude for God's gift impels every touch of the
heavenly harp. It gives the melody to every song, and joy to all the work of heaven.
(R. S. Storrs, D. D.)
Life in Christ
T. De Witt Talmage.A new convert said, "I could not sleep, thinking over that passage,
'Whosoever believeth on the Son hath life;' and so I got up, and lighted a candle, and found my
Bible, and read it over, 'Whosoever believeth on the Son hath life.'" "Why," says someone,
"didn't you know that was in the Bible before?" "Oh, yes," he replied, "I knew it was in the
Bible, but I wanted to see it with my own eyes, and then I rested."
(T. De Witt Talmage.)
The gift of GodI was out on the Pacific coast, in California, two or three years ago, and I was the
guest of a man that had a large vineyard and a large orchard. One day he said to me, "Moody,
whilst you are my guest, I want you to make yourself perfectly happy, and if there is anything in
the orchard or in the vineyard you would like, help yourself." Well, when I wanted an orange, I
did not go to an orange tree and pray the oranges to fall into my pocket, but I walked up to a tree,
reached out my hand, and took the oranges. He said, "Take," and I took. God says, "Take," and
you do it. God says, "There is My Son." "The wages of sin is death; the gift of God is eternal
life." Who will take it now?
Eternal life the gift of God
J. Bate.A man may as well think of buying light from the sun, or air from the atmosphere, or
water from the well spring, or minerals from the earth, or fish from the sea, etc., as think of
buying salvation from God with any kind of price. The sun gives his light, the atmosphere its air,
the well spring its water, the earth its minerals, the sea its fish; all man has to do is to take them
and use them. So God has given salvation to man. All he has to do is to use it, in the use of
means, and enjoy it.
(J. Bate.).

COMMENTARIES
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(23) The gift of God.—The natural antithesis would
be “wages;” but this would here be inappropriate, and therefore the Apostle substitutes “the free
gift.” In spite of your sanctification as Christians, still you will not have earned eternal life; it is
the gift of God’s grace.
Benson CommentaryHYPERLINK "/romans/6-23.htm"Romans 6:23. For the wages of sin is
death — “The word οψωνια, rendered wages, properly signifies the food and pay which generals
give to their soldiers for their service. By using this term, the apostle shows what sort of pay the
usurper, sin, gives to those who serve under his banners. Further, as the sin here spoken of is that
which men commit personally, and which they continue in, the death which is the wages of this
kind of sin must be death eternal. It is observable, that although in Scripture the expression,
eternal life, is often to be met with, we nowhere find eternal joined with death. Yet the
punishment of the wicked is said to be eternal. Matthew 25:46;” (Macknight;) as also in many
other passages. But the gift of God — Greek, χαρισμα, the free gift, or gift of grace; is eternal
life — Or, eternal life is the free gift of God. “The apostle does not call everlasting life οψωνια,
the wages which God gives to his servants, because they do not merit it by their services, as the
slaves of sin merit death by theirs: but he calls it a free gift, or gift of grace; or, as Estius would
render the expression, a donative; because, being freely bestowed, it may be compared to the
donatives which the Roman generals, of their own good- will, bestowed on their soldiers as a
mark of their favour.” We may now see the apostle’s method thus far: — 1st, Bondage to sin,
Romans 3:9. 2d, The knowledge of sin by the law, a sense of God’s wrath, inward death,
Romans 3:20. 3d, The revelation of the righteousness of God in Christ, through the gospel,
Romans 3:21. 4th, The centre of all faith, embracing that righteousness, Romans 3:22. 5th,
Justification, whereby God forgives all past sin, and freely accepts the sinner, Romans 3:24. 6th,
The gift of the Holy Ghost, a sense of God’s love, new inward life, Romans 5:5; Romans 6:4.
7th, The free service of righteousness, Romans 6:23.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary6:21-23 The pleasure and profit of sin do not deserve to
be called fruit. Sinners are but ploughing iniquity, sowing vanity, and reaping the same. Shame
came into the world with sin, and is still the certain effect of it. The end of sin is death. Though
the way may seem pleasant and inviting, yet it will be bitterness in the latter end. From this
condemnation the believer is set at liberty, when made free from sin. If the fruit is unto holiness,
if there is an active principle of true and growing grace, the end will be everlasting life; a very
happy end! Though the way is up-hill, though it is narrow, thorny, and beset, yet everlasting life
at the end of it is sure. The gift of God is eternal life. And this gift is through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Christ purchased it, prepared it, prepares us for it, preserves us to it; he is the All in all in
our salvation.
