The Wages of Sin is Death but the Gift of God is Eternal Life

Romans 6 and the Question of Sinning Under Grace

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. I'm going to be preaching this morning from our epistle text from the book of Romans 6. If you remember, back at the end of Easter, I preached on Christian suffering and persecution the week before Easter.

And I thought it would be better if we did not do that again, at least not so close. And so what we'll be looking at is Romans 6, and if you have your Bibles, you can follow along. Our text this morning begins in verse 12, which is kind of a weird place to start a text.

Therefore, do not let sin reign in your body or mortal body so that you do not obey its evil desires. Well, whenever you see in the Bible the word therefore, it's best if you stop, slow down, and figure out what the therefore is there for, right?

I mean, because it's like we're starting in the middle of a thought here. And what I thought I would do this morning is take this occasion of this text, because it ends so wonderfully with verse 23 that says, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Boy, I can hear that every Sunday. Man, I need to hear that every Sunday. Because over and over again, the trials and temptations that we face from the world, our sinful flesh, and every week it just seems like you go through the week and you get knocked around, right?

And you come to church thinking, I am so not worthy. And of course, that's right, because the text says,. But the gift of God is eternal life. The gift of God is eternal life. And so verse 23, I think, has this wonderful thing that it does.

It ends on the right note, but there's this thing going on in the book of Romans and in the Christian faith in general. When you preach the real gospel, when you preach that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, by what Christ has done alone, oftentimes people hear that and go, Oh, so what you're saying is, I can go out and sin like crazy.

You know, yeah. I like to sin. Jesus likes to forgive sins. This is a match made in heaven, right? No, that's not how that works. And it's kind of a category error. And so in order to figure out what the therefore is, therefore in verse 12, we're going to back up a little bit, just back up a little bit.

Universal Sin and the Law’s Purpose

And if you would, take a look back at Romans chapter 3 and we'll look at verse 9, and I'm going to read through a portion of this.

Here's what it says.

So what shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Well, no, not at all. We've already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles, now when the scriptures talk in the New Testament about Jews and Gentiles, that's just kind of code talk for saying everybody everywhere.

Okay?

Because keep in mind, Paul is a Jew, right? And in the church in Rome at this time, there are a lot of Jewish converts to Christianity. These are Jews who believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. And so he's speaking to people who understand Judaism.

Okay?

And he's speaking as one Jew to another, if you would. He says, so what should we conclude then? Are we any better? Well, no, not at all. We've already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are under sin.

As it is written, there is no one righteous, not even one. There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away. They have together become worthless. There is no one who does good, not even one.

Their throats are open graves. Their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood. Rude and misery mark their ways.

And the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes. And you're saying, does that really describe me? Does anyone here think that doesn't describe them? If you don't think this describes you, come see me afterwards.

We'll work this out.

Okay?

Right?

We'll work this out because this describes all of us. This is all of us.

Okay?

Because each and every one of us was born dead in trespasses and sins. And so the law then, it says,. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by observing the law. Rather, through the law comes the consciousness of sin.

All right?

So when we look in God's word and we see these passages, like the Ten Commandments, Thou shalt not or you will have no other gods before me. Honor your father and mother. You will not kill. You will not covet.

You will not steal. Commit adultery. All these, right? This is God conveying his will for us. But then you look at God's law and you sit there and you look at your life and you do the little comparison thing and you sit there and go,.

Uh-oh. Whoops.

Now what?

Right?

Well, see, that's the function of the law. God gave us his law so that we would become conscious of our sin. That's its purpose. That's why he gave it. He didn't give it to us so that we can do this kind of business transaction where you sit there and go,.

Okay, God, let's look at it. I really liked my wife this week. I didn't quite love her, but I really liked her a lot. That's close enough, right? I didn't steal anything. I didn't murder anybody. And I really cut back on the coveting thing.

Aren't I good?

Right?

You ever think this way? I mean, maybe it's just me.

Okay. Okay.

And this is how we try to negotiate things with God.

Okay?

When you're doing that, you don't understand what the law is saying.

Okay?

