Romans 6:23

DISCOURSE: 1850
MAN’S DESERT, AND GOD’S MERCY

Romans 6:23. The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

THE distribution of rewards and punishments in the day of judgment will be in perfect agreement with the works of men; the righteous will be exalted to happiness; the wicked be doomed to misery. The Gospel makes no difference with respect to this: it provides relief for the penitent, but rather aggravates than removes the condemnation of the impenitent. But it opens to us an important fact: namely, that the punishment of the ungodly is the proper fruit and deserved recompence of their own works: whereas the reward bestowed upon the godly is a free unmerited gift of God for Christ’s sake. The Apostle has been shewing, throughout this whole chapter, that the Gospel increases, instead of relaxing, our obligation to good works; and that it will avail for the salvation of those only who “have their fruit unto holiness:” but in the text he assures us, that they who are saved will be saved by mere grace; whereas they who perish will perish utterly through their own demerit.
In the words before us, we have a short, but accurate, description of,

I. Man’s desert—

By “death,” we must understand everlasting misery—
[It is a truth that temporal death was introduced by sin: but that cannot be the whole that is meant by the Apostle in the text, because the “death” procured by sin stands in direct opposition to the “life” which is bestowed by God, which is expressly said to be “eternal.” By “death” therefore we understand an everlasting banishment from God’s presence, together with a “suffering of his vengeance in eternal fire.”]
This is the penalty that is due to sin—
[It is in vain that people endeavour to soften down the expressions of Scripture upon this subject, and to substitute annihilation for misery. Our blessed Lord, in his account of the judgment-day, declares that he himself, as the Judge of quick and dead, will doom the wicked to a participation of the misery inflicted on the fallen angels, and that their punishment shall be of the very same duration with the happiness of the righteous [Note: Matthew 25:41; Matthew 25:46. See also Mark 9:43.].

Nor is this more than the real desert of sin. The word we translate “wages,” means “provisions [Note: ὀψώνια.],” which in the earlier part of the Roman empire constituted the only pay of soldiers: and it must be confessed that a soldier’s pay, at the best, is but a very moderate compensation for the dangers and fatigues of war: his wages are certainly no higher than justice demands. Thus the penal evil of damnation is no more than a just recompence for the moral evil of sin: it is the “wages” due to sin.

It is worthy of remark also, that this awful doom is not spoken of as the penalty of many or of great sins, but of “sin,” of every sin, whether great or small. Every “transgression of God’s holy law is sin [Note: 1 John 3:4.];” and, though all sins are not of equal malignity, there is not any sin which does not deserve God’s wrath and fiery indignation, or against which an everlasting curse is not denounced [Note: Galatians 3:10.].

How terrible then is the desert of every man, of the more moral and decent, as well as of the immoral and profane! for “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” and therefore all are obnoxious to the punishment of sin.]
Let us now turn our thoughts to a more pleasing subject, namely,

II.

God’s mercy—

Notwithstanding our ill desert, God has tendered to us everlasting life—
[“He is not willing that any should perish, hut that all should come to repentance and live.” He has opened the gates of heaven, and invited sinners of every description to enter in. Nor has he required any thing to be done in order to purchase an admittance into it: he offers it freely, as a “gift” to all who will accept it. His invitation is to all who wish for it, to those also who have no money, to come and receive it at his hands “without money, and without price [Note: Isaiah 55:1.].” In this he has strongly marked the different grounds of a sinner’s condemnation, and a saint’s acceptance. Misery is awarded to the one, as “wages” earned; and happiness is conferred upon the other, as a gift bestowed. Indeed our minds must be humbled: and we must be willing to accept salvation as a gift: for, if we carry any price whatever in our hands, we cut ourselves off from all hope of obtaining the desired blessing [Note: Galatians 5:2; Galatians 5:4.]

This gift however is bestowed only “through the Lord Jesus Christ”—
[All possibility of regaining happiness by the covenant of works was prevented by the very terms of that covenant: in token of which, the way to the tree of life was obstructed by a fiery sword [Note: Genesis 3:24.]. But another, and a better “way, is opened to it through the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we may have boldness, and access with confidence” into the presence of our God [Note: Hebrews 10:19.]. Through him, as a Mediator, God can exercise mercy towards us in perfect consistency with his own honour; and through him, as the appointed channel, God will convey to us all the blessings of grace and glory. But then he expects that we come to him through Christ, and receive his blessings from Christ: for, as there is no other way unto the Father but through the Son [Note: John 14:6.], so neither is there any way of obtaining from the Father, but by receiving out of the fulness which he has treasured up for us in Christ Jesus [Note: Colossians 1:19; John 1:16.]

Address—

1. Those who are living in any allowed sin—

[We will suppose you are free from any gross immoralities; but that you are neglecting the great concerns of your souls, or attending to them with only a divided heart. Consider then, I beseech you, what you are doing: you are earning wages every day, every hour, every moment: whether you think of it or not, you are earning wages, and the day of reckoning is near at hand, when they shall be paid you by a just and holy God. Every act, every word, every thought is increasing the sum that shall be paid you: and who can calculate the amount of a debt which has been increasing with awful rapidity from the first moment that you began to act? Yes, you have been doing nothing throughout your whole lives, but earning wages that shall be paid you to the full, or, in other words, “treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath [Note: Romans 2:5.].” Consider, if the desert of one sin is death, What must be your desert, whose sins are more in number than the sands upon the sea-shore? Reflect on this, while there is an opportunity of cancelling the debt, and while the mercy of God can be extended to you. But remember, that you must not attempt to discharge the smallest part of this debt yourselves: if you take but one single sin upon you, you must suffer death for ever. Go therefore to Christ, and through him unto the Father: go with the guilt of all your sins upon you; cast yourselves entirely upon the mercy of your God; plead nothing but the merits of his dear Son; and “look for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life [Note: Jude, ver. 21.].”]

2. Those who have obtained mercy, and deliverance from sin—

[Numberless are the considerations which should excite your gratitude for the mercies you have received. Consider the greatness of the guilt that has been forgiven you; the riches of the glory which has been conferred upon you; the freeness with which it has been bestowed; and, above all, the means which have been used in order that you might be partakers of these benefits, even the appointment of God’s only-begotten Son to be your dying Saviour, and your living Head. Consider these things, I say, and then judge what ought to be the frame of your minds. What an abhorrence should you have of sin! What gratitude should you feel towards that God who exercised such mercy towards you, and towards that adorable Jesus, through whose mediation alone it could ever have been communicated! Stir up yourselves then to “render unto God according to these benefits;” and exert yourselves to the uttermost to “glorify him with your bodies and your spirits, which are his [Note: 1 Corinthians 6:20.].”]