Barnes' Notes on the BibleFor the wages of sin - The word translated here "wages" ὀψώνια
opsōnia properly denotes what is purchased to be eaten with bread, as fish, flesh, vegetables, etc.
(Schleusner); and thence, it means the pay of the Roman soldier, because formerly it was the
custom to pay the soldier in these things. It means hence, what a man earns or deserves; what is
his proper pay, or what he merits. As applied to sin, it means that death is what sin deserves;
what will be its proper reward. Death is thus called the wages of sin, not because it is an
arbitrary, undeserved appointment, but

(1) Because it is its proper desert. Not a pain will be inflicted on the sinner which he does not
deserve. Not a sinner will die who ought not to die. Sinners even in hell will be treated just as
they deserve to be treated; and there is not to man a more fearful and terrible consideration than
this. No man can conceive a more dreadful doom than for himself to be treated forever just as he
deserves to be. But,
(2) This is the wages of sin, because, like the pay of the soldier, it is just what was threatened,
Ezekiel 18:4, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." God will not inflict anything more than was
threatened, and therefore it is just.
Is death - This stands opposed here to eternal life, and proves that one is just as enduring as the
other.
But the gift of God - Not the wages of man; not what is due to him; but the mere gift and mercy
of God. The apostle is careful to distinguish, and to specify thai this is not what man deserves,
but what is gratuitously conferred on him; Note, Romans 6:15.
Eternal life - The same words which in Romans 6:22 are rendered "everlasting life." The phrase
is opposed to death; and proves incontestably that that means eternal death. We may remark,
therefore,
(1) That the one will be as long as the other.
(2) as there is no doubt about the duration of life, so there can be none about the duration of
death. The one will be rich, blessed, everlasting; the other sad, gloomy, lingering, awful, eternal.
(3) if the sinner is lost, he will deserve to die. He will have his reward. He will suffer only what
shall be the just due of sin. He will not be a martyr in the cause of injured innocence. He will not
have the compassion of the universe in his favor. He will have no one to take his part against
God. He will suffer just as much, and just as long, as he ought to suffer. He will suffer as the
culprit pines in the dungeon, or as the murderer dies on the gibbet, because this is the proper
reward of sin.
(4) they who are saved will be raised to heaven, not because they merit it, but by the rich and
sovereign grace of God. All their salvation will be ascribed to him; and they will celebrate his
mercy and grace forever.
(5) it becomes us, therefore, to flee from the wrath to come. No man is so foolish and so wicked
as he who is willing to reap the proper wages of sin. None so blessed as he who has part in the
mercy of God, and who lays hold on eternal life.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary23. For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God
is eternal life through—"in"
Jesus Christ our Lord—This concluding verse—as pointed as it is brief—contains the marrow,
the most fine gold, of the Gospel. As the laborer is worthy of his hire, and feels it to be his due—
his own of right—so is death the due of sin, the wages the sinner has well wrought for, his own.
But "eternal life" is in no sense or degree the wages of our righteousness; we do nothing
whatever to earn or become entitled to it, and never can: it is therefore, in the most absolute
sense, "THE GIFT OF God." Grace reigns in the bestowal of it in every case, and that "in Jesus
Christ our Lord," as the righteous Channel of it. In view of this, who that hath tasted that the
Lord is gracious can refrain from saying, "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins

in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father, to Him be glory
and dominion for ever and ever. Amen!" (Re 1:5, 6).
