Death Versus Eternal Life
Romans 6:23 · Mike Doyle · Nov 12, 2023
Romans (2022-25), No. 049
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261933183932

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Today, interesting, one verse, one single verse encompasses so much. I would say probably the way to start out is to show that the truth in chapter 6 turns upon three words. The first word is knowing. Romans 6 says, knowing this, that our old self, our old man was crucified with Him. in order that the body of sin might be put out of business, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin, knowing that. The second word is the word reckon.

611 says likewise also, reckon, count yourself to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. And the third word is yield or present. Verse 13 says, Don't go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present or yield yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of unrighteousness. 16 says, don't you know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, resulting in death or obedience resulting in righteousness.

So what's interesting here is that a believer has to come to the conclusion from studying the Word of God that at no time is he an independent agent. He's either a slave to righteousness or a slave to sin. You don't get to walk on a yellow line for 15 minutes. You don't get to do that. You're either or. So, Charles Coates says, knowing is by faith, reckoning is by love, and yielding can only be in the power of the Holy Spirit.

So, today's verse 623, For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, interlinearly doesn't have the word is in it. It says, for the four wages of sin, death, but the free gift of God, life eternal in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And we all know what wages are. Well, all of us have had jobs in our life. You get hired, you do the work, you get paid. And here it's used metaphorically of sin. that you probably didn't realize it, but you've been working really hard to earn those wages. And when you think about it, maybe I don't like the wages. I didn't sign on for that.

So what you have is a situation when Adam sinned, He earned something. What did he earn? He was delivered over to something. What was he delivered over to? Death. Death. So he was delivered over to the kingdom of death, you might say, with its new master who is sin.

Genesis 3-7 tells us that when Adam and Eve both sinned, that their eyes were open and recognized that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together to make themselves coverings. They were ashamed. And they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord, the Lord God coming, hiding in the trees. So they were afraid. So, it's interesting. Because they're afraid, they had earned something. They had earned death.

And a lot of people call what they did is original sin. I know in Catholicism, I came out of it with the term original sin, but it doesn't mean the same thing. What they say it is doesn't mean the same thing that we say it is. But we find out in Romans 5.12 that as through one man's sin, one man's sin, entered into the world, and death through sin, so death passed upon all men, because all men sin.

It's interesting, in the garden, Lucifer was there. but he wasn't a worldly creature. So sin and his person showed up to tempt Adam, but the point was that he was not part of that. He was a spiritual being. So Adam is the original man, the prototype man, well not prototype, but the representative man, And that carries with it two implications.

One is that he committed the first sin in the race of men. And the second is that position of man of all the subsequent generations, which position is due to that original sin. So he gets delivered over to death, and he gets a master of sin, and every person that comes from him except for one, comes in sin, is born in sin, born with a master, and born working as hard as they can to earn those wages. And it's death. It's death. It's death. It never ever goes away.

So, the first sin of Adam, which brought his ruin, and that of the race, it was a personal sin. But to point out that every human sin is of the same nature as the original sin, and we're the one whose sins placed as Adam was placed as a federal head, let's say one of you, or I was the first human being. Sin is so powerful that it would cause the fall of my race, your race, Adam's race. And if you were Adam, you would have done the same thing that Adam did. How many people think in their mind, well, I read the story, I don't think I could avoid that. No, you'd have done exactly what he did. So, the obvious effect of the first sin serves really as one of the best measurements of the evil character of sin. Look at the consequences.

A man named Richard Wilson cites five striking proofs of the universality of human sin. One, that in all ages, great and even general wickedness has prevailed among those large masses of men that are called nations. You know, pick up the paper and read about the Middle East. The second fact to be accounted for is that the strength of that tendency to wickedness, which we have seen just in general. Wickedness everywhere. The third fact is that the seeds of the vices which exist in society may be discovered in children in their earliest years.

Selfishness, envy, pride, resentment, deceit, lying, often cruelty, So much of this is the case, so explicitly is this acknowledged by all that it is the principal object of the moral branch of education to restrain and correct these evils, both by coercion and by diligently impressing upon children as their faculties open in the evil and the midst of all such affection and tendencies.

And I put a little note in the bottom of that, not so much anymore. You know, we are becoming a lawless society. We don't teach our kids that, you know, we can't tolerate your sin. The next thing that this man said is that every man is conscious of a natural tendency to all kinds of evil. We're aware. We can't be fooled.

