For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
For the wages, х opsoonia (G3800)]. The word signifies military supplies, 'pay' in kind rather than money [the plural usage is late]
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 labourer 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 worked 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 forever and ever" (Revelation 1:5-6).
Remarks:
(1) Antinomianism (as Hodge says) is not only an error, it is a falsehood and a slander, when represented as the natural tendency of the Gospel doctrine of Gratuitous Justification. That "we should continue in sin, that grace may abound," not only is never the deliberate sentiment of any real believer in the doctrine of Grace, but is abhorrent to every Christian mind, as a monstrous abuse of the most glorious of all truths.
(2) As the death of Christ is not only the expiation of guilt, but the death of sin itself in all who are vitally united to Him, so the resurrection of Christ is the resurrection of believers, not only to acceptance with God, but to newness of life; and by these principles should all who name the name of Christ examine themselves whether they be in the faith.
(3) 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" (Romans 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.
(4) 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.' 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."
(5) 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, as in Romans 6:17.
(6) 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. 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."
(7) 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" forevermore (Romans 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!" (Deuteronomy 30:19.)