Note, (1) As the most effectual refutation of the oft-repeated calumny, that the doctrine of
Salvation by grace encourages to continue in sin, is the holy life of those who profess it, let such
ever feel that the highest service they can render to that Grace which is all their hope, is to "yield
themselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and their members instruments of
righteousness unto God" (Ro 6:12, 13). By so doing they will "put to silence the ignorance of
foolish men," secure their own peace, carry out the end of their calling, and give substantial glory
to Him that loved them. (2) The fundamental principle of Gospel obedience is as original as it is
divinely rational; that "we are set free from the law in order to keep it, and are brought graciously
under servitude to the law in order to be free" (Ro 6:14, 15, 18). So long as we know no principle
of obedience but the terrors of the law, which condemns all the breakers of it, and knows nothing
whatever of grace, either to pardon the guilty or to purify the stained, we are shut up under a
moral impossibility of genuine and acceptable obedience: whereas when Grace lifts us out of this
state, and through union to a righteous Surety, brings us into a state of conscious reconciliation,
and loving surrender of heart to a God of salvation, we immediately feel the glorious liberty to be
holy, and the assurance that "Sin shall not have dominion over us" is as sweet to our renewed
tastes and aspirations as the ground of it is felt to be firm, "because we are not under the Law,
but under Grace." (3) As this most momentous of all transitions in the history of a man is wholly
of God's free grace, the change should never be thought, spoken, or written of but with lively
thanksgiving to Him who so loved us (Ro 6:17). (4) Christians, in the service of God, should
emulate their former selves in the zeal and steadiness with which they served sin, and the length
to which they went in it (Ro 6:19). (5) To stimulate this holy rivalry, let us often "look back to
the rock whence we were hewn, the hole of the pit whence we were digged," in search of the
enduring advantages and permanent satisfactions which the service of Sin yielded; and when we
find to our "shame" only gall and wormwood, let us follow a godless life to its proper "end,"
until, finding ourselves in the territories of "death," we are fain to hasten back to survey the
service of Righteousness, that new Master of all believers, and find Him leading us sweetly into
abiding "holiness," and landing us at length in "everlasting life" (Ro 6:20-22). (6) Death and life
are before all men who hear the Gospel: the one, the natural issue and proper reward of sin; the
other, the absolutely free "GIFT OF God" to sinners, "in Jesus Christ our Lord." And as the one
is the conscious sense of the hopeless loss of all blissful existence, so the other is the conscious
possession and enjoyment of all that constitutes a rational creature's highest "life" for evermore
(Ro 6:23). Ye that read or hear these words, "I call heaven and earth to record this day against
you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore choose life, that
both thou and thy seed may live!" (De 30:19).
Matthew Poole's Commentary q.d. Now therefore compare the office of both these services
together, and you shall easily see which master is best to serve and obey; the wages that sin will
pay you, in the end is death; but the reward that God will freely bestow upon you (if you be his
servants)
is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Wages; the word properly signifies victuals. The Romans of old paid their soldiers with
provision and victuals in recompence of their service; afterward they gave them money, but still
the old term was retained, and now it is used to signify any reward or stipend whatsoever.

Is death: by death here we must understand not only temporal, but also and more especially
eternal death, as appears by the opposition it hath to eternal life: this is the just and true hire of
sin.
The gift of God is eternal life; he doth not say that eternal life is the wages of righteousness, but
that it is the gracious or free gift of God. He varies the phrase on purpose, to show that we attain
not eternal life by our own merits, our own works or worthiness, but by the gift or grace of God;
for which cause he also addeth,
through Jesus Christ our Lord. See Aug. lib. de Gratia et Libero Arbitrio, c. 9. Let the papists (if
they can) reconcile this text to their distinction of mortal and venial sins, and to their doctrine of
the meritoriousness of good works.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire BibleFor the wages of sin is death,.... By sin, is meant every sin,
original sin, actual sin, every kind of sin, lesser and greater: the "death" which sin deserves, is a
corporeal death; which is not owing to the original nature and constitution of men; nor merely to
the divine appointment; but to sin, and the decree of God, on account of it; which is inflicted on
Christless sinners, as a punishment for sin, though not on believers as such, because Christ has
took away the sting and curse of it: a death of diseases and afflictions also follows upon sin, as
its proper demerit; which are properly punishments to wicked men, and are occasioned by sin in
believers: there is a death of the soul, which comes by sin, which lies in an alienation from God,
in a loss of the image of God, and in a servitude to sin; and there is an eternal death, the just
wages of sin, which lies in a separation of soul and body from God, and in a sense of divine