And the fifth tactic is, even after a serious wish and intention has been formed in the man to renounce these views and to live righteously and soberly and godly, like God of Titus chapter 2, as becomes a creature made up to glorify God, and on their trail for eternity, strong and consistent resistance is made by what? By the passions, the appetites, and the inclinations of the heart at every step of his attempt. In other words, what does the law do?

The law is the impetus for sin. what you have, like in Romans 3.9, so then what do we say? Are we better than they? Are the Jews better than the Gentiles? Are Republicans better than Democrats? Are Americans better than Muslims? Compare whoever you want.

The Bible said both Jews and Greeks are all under sin. Under it. Under it. It controls you. So the universal practice of sin is presupposed by Christ himself. And I gave you a list of verses there, but the Lord quoted in Luke 24, proposed that every single man, he presupposes that every single man is under sin. He doesn't fool around about it. He just presupposes that it is.

So John 3.3 and 3.5, Jesus answered to them, and truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he can't see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to me, how can a man be born when he's old? He can't enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born, can he? And Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, He can't enter the kingdom of God.

We studied this this morning in Sunday school about what it means to be ungodly. If you read Romans chapter one, God doesn't condemn the world because they're sinners. He condemns them because they're not godly. We're not like him. In order to be like God and to be in his presence, we've got to be like him. And so Jesus uses this example of being born of water and the Spirit.

So William Newell says in verse 23, For sin which they had once served was a terrible paymaster. Sin's wages were death, separation. appointed so by God himself. What a hideous employer sin is. What a horrid service it is. What a hellish wages it is, death. Yet sin is the chosen master of every single human being except those who belong to the Lord Jesus and are members of his body, his flock. You can say about them that death shall be their shepherd. That's true. That's really true.

Death, as we read in verse 23, the wages of sin, man speaks of it so lightly. He does not think much about it. I was talking to a guy last week about a man that he's been spending some time with and working with him, and this guy just said to him angrily, he said, I can't understand why you would worship another man. Jesus Christ. It makes me angry that people do that. Well, the problem is that he's under that sin and reward death thing, and he does not understand that that viewpoint is earning him wages, and he's going to get paid someday.

So another well-known man said, man finds in physical death, physical 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 is given way. It's powerless to resist the master death to which it belongs and who had now asserts its dreadful rights.

But this is far from being all that's going on. Man indeed, as man alive in this world, begins to sink down into nothing. Why? Because sin came in. And sin comes into your conscience. And sin comes and we begin to find out it's powerful. And death is Satan's power over us. You know, we were talking before with Connor and we were just chatting back and forth. How long did it take the world when COVID hit to shut down? A week? 10 days? Why? What was the big fear?

We're all going to die. We're all going to die. If you don't stay home, you're going to die. What did we do? Like a bunch of sheep, we stayed home. Fear is such a strong motivator. And with sin comes God's judgment. And we know that. We don't have to be taught that. So death is the expression and witness of all this. It is the wages that you earn. It's terror to the conscience, it's Satan's power over us, and he has the power of death. He has the power of death. If COVID didn't teach us anything, it taught us that principle. That if you're afraid of dying and someone says to you, if you go hide out in your closet, you won't die, guess where you're going to be? In your closet. Because you don't want to die.

So, unfortunately though, It's God's own judgment against sin. Death is the proof of that sin does not pass unnoticed and is the terror and plague of the conscience. As a witness of God's judgment, the officer of justice to the criminal and the proof of his guilt is the presence of coming judgment. So how can it be but such a terrible, frightful thing? Because it's the seal upon the fall and the ruin and condemnation of the first Adam. And he has nothing but his old nature. So the wages of sin is death.

You know, when I first started in, I thought, well, gee, Roger and I were talking and said, well, can you do a whole sermon out of one verse? And as I got to looking at it, I could talk for the next three weeks about this verse. It's just amazing that I have worked all my life, especially before I was a believer, to do what? To earn my wages. I didn't know they were death. But when I became a believer, things began, my perspective began to change. So, it's interesting.

There's a meaning of the word nature. It would not be proper to designate it as it's now being used. And nature primarily is a thing that was created by God. such as an unfallen human nature, and it reflected the image and likeness of God. Adam had that originally. The secondary meaning, though, is a sin nature, designates the perversion with its unholy disposition, which the fall caused.

So I think concluding is that death is the king of terrors. I like that straight to the natural man. And it really is. I'm of an age now that a lot of guys I went to school with and worked with, they're starting to die off. And if they don't know the Lord Jesus, they're terrified because they don't know what's going to happen. I mean, some of them think, well, it doesn't matter, but they're fooling themselves. They're scared, scared to death.

