Covenant Contrasts Part 8
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). We think of Romans 6:23 as a salvation verse and it is. The wages of sin, if never taken care of through faith in Jesus, will be spiritual death. And the gift of life; eternal life, abundant life, resurrection life comes to us by faith in Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf. Yes, this verse addresses our salvation choice; life or death.
But this wage-based vs gift-based way to look at things also applies to our covenant contrasts. “For the wages of sin is death …” The old covenant was a wage-based system. A person was “paid” based on what they did. This is the “DO and RECEIVE” model of the old covenant. And in the Old Testament, the “wage” was often death. Sin led to death, sometimes in the immediate timeframe. We will expand on this thought in a future post. For now, let’s move on to the second part of Romans 6:23.
“… But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The new covenant is all about the “gift” not the “wages.” It is gift-based. Everything we receive, all of the promise of the new covenant is brought to us purely by the grace of God. No striving, no earning, no working for your “wage.” We have received our new identity, our new purity, our new heart, our new Spirit, our new nature, our new self, our new power, and our new freedom all as gifts from the Father above. “Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow” (James 1:17).
We have been empowered to walk righteously as a gift of God’s grace as well. “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:11-12).
To summarize, the old covenant was wage-based and the new covenant is gift-based. And it is sad to see that there is still a vestige of preaching that puts believers under a “wage-based” system. Don’t follow that path. You are forgiven, clean, and close to the Father by one means only; by the GIFT of His grace. Pure gift, pure grace. We will explore what that gift looks like next time.