wrath to all eternity; and which is here meant, as is clear from its antithesis, "eternal life", in the
next clause. Now this is "the wages" of sin; sin does in its own nature produce it, and excludes
from life; it is the natural issue of it; sin is committed against an infinite God, and righteously
deserves such a death; it is its just wages by law. The Greek word signifies soldiers' wages; see
Luke 3:14 and in
"At which time Simon rose up, and fought for his nation, and spent much of his own substance,
and armed the valiant men of his nation and gave them wages,'' (1 Maccabees 14:32)
Sin is represented as a king, a mighty monarch, a tyrannical prince; sinners are his subjects and
vassals, his servants and soldiers, who fight under him, and for him, and all the wages they must
expect from him is death. So the word is interpreted in the Glossary, , "soldiers' wages"; and so it
is used by the Jewish writers, being adopted into their language; of a king, they say (a), that he
should not multiply to himself gold and silver more than to pay which they (b) interpret by , "the
hire of armies", or the wages of soldiers for a whole year, who go in and out with him all the
year; so that it denotes wages due, and paid after a campaign is ended, and service is over; and,
as here used, suggests, that when men have been all their days in the service of sin, and have
fought under the banners of it, the wages they will earn, and the reward that will be given them,
will be death: and it is frequently observed by the Jewish doctors (c), that , "there is no death
without sin": sin is the cause of death, and death the fruit and effect of sin:
but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. These words, at first sight, look
as if the sense of them was, that eternal life is the gift of God through Christ, which is a great and
glorious truth of the Gospel; but their standing in opposition to the preceding words require
another sense, namely, that God's gift of grace issues in eternal life, through Christ: wherefore by

"the gift of God" is not meant eternal life, but either the gift of a justifying righteousness, or the
grace of God in regeneration and sanctification, or both, which issue in eternal life; the one is the
saints' right and title, the other their meetness for it: so that as death is the wages of sin, and is
what that issues in, and brings unto, eternal life is the effect of grace, or what the grace of God in
justifying and sanctifying his people issues in; even a life free from all sorrow and imperfection;
a life of the utmost perfection and pleasure, and which will last for ever: and as the grace of God,
which justifies and sanctifies them, is "through Christ", so is the eternal life itself which it brings
unto: this is in Christ, comes through his righteousness, sufferings, and death; is bestowed by
him, and will greatly consist in the enjoyment of him. All grace is the gift of God, and is freely
given, or otherwise it would not be grace; particularly the justifying righteousness of Christ is the
gift of God; and the rather this may be meant here, since the apostle had been treating of it so
largely before, and had so often, in the preceding chapter, called it the gift of righteousness, the
free gift, and gift by grace, and justification by it, the justification of life, because it entitles to
eternal life, as here: it may be said to issue in it; for between justification and glorification there
is a sure and close connection; they that are justified by the righteousness of Christ, are certainly
glorified, or enjoy eternal life; and though this may be principally intended here, yet is not to be
understood to the exclusion of other gifts of grace, which have the same connection and issue:
thus, for instance, faith is the gift of God, and not of a man's self, and he that has it, has eternal
life, and shall, Or ever possess it; repentance is a free grace gift, it is a grant from the Lord, and it
is unto life and salvation; and on whomsoever the grace of God is bestowed, so as to believe in
Christ for righteousness, and truly repent of sin, these shall partake of eternal glory. It may be
observed, that there is a just proportion between sin, and the wages of it, yet there is none
between eternal life, and the obedience of men; and therefore though the apostle had been
pressing so much obedience to God, and to righteousness, he does not make eternal life to be the
fruit and effect of obedience, but of the gift of the grace of God.
(a) Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 2. sect. 4. (b) Jarchi & Bartenora in ib. Vid. Cohen de Lara, Ir. David, p.
17. (c) T. Bab. Sabbat, fol. 55. 1. Vajikra Rabba, parash. 37. fol. 176. 3. Midrash Kohelet, fol.
70. 4. Zohar in Gen. fol. 44. 4. Tzeror Hammor, fol. 115. 1.
Geneva Study Bible{11} For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through
Jesus Christ our Lord.
(11) Death is the punishment due to sin, but we are sanctified freely, to everlasting life.
EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)
Meyer's NT CommentaryHYPERLINK "/romans/6-23.htm"Romans 6:23. Τὰ ὀψώνια] the
wages. Comp 1 Corinthians 9:7; Luke 3:14. ὈΨΏΝΙΟΝ ΚΥΡΊΩς ΛΈΓΕΤΑΙ ΤῸ ΤΟῖς
ΣΤΡΑΤΙΏΤΑΙς ΠΑΡᾺ ΤΟῦ ΒΑΣΙΛΈΩς ΔΕΔΟΜΈΝΟΝ ΣΙΤΗΡΈΣΙΟΝ, Theophylact. Comp
Photius, 367. See Lobeck, a[1500] Phryn. p. 420. The plural, more usual than the singular, is
explained by the various elements that constituted the original natural payments, and by the coins
used in the later money wages.
The wages which sin gives stands in reference to Romans 6:13, where the ἁμαρτία is presented
as a ruler, to whom the subjects tender their members as weapons, for which they receive their
allowance!
θάνατος] as in Romans 6:22.

