Rodgers > Outside Reading Blog

There are some verses in the Bible that have been so pounded into me, they just slide right off my lips without any thought.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.”
You know that one. The one you had to memorize in 5th grade in order to get that fluorescent green WWJD bracelet, the yoyo adorned with Jesus’ face, or whatever other biblically themed paraphernalia lay in the bottom of the cardboard “Memory Verse Treasure Box.”
For most of my life, my response to that verse has been borderline apathetic. Meh, I thought. If I ever run into some kid who is asking questions about God, I’ll just whip that sucker out and use it as some sort of evangelism tool. Kinda like a secret weapon, ya know?
I would picture myself talking to a confused schoolmate in a booming, televangelist-esque voice:
“WELL Johnny, I am glad that you asked me if you should apologize to your brother for sticking a carrot up his nose. You see, what you did was a SIN. And you know what? The Bible says ‘For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.’ Do you want to die Johnny? Well, DO YOU?”
There, with me looming over him, Johnny would immediately fall to his knees in repentance, devote his life to Christ, and declare that he would be a missionary to Tibet for the rest of his life.
I had it all figured out.
It wasn’t until this week that I realized how much Roman 6:23 applies to me in particular. If you really think about the word usage in the passage, it may hit you as odd that Paul chose to use the word “wages.” Why not a clearer word, like “consequences”, or “ results”? There is a reason that little word is in there, and I have been overlooking it for over ten years.
The dictionary defines the word “wage” as “payment earned for labor or services to a worker.” It’s easy to think that it is unfair for God to damn us if we don’t follow Him, but we are deceiving ourselves when we think this. Every day that we rebel against God’s grace, we work and toil as hard as we can to earn a spot with our name on it in Hell. It’s not God sending us there, it’s us actually choosing it. It is the wage we deserve for the sin we invest so much of our time and energy in. We are digging our own graves, and half of us don’t even realize it.
That’s the depressing part, but notice, it is only one part of it. While we focus on the shovel in our hands and the hole we are toiling over, God is waving his arms above us. We are so intent on the ground in front of us, we can’t see the ocean of grace that is flowing around our stupid little patch of dirt. God is there. He doesn’t want us to choose a life of eternal death. He wants to save us, but he won’t force us to grab the life-saver. Here is where the second half of the verse comes in, “but the gift of God is eternal life.” All we have to do is drop the shovel and tilt our heads up just a little bit to see His face. When we realize that He has been there the whole time, never once leaving our side, we can understand the true character of God. It is only in Him that there is true salvation.