The purpose of the law is to make you understand you're not righteous. And you sit there and go, But I don't like to be told I'm not righteous.

Get over it.

That's all of us. There was only one who was righteous, and that's Christ. And you can't understand the gospel until you understand just how desperately sinful you are. I mean, you don't need a life coach.

You need a Savior.

Right?

Jesus didn't come to kind of give you tips and tricks on how to keep the law so that you can earn brownie points with God. That's not what Jesus is about. Jesus came to save you. And that salvation is a gift.

And you don't or you're not even prepared to receive it as a gift until you understand just how desperately wicked you are. And that's what Romans does here.

Okay?

So we're still figuring out what that therefore is there for. Now, we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be silenced, the whole world held accountable to God.

Therefore, no one will be declared righteous. How many people will be declared righteous before God by keeping the law?

Zero.

Okay?

If you want to try, go ahead. Knock yourself out. Things will not go well for you on the day of judgment.

Right?

Okay?

Yeah, see, this is the thing. Jesus came for sinners. And if you ain't one of them, Jesus ain't got nothing for you. I know that's really bad English. Okay, but you get the point, right? But now we read this.

But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus to all who believe. There is no difference.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That would be all of us. And, okay, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified. That means to be declared righteous freely by God's grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Ah.

This is why Jesus can hang out with tax collectors and prostitutes and really big spiritual train wrecks like me and like you, right? Because he's suffered for us. And the gospel is this. It's often described as this great exchange.

You remember Jesus on the cross? Remember that?

Okay.

What was he doing on the cross again? He was suffering. For whose sins was Jesus suffering for? His own? He didn't commit a single sin. Not one sin did Jesus commit. So why is he up there suffering and dying?

Because the wages of sin is death, right? Well, it's real simple. There's this exchange that takes place. When we read in Isaiah 53, he was pierced for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities.

The chastisement or the punishment that brings us peace with God was upon him. So the first half of the great exchange goes like this. All of our sin is given, imputed if you would. This is the great big theological term.

Imputed and put on Christ.

Right?

And what does God do with sin? He punishes it. So there's Jesus on the cross suffering as the sinner. And you sit there and go, wait a second.

That should be me. Right?

Now, when you are brought to faith in Christ, when God regenerates you and gives you faith, and you trust in Jesus for your salvation, here's the other half of it. Remember Jesus was sinless? So he becomes the sinner.

All of that sinless righteousness that Jesus had, he gives that to you by faith. That's what scripture talks about. Talking about the righteousness that comes by faith. Not a righteousness that comes by doing works or doing the law.

A righteousness that is completely 100 a free gift. So that's the two halves of the exchange. Your sin on Jesus, Jesus' perfect sinless righteousness on you, which then leads to this kind of interesting thing.

Are you saying, Chris, that God sees me as righteous?

Yeah.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Totally righteous. Now, we just prayed here, right? Now, I don't know if you've noticed, but we have a little bit of work to do on the prayer department. We have some good humble prayers, right?

But as humble as they are, keep this in mind. Scripture says, the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Now, in that sense, man means mankind. That includes men and women, right? This is the old school, right?

So the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. Have you ever stopped to think that as humble as the prayers here at Kongsvinger are, because you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ, your prayers avail much.

And you say, they go, really?

My prayers? Well, yeah. You've been made righteous by faith in Christ. So, when you pray, God is attentive to your prayers every bit as much as he was attentive to the prayers of Jesus Christ himself.

Because you're clothed in his righteousness. This is getting to be some good news. There's some major implications here, right? So this is what's going on here. But now a righteousness from God. Whose righteousness is it?

It's Christ's righteousness. It comes from God. It's apart from the law. It has been made known to which the law and the prophets, they all testify about it. And this righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, for there is no difference.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified. That means to be declared righteous freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement through faith in his blood.

He did this to demonstrate his justice because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished. He did this to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies or declares righteous those who have faith in Jesus.

Well then here comes the question. So where then is boasting? You ever been to a church where people boast about how holy they are? I used to be like that.

Right?

But if you understand that salvation is a free gift for sinners, there's no boasting. There's no room for it.

Right?