ΤῸ ΔῈ ΧΆΡΙΣΜΑ Τ. ΘΕΟῦ] Paul does not say ΤᾺ ὈΨΏΝΙΑ here also (“vile verbum,”
Erasmus), but characterizes what God gives for wages as what it is in its specific nature—a gift
of grace, which is no ἀντιταλαντεύεσθαι (Theodoret). To the Apostle, in the connection of his
system of faith and doctrine, this was very natural, even without the supposition of any special
design (in order—it has been suggested—to afford no encouragement to pride of virtue or to
confiding in one’s own merit).
ἘΝ ΧΡΙΣΤῷ Κ.Τ.Λ[1501]] In Christ is the causal basis, that the χάρισμα τ. Θεοῦ is eternal life; a
triumphant conclusion as in Romans 5:21; comp Romans 8:39.
[1500] d refers to the note of the commentator or editor named on the particular passage.
[1501] .τ.λ. καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
Expositor's Greek TestamentHYPERLINK "/romans/6-23.htm"Romans 6:23. The γὰρ introduces
the general truth of which what has been said of the Romans in Romans 6:21 f. is an illustration.
“All this is normal and natural, for the wages of sin is death,” etc. ὀψώνια 1Ma 3:28; 1Ma 14:32.
The idea of a warfare (see ὅπλα, Romans 6:13) is continued. The soldier’s pay who enlists in the
service of sin is death. τὸ δὲ χάρισμα: but the free gift, etc. The end in God’s service is not of
debt, but of grace. Tertullian (quoted in S. and H.) renders χάρισμα here donativum (the largess
given by the emperor to soldiers on a New Year’s Day or birthday), keeping on the military
association; but Paul could hardly use what is almost a technical expression with himself in a
technical sense quite remote from his own. On ζωὴ αἰώνιος ἐν Χ. Ἰ. τῷ κυρίῳ ἡμῶν, see on
Romans 5:21.
Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges23. For] The “for” refers to the last statement. The
verse may be paraphrased, “For whereas the wages of sin is death, the gift of God is, as we have
now said, eternal life.”
wages] The Gr. is same word as Luke 3:14; 1 Corinthians 9:7; 2 Corinthians 11:8. It strictly
denotes pay for military service; and the metaphor here therefore points not to slavery so much
as to the warfare of Romans 6:13 (where see note on weapons). The word is full of pregnant
truth. Death, in its most awful sense, is no more than the reward and result of sin; and sin is
nothing less than a conflict against God.
gift] The Gr. is same word as free gift, ch. Romans 5:15.—This word here is, so to speak, a
paradox. We should have expected one which would have represented life eternal as the issue of
holiness, to balance the truth that death is the issue of sin. And in respect of holiness being the
necessary preliminary to the future bliss, this would have been entirely true. But St Paul here all
the more forcibly presses the thought that salvation is a gift wholly apart from human merit. The
eternal Design, the meritorious Sacrifice, the life-giving and love-imparting Spirit, all alike are a
Gift absolutely free. The works of sin are the procuring cause of Death; the course of
sanctification is not the procuring cause of Life Eternal, but only the training for the enjoyment
of what is essentially a Divine gift “in Jesus Christ our Lord.”
through] Lit., and better, in. The “life eternal” is to be found only “in Him,” by those who “come
to Him.” His work is the one meritorious cause; and in His hands also is the actual gift. (John
17:2-3).

Bengel's GnomenHYPERLINK "/romans/6-23.htm"Romans 6:23. Τὰ, τὸ) The mark of the
subject.—ὀψώνια—χάρισμα, wages—gift) Bad works earn their own proper pay; not so, good
works; for the former obtain wages, the latter a gift: ὀψώνια, wages, in the plural: χάρισμα, a
gift, in the singular, with a stronger force.
Vincent's Word StudiesWages (ὀψώνια)
From ὄψον cooked meat, and later, generally, provisions. At Athens especially fish. Hence
ὀψώνιον is primarily provision-money, and is used of supplies for an army, see 1 Corinthians
9:7. The figure of Romans 6:13 is carried out: Sin, as a Lord to whom they tender weapons and
who pays wages.
Death
"Sin pays its serfs by punishing them. Its wages is death, and the death for which its counters are
available is the destruction of the weal of the soul" (Morison).
Gift (χάρισμα)
Rev., rightly, free gift (compare Romans 5:15). In sharp contrast with wages.
PRECEPT AUSTIN RESOURCES
BRUCE HURT MD
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Lord. (NASB: Lockman)
Greek: ta gar opsonia tes hamartias thanatos to de charisma tou theou zHYPERLINK
"http://www.studylight.org/lex/grk/view.cgi?number=2222"oe aionios en Christo Iesou to
kurio hemon.