So Job 18.14, I really like this quote. Think about it in terms of our contemporary lifestyle. He is torn from the security of his tent, or somebody came to my house and took me out of there. And they march him before the king of terrors. There's going to come a day when the natural man gets ripped out of his environment and he has to come before the judge. That's a little scary. That's a little scary.

So there are two great subjects here, neither of which are correctly apprehended by Christendom. You'll notice that inside the work by Christendom, what I mean is people who claim to be Christians who really probably aren't, or they teach false doctrine. They don't teach the wages of sin. That which has sin must die. Must die. There is no other way in which it can be discharged. How do you and I get free from the wages that I've earned? How do we get free? We die. I don't mean physical death. We spiritually die to sin.

Romans 6.6 tells us our old man was crucified. I have been crucified with Christ. I died. So when Paul comes and starts talking about physical death in Timothy, he talks about going to sleep. He doesn't talk about death. Why? Because I already died. I'm gone from there. I don't live there anymore. My position is in Christ.

So Now many think that like Cain, Cain's a good example, that they can do something to commend themselves to God and they run in the way of Cain. And what I mean by that, remember the Cain and Abel story, Cain did not bring a blood sacrifice and he told God, if this isn't good enough, I'm not going to sacrifice anything. So you go the way of Cain. You go to God and you do it your way. God says, no, that's not enough. That's not the way it's got to be. We have to eliminate your being godless. And the way we do that is we co-crucify you with Christ. So they didn't see that sin cannot be removed in any other way but death. The man who has sin can only be cleared by death. Again, many of the truly believe that Christ died for our sins.

Look at his sacrifice as a pious Jew would look at the Paschal Lamb. They assure themselves that they are forgiven their sins and like a Jew, they seek to keep the law. In a way, they enjoy natural things more than ever because they are forgiven And when they sin, they look for a fresh application of the blood. They don't see that in Christ's death, the man after the flesh was judicially terminated before God and that the old man was crucified with Christ. If you see that, it changes everything. So they confine themselves to the limit of Christ's work. in Christ's death, just Him. When you believe that God has raised Him from the dead, you have a man that's out of death. Christ rose. And then you're justified.

If you look at that verse in Romans 4.25, it says, He was delivered from my offenses, the wages that I earned. He died. But he was raised again for my justification. I've been raised to newness of life because he was raised to newness of life. So what's the next thing?

If you take a look at Romans 5.5, you find out that because you're indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the very first time that he's mentioned in Paul's epistles is in Romans 5.5. And what does he do? His first work is to make known, the Spirit of God is to make known to you the love of God. He lets you know that God loves you. He sheds abroad in your heart a love for God. It's the very first thing he does.

Even the one whom the Father, who had been offended, was himself held upon, the one Jesus. The Father put the sins of the world on the Lord Jesus. And that's mighty, and his arm had brought salvation to a child suffering disgrace because he's broken his father's rule, which was don't touch my tools. Phil will appreciate this. He breaks a tool, and what happens? Under the old system, there's consequences. Under the new system, your father is indeed mended the tool himself. So come to Him. Come to Him. So now let's talk about the free gift.

It's natural. In the natural life, your natural life is in your blood. Spiritual life is in the Spirit. In John 20, 22, He breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. The last Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, is a quickening or a life-giving spirit. That's what he does.

Eternal life is not merely a perpetuity of existence. When you get to eternal life, it doesn't mean you're going to live forever, because you're going to live forever. It just depends on where you're going to live forever. This is eternal life in John 17, that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. That's what eternal life is.

So when we take a look at the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, what do we find out? Well, we already know that when Adam sinned and I sinned in him, that I got delivered over to death and sin was my master. But Romans 6.17 says, but thanks be to God that you were slaves to sin, you became obedient. From the heart, that form of teaching to which you were delivered. We always think, well, the truth was delivered to me. No, I was delivered to it. Just I was delivered to death thanks to Adam. The verb delivered is a second person plural, which the form of doctrine into which you were delivered. That is, in salvation, God constituted the believer according to chapter 6, the first 14 verses, crucified with Christ, inwardly so that he would react to the doctrines of grace by nature, the divine nature in such a way as to receive and obey them.

I had that love circle up a couple of weeks ago. Why do I love God? Why do you love God? Because He first loved you. That's the way grace works. I'm reactionary to the love and the grace of God. I can't help but respond to it because I have a life that can respond. We are delivered into the teaching in that we are constituted in salvation so that we would obey or listen under the Lord Jesus. Kenneth Weist. Kenneth Weist really did understand this. Delivered to the Lord. So, the free gift.