And here's what he says. So where then is boasting?

It's excluded.

There is no boasting. On what principle? On that of observing the law?

No.

But on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified. There's that big word again. That means to be declared righteous. A man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.

There's hope.

There's hope for me.

There's hope for you.

Here's good news. Jesus saves sinners.

That's all of us.

Right?

And we're here today to hear his word and to be comforted by these promises. So now we can kind of fast forward. We've got the gospel worked out here. We can fast forward back to our text. And we'll look at chapter 6, verse 1 to get a little bit of the fuller context.

Because remember, we're on this hunt to figure out what the therefore is therefore.

Right?

So let's take a look at chapter 6, verse 1. Well, what shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?

No.

All right?

Baptism, Death to Sin, and New Life in Christ

Now, let me tell you a little bit. We'll do a little bit of Roseboro biography here. I'm very hesitant to do this, but I think it helps illustrate the point of what's going on here. I was raised in a church where the gospel was never preached to Christians.

What was preached to Christians was law, law, law, and more law. And it almost made an atheist out of me.

Okay?

And the central passage in the church that I used to attend was, Be ye perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. That's the central passage. Try that one for a few days and see how depressed you get.

Okay?

And like I said, this nearly drove me to atheism. Now, through a long series of events, I found myself studying theology and apologetics at Christ College in Irvine, California, which is a Lutheran institution.

And I knew nothing about Lutherans. And I was very shocked by Lutherans. Their pastors wear dresses, although I'm not wearing a dress today. And they do this weird stuff like bowing, and people, you know, this is back and forth in the liturgy and stuff like that.

I didn't understand them at all. But one of my professors, his name was Dr. Rod Rosenblatt, and he kept preaching the gospel to me. Tell me how, what a miserable sinner he was and how he pleads the blood of Jesus.

And he keeps focusing on the gospel like it's something to be preached and heard.

Every day.

But when I was in this other church, the only time I would hear the gospel was on Evangelism Sunday. And the only time it was ever preached to anybody was when they weren't a.

Christian.

Once you made the decision to follow Jesus, you didn't need to hear the gospel anymore. You need to get busy and get to work. The problem was, is that as a teenager I had raging hormones and my sinful nature was quite.

Active.

Right.

And you sit there going, your sinful nature was active.

Well,.

Yours was too,.

You know,.

And it still is.

Right.

Let's be honest.

And,.

Um,.

And when I heard the gospel over and over and over again and how salvation was free and not something I had to earn, I became very suspicious.

Could this really be really?

So I went up to my professor and I said,.

Dr.

Rosenblatt, if I'm hearing you correctly and I'm not sure if I am, if what you're saying is true, then we can do whatever we want.

Right.

What am I accusing him of? I'm accusing him of teaching that Christians can just go out and sin like crazy.

Right.

That's really what I'm doing. And he looks at me and says,.

Well,.

Of course,.

Chris,.

Now that you have been set free from sin, what do you want to do?

Oh,.

Hadn't thought of it that way. And that's kind of the category we're going to get to in this getting to the therefore, why this therefore is therefore there,.

Right?

If you've been set free from sin, what do you want to do? And now that comes to the major category. So let's keep reading. So what should we say then? Should we go on sinning? So the grace may increase by no means.

We died to sin. How can we live in it any longer?

Okay.

Here's the important thing. Sin in scripture, it's big typological category is slavery. Sin is not something that you're free to do. Sin is something that enslaves you. And Christ has come to set you free from slavery.

Big category difference. You remember the story of Israel in Egypt in slavery with Pharaoh? Remember all that story?

Okay.

That's typologically kind of the big meta narrative that explains what's what sin really is. Sin is bondage. Sin is slavery. Sin is not freedom. And sin ultimately damns.

Right?

So if Christ sets you free, he sets you free indeed. Free from what? Free from condemnation. Free from hell. Free from sin itself. So when we talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is this amazing good news that God is forgiving sinners and setting them free from bondage to sin.

Believe it or not, we keep reading now. Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, we too may live to new life.

When did we die to sin? It says it right there. Anyone want to hazard a guess?

Baptism.

Right. Right there.