Amplified: For the wages which sin pays is death, but the [bountiful] free gift of God is
eternal life through (in union with) Jesus Christ our Lord. (Amplified Bible - Lockman)
NET: For the payoff of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our
Lord.
Phillips: Sin pays its servants: the wage is death. But God gives to those who serve him:
his free gift is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Phillips: Touchstone)
Wuest: But the free gift of God is life eternal in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Eerdmans)
Young's Literal: for the wages of the sin is death, and the gift of God is life age-during
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
FOR THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH: ta gar opsonia tes hamartias thanatos:

• Ro 5:12; Ge 2:17; 3:19; Isa 3:11; Ezekiel 18:4,20; 1Cor 6:9,10; Gal 3:10; Gal 6:7,8; Jas
1:15; Rev 21:8
For - Introduces an explanation and refers us back to Paul's last statement in Ro 6:22.
Denney - For introduces the general truth of which what has been said of the Romans in Ro
6:21ff is an illustration. "All this is normal and natural, for the wages of sin is death." (The
Expositor's Greek Testament)
The Reformation Study Bible notes that "The triple contrast of wages, sin, and death, with gift,
God, and eternal life, brings Paul’s argument to a memorable focus. (Whitlock, L. G., Sproul, R.
C., Waltke, B. K., & Silva, M. Reformation Study Bible. 1995. Thomas Nelson)
MacDonald express this truth slightly different observing that...
The apostle summarizes the subject by presenting these vivid contrasts:
Two masters—sin and God.
Two methods—wages and free gift.
Two aftermaths—death and eternal life.
Notice that eternal life is in a Person, and that Person is Christ Jesus our Lord. All who are in
Christ have eternal life. It’s as simple as that! (Believer's Bible Commentary (Bolding added)
Wages (3800) (opsonion from ópson = cooked meat + onéomai = buy) whatever is bought to be
eaten with bread. It meant rations for a soldier and so his stipend or pay. At Athens it meant
"fish." It came to mean the "provision-money" which Rome gave its soldiers.
The wages paid by sin. Death can be "earned". Eternal life is God’s gift.
Some see this allusion to wages as a continuation of the metaphor of warfare (Ro 6:13) for
Roman soldiers received wages for serving their Emperor. Christian's have an "Emperor" to
Whom we owe our allegiance and from Whom we receive gifts by virtue of His grace, not our
merit.
As the Roman soldier received provision-money with which to sustain life so that he could fight
and die for Caesar, so the unsaved receive provision-money from sin, spiritual death, so that they
can serve it, then physical death, and final banishment from the presence of God for all eternity.
Moule - The Greek is same word as Luke 3:14; 1Co 9:7; 2Co 11:8. It strictly denotes pay for
military service; and the metaphor here therefore points not to slavery so much as to the warfare
of Ro 6:13. The word is full of pregnant truth. Death, in its most awful sense, is no more than the
reward and result of sin; and sin is nothing less than a conflict against God. (The Epistle of Paul
the Apostle to the Romans)
• Wages - Baker's Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology
• Wages - Holman Bible Dictionary
• Wages - Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
• Wages - Vine's Expository Dictionary of NT Words
• Wages - International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Opsonion is found 4x in 4v in the NAS...

Luke 3:14 And some soldiers were questioning him, saying, "And what about us, what shall we
do?" And he said to them, "Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely,
and be content with your wages."
Comment: Luke uses opsonion with its literal meaning as a military technical term for what is
appointed to soldiers to buy food commonly known as ration (money), allowance, or more
generally as subsistence pay, wages, expense money . Thayer adds that opsonion referred to
"grain, meat, fruits, salt, (that) were given to soldiers instead of pay (Caesar b. g. 1, 23, 1;
Polybius 1, 66f; 3, 13, 8), opsonion began to signify: 1. universally, a soldier's pay, allowance
(Polybius 6, 39, 12; Dionysius Halicarnassus, Antiquities 9, 36)"
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus
our Lord.
1 Corinthians 9:7 Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a
vineyard, and does not eat the fruit of it? Or who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the
flock?
