Sin kills. God offers life. (Ro 6.23)

Romans 6.23 KJV

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Whenever we Christians are encouraged to memorize verses, the verses typically fall into three categories:

• Verses which explain our salvation. They help us understand it better—plus we can use ’em to share Jesus with others!
• Verses which help us improve our behavior. Like teachings of Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles; stuff that reminds us what the right thing is, and to do it.
• Verses which make us feel warm and fuzzy inside, ’cause God loves us and offers us his kingdom. (Or, all too often, make us feel good and self-righteous for less legitimate reasons. Like God approving of us no matter what awful stuff we’ve gotten into. Or he’s gonna give us wealth, or smite our enemies, or supports our politics, or other ungodly stuff.)

Today’s memory verse kinda does all three. It comes at the end of Paul’s larger discussion about goodness. In the past, pagan Romans used to do as they pleased, and usually that meant sinning their brains in. Now that these particular Romans are Christians, they mustn’t be like that anymore. And it applies just the same to Christians today: Before we came to Jesus, we likewise lived like pagans. But Jesus expects better of us.

Slaves to sin.

In explaining the concept, Paul compared it with slavery. Now, slavery in the United States was considerably different (and worse!) than it was in the Roman Empire. Roman slaves weren’t born into slavery; they became slaves because they either broke the law, lost a war, or sold themselves to get out of massive debt. It was punitive. They were slaves till they bought themselves out of it. Keep that in mind. Now here’s Paul’s explanation:

Romans 6.19-23 NLT

19Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.

20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the obligation to do right. 21And what was the result? You are now ashamed of the things you used to do, things that end in eternal doom. 22But now you are free from the power of sin and have become slaves of God. Now you do those things that lead to holiness and result in eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.

Many Americans can totally relate to the idea of selling ourselves because of massive debt. We have student loans, mortgages, automotive loans, medical debt, and credit card debt. A lot of us work hard at our jobs, not so much to provide for ourselves, but pay off those debts.

And before we were Christian, we were slaves—or employees, if you like—of sin. We went to work for “impurity and lawlessness,” in which we became experts at sinning, and spreading sin around. Sin obligated us to do some pretty humiliating, embarrassing, awful stuff.

Then God bought out our contracts!

Sin pays a salary. But what it pays is death: That’s the natural result of sin. Sin destroys. It ruins stuff, money, relationships, and lives. Sin directly kills most people—through murder of course, but also apathy, human error, greed, and unbelief. Sin directly killed Jesus too.

But we Christians aren’t supposed to work for sin anymore. We work for God now.

Paul didn’t write that God pays a different salary: We don’t earn eternal life. Nobody does. God graciously gives it to us free. It’s like a signing bonus. It’s an unearned perq of working for God: Before we even did a single thing for God, we get eternal life.

We’re given an infinitely big check before we even get to work… and really, we need never get another one. And yet we do get further paychecks from God! Mt 5.12, 9.41, Lk 6.35, 12.43, 1Co 3.14, Ep 6.8, 1Pe 1.17, Rv 22.12 But that’s another article.

Now that we work for God, we’re freed from sin. We don’t have to work for it any longer. We’re not enslaved to it anymore. Our only obligation is to do what’s holy and right—though admittedly, most of us do a rotten job of fulfilling God’s obligations, and totally abuse the fact he doesn’t smack us around like sin does. Still, the comparison is drastic: Under sin, we got death. Under God, we get life.

So in this verse we can see a bit of how salvation works. But more than that: We can see how we’re meant to work. Now that we’re free from sin, we don’t have to live like sinners. It’s not our master anymore. So stop working for it on the side! Tell it, “I quit.”

…Yeah, that’s easier said than done. But part of spiritual warfare is taking the time and effort to reject sin. Fighting it is part of our new job. So resist! Ask God for help; he doesn’t leave his employees without resources when we need ’em.

So these are the reasons we Christians like to use Romans 6.23 as a memory verse. Put it in your brain.