When you were baptized, you were baptized into Christ's death. You therefore have already died. And this isn't symbol. This is the reality of this. Notice that Paul here in writing about this isn't saying, and when you were baptized, it symbolized that you died.

No.

Notice what he says. We died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? And he said,.

When,.

When do we die? Do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ were baptized into his death. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, we too may live a new life.

If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him. So the body of sin might be done away with that.

We should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

Oh,.

So you're saying that at, when I was baptized, I actually died. Bingo. You were put into Christ's death and raised in his resurrection. And this is most certainly true.

Now,.

If we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him for. We know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.

So in the same way, count yourselves as dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let me give you another metaphor here.

Okay?

Everybody knows that when you're married, you're at the altar and the priest or the father or the pastor, whoever does the ceremony says,.

Tell death,.

Do us part,.

Right?

You are married as long as you're alive.

Okay?

As soon as one of your, as soon as one of the, you know, the partners die, you're no longer married.

Right?

Okay.

Think of it this way. Sin is kind of like that.

Okay?

You're enslaved to sin until you're dead. And now that you've been killed,.

If you would,.

You've died in the baptismal waters with Christ. You're no longer, you no longer need to obey that terrible, awful spouse.

Okay?

Cause sin is not a good spouse. Very abusive, very demanding,.

Right?

And so now, because you have died, you can say to sin, I don't need to obey you. Go take a hike. I'm going to get a restraining order against you. You can talk like this to sin. I know it seems kind of weird.

And you just say,.

Go away.

I'm baptized. So when sin comes knocking on your door, you can say no. Isn't that wonderful? Because all of us know that when we say yes, when sin comes knocking, we feel awful. And we should, because we know we sin against Christ.

Right?

And he's come to set us free from this. So now we say, and keep reading, in the same way, verse 11, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ.

Therefore,.

Do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness.

For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under the law, but you are under grace. So what then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace?

Oy!

Right?

And the reason why these questions are in there, is because Paul, when he would preach the gospel, these were the questions he would get from people. So he kind of anticipates them because he had them.

Okay?

So you're saying that because we're not under the law, but under grace, we can just sin,.

Right?

No!

Sin equals slavery. Christ has set us free. By no means. Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one to whom you obey, whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness.

But thanks be to God, that though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obey the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. Now what does it mean to wholeheartedly obey the teaching to which you've been entrusted?

What does that mean? You believe the gospel. You believe Jesus died for your sins. That you're saved by grace through faith as a gift. When you believe that, that's what it means to obey the gospel. That's what he's referring to here.

So you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. So I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness, which leads to holiness.

When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. But what benefit did you reap from that at that time from the things that you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death.

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You see how that works? The gospel truly is good news. It's good news because not only is our standing before God secure because of everything that Christ has done, and our salvation is given to us as a gift, but the ramifications of that gift impact everything.

Because when we're baptized, we die with Christ, and now we can live in righteousness and tell sin to go take a hike. And these things are encouraging to us. But keep this in mind. Walking this out day by day will be a challenge because you still have a sinful nature.

That's what Romans 7 is all about. If you want to read about that, it sounds kind of schizophrenic. Paul goes on to say that, well, the things I want to do I don't do, but the things I don't want to do I keep doing them.

Who's going to save me from this body of death, right? But thanks be to God that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So here and now, we Christians have two natures warring with each other.

The new regenerate nature that has been given to us and made alive in the waters of baptism, and our old sinful nature which clings to us and battles against it, which makes living the Christian life seem like schizophrenia at times, right?

But thanks be to God there's no condemnation. Christ has set us free from that, and he's ultimately set us free from bondage to sin. And when he appears in glory to judge the living and the dead, he will raise us up again in new bodies, and we will be with him forever and ever and ever.

World without end, new heavens, new earth, new bodies, no sin, the way it should have been all along. And all of this is given to us as a gift and received and held onto and clung to by faith. Don't let anyone take that away from you or make you pay for the gift that God has given you, right?

It's all free, and it's all in Jesus, because the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. In the name of Jesus, amen.

Closing Exhortation and Ministry Announcements

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