2 Corinthians 11:8 I robbed other churches, taking wages from them to serve you;
Thayer adds that wages (opsonion) in Paul's day referred to "whatever is bought to be eaten with
bread, as fish, flesh. Corn, meat, fruits, salt, were given the soldiers instead of pay. That part of a
soldier’s support given him in place of pay (i.e., rations) and the money in which he is paid
Wuest adds that "Paul used a military term hopla (see word study), the weapons of a Greek foot
soldier, translated “instruments” (see note Romans 6:13). Now, he uses the illustration of a
soldier’s wages. The battle is between Satan’s hosts of wickedness and the people of God. The
wage that Satan doles out is death. (Wuest's Word Studies from the Greek New Testament:
Eerdmans)
The IVP Background Commentary has an interesting note on wages explaining that "Slaves
could and often did receive some “wages.” Although the slave’s owner legally owned the slave’s
possessions, the slave could use this property or money (called a peculium), sometimes even to
purchase freedom. That such wages were normally a positive symbol makes Paul’s words here
all the more striking. (Keener, Craig: The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament.
1994. IVP)
Warren Wiersbe makes an excellent point - "We quote this verse as we witness to the lost, and
rightly so; but Paul wrote it originally to believers. Although God forgives the sins of His
children, He may not stop the painful consequences of sin. The pleasures of sin are never
compensated for by the wages of sin. Sinning is not worth it! (Wiersbe, W. W. With the Word :
The Chapter-by-Chapter Bible Handbook Nashville: Thomas Nelson)
William Newell explains that "Death, as we read in Romans 6:23, is the wages of sin. Men.
speak of it lightly. But it is indeed "the king of terrors" for the natural man (Job 18:14). A well-
known writer says: "Man finds in Death an end to every hope, to every project, to all his
thoughts and plans. The busy scene in which his whole life has been, knows him no more. His
nature has given way, powerless to resist this master (death) to which it belongs, and who now
asserts his dreadful rights. But this is far from being all. Man indeed, as man alive in this world,
sinks down into nothing. But why? Sin has come in; with sin, conscience; with sin, Satan's
power; still more with sin, God's judgment. Death is the expression and witness of all this. It is
the wages of sin, terror to the conscience, Satan's power over us, for he has the power of death

(See notes Hebrews 2:14; Hebrews 2:15). Can God help here? Alas, it is His own judgment on
sin. Death seems but as the proof that sin does not pass unnoticed, and is the terror and plague of
the conscience, as witness of God's judgment, the officer of justice to the criminal, and the proof
of his guilt in the presence of coming judgment. How can it but be terrible? It is the seal upon the
fall and ruin and condemnation of the first Adam. And he has nothing but this old nature.
(Romans 6)
BUT THE FREE GIFT OF GOD IS ETERNAL LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD: to
de charisma tou theou zoe aionios en Christo Iesou to kurio hemon:
• Ro 2:7; 5:17,21; Jn 3:14, 15, 16, 17,36; 4:14; 5:24,39,40; 6:27,32,33,40,50, 51, 52, 53,
54, 55, 56, 57, 58; Jn 6:68; 10:28; 17:2; Titus 1:2; 1Pet 1:3,4; 1Jn 2:25; 5:11,12)
H C G Moule - “Is life worth living?” Yes, infinitely well worth, for the living man who has
surrendered to “the Lord that bought him.” Outside that ennobling captivity, that invigorating
while most genuine bond service, the life of man is at best complicated and tired with a
bewildered quest, and gives results at best abortive, matched with the ideal purposes of such a
being. We “present ourselves to God,” for His ends, as implements, vassals, willing bondmen;
and lo, our own end is attained. Our life has settled, after its long friction, into gear. Our root,
after hopeless explorations in the dust, has struck at last the stratum where the immortal water
makes all things live, and grow, and put forth fruit for heaven. The heart, once dissipated
between itself and the world, is now “united” to the will, to the love, of God; and understands
itself, and the world, as never before; and is able to deny self and to serve others in a new and
surprising freedom. The man, made willing to be nothing but the tool and bondman of God, “has
his fruit” at last; bears the true product of his now recreated being, pleasant to the Master’s eye,
and fostered by His air and sun. And this “fruit” issues, as acts issue in habit, in the glad
experience of a life really sanctified, really separated in ever deeper inward reality, to a holy will.
And the “end” of the whole glad possession, is “life eternal.”