Paul, interesting, he thanks God Whereas before salvation, we were slaves of the evil nature, we were in salvation delivered or handed over to the teachings of grace so that we became slaves of righteousness. Our class this morning was all about the teachings of grace. Grace has appeared, teaching us, teaching us. We know nothing about grace before we're saved, not a thing.

And it teaches us what this new life is all about. We have a new position of life. In our old position in Adam, we rendered us dead unto God and alive unto sin. Our new position in the risen Lord, last Adam, renders us alive to God and dead to sin. You're dead and your life is hid with Christ and God. Formally, our judge now, by means of his son's death and resurrection, He is free to be our Father, and we His sons." Mal Stanford.

So when you look at Romans 6.18, it says, being set free from sin, we were made the bondservants of righteousness. So now our becoming obedient in the heart to the word of the cross involves a work of divine wisdom and power far beyond that involved to create the world. We don't realize that. It takes more power by God to just do this little thing than it did to create the world. To get a human being who was a slave to sin, to get him by grace to obey God.

For how shall a creature remain alive and yet behold his utter judgment on the cross? How is that possible? How shall he despair eternally of himself and yet find hope? How shall he continue to be free? How shall he continue a free being and yet consent to be the bond servant forever? The cords of a man with bonds of love. How shall he walk with confidence into the court of God where every thought comes into judgment? How can you and I walk into the presence of God? How can that be? Knowing what we came from.

Moral and spiritual impossibilities are greater than physical impossibilities. We don't appreciate what God did on that cross and how much power it took just to make us acceptable. It's impossible, according to Lewis Barry Chafer, that where nothing at all existed, the physical universe leapt into being out of nothing But God's Word, He spoke it, and it was.

Man having sin, what did he do? He ran away from God. And man yet sin, and they still flee from God. Now God's holy nature, His infinite righteousness, it bars the way back. You can't come back. Because He's righteous and holy, and you're not. But Christ comes, sent to the Father, and there is the blood of the cross.

And from the north and the south and the east and the west, men and women and children too come, obeying from the heart this impossible news of peace by the blood of His cross. Peace for those whose sins slew Christ. They come to Be gladly bound with unbreakable bands of love, the cords of a man, a man Jesus Christ. Hosea 11 verse 4 says, I led them with cords of a man, with bonds of love, and I became to them as one who lifts the yoke from their jaw, and I bent down and I fed them. That's the Lord Jesus.

So, it's important, I think, for us to understand that this gift is life Himself, not itself, Himself. Believing on God is really receiving what God gives. Becoming a born-again Christian is receiving and being indwelt by a person. It's not a matter of feeling. But it's a matter of scriptural fact. It's a fact. It's not making a commitment or deciding to follow Him or anything else.

God gives us eternal life by giving us His Son, who is life eternal. The Lord Jesus said, I am the life. Do you see how personal this is? One John 5.11 says, and this is the record that God has given to us eternal life. There's the gift. And this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life and he that has not the Son of God has no life. These things I have written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you might know that you have eternal life. The person who is eternal life. So really, the gift is a life motive.

It's the Spirit of Christ that carries out the development process through our being in an everyday life below that the life also of Jesus may be manifest in our mortal flesh. He's working that way all the time. But our life source, our home, our position is the Lord Jesus at the Father's right hand. The Spirit has placed us in Christ. in the light above. Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

In this invulnerable position above, we are developed, we are matured, we are used for His glory in the darkness of this age. We are in the world, but not of it. Our life resource, which is from above, are more than adequate to meet the needs found in this sphere of death that we live in in this world. There are innumerable influences in this sinful world that would draw us to a level below that which is ours, hid with Christ in God. The Spirit of God has but one standard for the growing believer. God's very best as it is in Christ Jesus.

Nothing lower, nothing secondary. Miles Stanford. So what's the goal? I may know Him. The object in sharing these truths of the Word is that we may be turned from all God condemned the wages of sin into a deep personal knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ who is eternal life.

Truth can be very impersonal and ineffective if its ultimate purpose is not realized. What we need is the spurious application of the fully orbed work of the cross. This will enable us to avoid the sin within and without and to give our complete attention and love to the Lord Jesus. Anything short of this will satisfy neither him nor our hungry hearts.

So let's close. Father, how wonderful it is to find and discover that at one time we did work really hard to accumulate the wages of death from sin, but now because we're in your dear son, the Lord Jesus, who is eternal life, he works really hard for us to behold your glory and be conformed to his very image. And we're so thankful for that. And we pray in your son's precious name. Amen.