Those great words here signify, surely, the coming bliss of the sons of the resurrection, when at
last in their whole perfected being they will “live” all through, with a joy and energy as
inexhaustible as its Fountain, and unencumbered at last and forever by the conditions of our
mortality. To that vast future, vast in its scope yet all concentrated round the fact that “we shall
be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is,” the Apostle here looks onward. He will say more of
it, and more largely, later, in the eighth chapter. But as with other themes so with this, he
preludes with a few glorious chords the great strain soon to come. He takes the Lord’s slave by
the hand, amidst his present tasks and burdens, (dear tasks and burdens, because the Master’s,
but still full of the conditions of earth,) and he points upward — not to a coming manumission in
glory; the man would be dismayed to foresee that; he wants to “serve forever”; — but to a scene
of service in which the last remainders of hindrance to its action will be gone, and a perfected
being will forever, perfectly, be not its own, and so will perfectly live in God. And this, so he
says to his fellow servant, to you and to me, is “the gift of God”; a grant as free, as generous, as
ever King gave vassal here below. And it is to be enjoyed as such, by a being which, living
wholly for Him, will freely and purely exult to live wholly on Him, in the heavenly places.
Yet surely the bearing of the sentences is not wholly upon heaven. Life eternal, so to be
developed hereafter that Scripture speaks of it often as it began hereafter, really begins here, and
develops here, and is already “more abundant” (John 10:10) here. It is, as to its secret and also its
experience, to know and to enjoy God, to be possessed by Him, and used for His will. In this
respect it is “the end,” the issue and the goal, now and perpetually, of the surrender of the soul.

The Master meets that attitude with more and yet more of Himself, known, enjoyed, possessed,
possessing. And so He gives, evermore gives, out of His sovereign bounty, life eternal to the
bondservant who has embraced the fact that he is nothing, and has nothing, outside his Master.
Not at the outset of the regenerate life only, and not only when it issues into the heavenly ocean,
but all along the course, the life eternal is still “the free gift of God.” Let us now, today,
tomorrow, and always, open the lips of surrendering and obedient faith, and drink it in,
abundantly, and yet more abundantly. And let us use it for the Giver. We are already, here on
earth, at its very springs; so the Apostle reminds us. For it is “in Jesus Christ our Lord”; and we,
believing, are in Him, “saved in His life.” It is in Him; nay, it is He. “I am the Life”; “He that
hath the Son, hath the life.” Abiding in Christ, we live “because He liveth.” It is not to be
“attained”; it is given, it is our own. In Christ, it is given, in its divine fulness, as to covenant
provision, here, now, from the first, to every Christian. In Christ, it is supplied, as to its fulness
and fitness for each arising need, as the Christian asks, receives, and uses for his Lord. So from,
or rather in, our holy bond service the Apostle has brought us to our inexhaustible life, and its
resources for willing holiness. (Commentary on Romans)
But (term of contrast) Introduces the gracious, glorious contrast.
Free gift (5486) (charisma [word study] from charis = grace + the ending -ma which indicates
the result of something, in this case the result of grace) means a “gift of grace” or “free gift,” and
in sixteen of its seventeen New Testament uses is connected to God as the Giver. Charisma
emphasizes the freeness of the gift.
James Denney - Tertullian renders charisma here donativum (Latin for "the largess given by the
emperor to soldiers on a New Year's Day or birthday"), keeping on the military association.
You can work for Sin ( the Sin principle or propensity inherited from Adam) but it is a cruel
master. When it pays you off, its wage is death—separation from God forever. In stark contrast,
God does not pay wages. He has a free gift to offer—eternal life. There is nothing that one can
do to earn this gift. If one could earn it, it would not be a gift; it would be wages. Eternal life is
just that—eternal—it never ceases.
Moule writes that "free gift" "is same word as free gift, Ro 5:15.—This word here is, so to speak,
a paradox. We should have expected one which would have represented life eternal as the issue
of holiness, to balance the truth. that death is the issue of sin. And in respect of holiness being the
necessary preliminary to the future bliss, this would have been entirely true. But St Paul here all
the more forcibly presses the thought that salvation is a gift wholly apart from human merit. The
eternal Design, the meritorious Sacrifice, the life-giving and love-imparting Spirit, all alike are a
Gift absolutely free. The works of sin are the procuring cause of Death; the course of
sanctification is not the procuring cause of Life Eternal, but only the training for the enjoyment
of what is essentially a Divine gift "in Jesus Christ our Lord."
Eternal life - Not only a future promise but a present possession.
Moule - The "life eternal" is to be found only "in Him," by those who " come to Him." His work
is the one meritorious cause; and in His hands also is the actual gift. (Jn 17:3)
In Christ Jesus - Our life is not in a principle but in a Person. (See discussion of in Christ)
Lord (master, owner)(2962) (kurios [word study]) conveys the basic sense of one who is
another's owner, possessor or master. The main sense of kurios is that of a supreme one, one
who is sovereign and possesses absolute authority, absolute ownership and uncontested power.

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