To Encourage You

Romans 6:23 “The wages of sin is death”

Have you ever heard about someone receiving multiple life sentences, or multiple sentences for various offenses that total far more than the natural lifespan of a convict, e.g., 155 years?  How about multiple death sentences?  It doesn’t make much sense, but if nothing else, it’s an assurance that those who do such things will be locked up to the end of their lives, sentenced to die in prison one way or another.  It’s a sobering reality for a person caught in such circumstances, as they have no hope for parole, thus no hope for freedom ever again. 

But above such human justice systems there is God’s overarching rule of law.  He is the ultimate lawgiver, and He is the ultimate purveyor of justice. So how does it work in God’s system of laws?  Well, from the very beginning, man was told that if He disobeyed God He would die. That was God’s message to Adam and Eve, and it continues to be His message today. Every single sin brings with it a death sentence, ultimately.  That’s why everyone dies.  So why does everyone sin?  The fact of the matter is that we were born that way. As King David said, “in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5).  In other words, it’s hereditary.  In Romans 5:12 it says this: “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”  That “one man” that is being referred to here is Adam, the first man.  But when the Bible refers to a death sentence as the result of sin, it is actually referring to multiple death sentences.  There is physical death, which everyone is subject to, but then there is also spiritual death. The Bible calls this the “second death” in Revelation 20:14, which says “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.” 

In the book of Leviticus in which God prescribes His legal system for Israel, He begins with the reality of the need for offerings for sin, i.e., death as a payment for sin. Everyone needed this, and everyone needed this over and over again.  It was only because of God’s mercy that He made a way that would expiate or satisfy His wrath against sin, and it was by way of a substitute of an animal sacrifice. However, because the blood of bulls and goats could never, in God’s economy, take away sin, these temporary substitutes pointed to a permanent sacrifice that one day would come.  We are told that “the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in these sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:1-4). 

Do you hear that?  These blood sacrifices, rather than take away sin, were a constant reminder of sin, and the sentence of death that resulted from sin.  But then God sent Jesus, the Lamb of God, as the once for all sacrifice which could actually take away sin, and do this forever for those cleansed by that sacrifice. We are told that “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10).  The wages of sin is death. It always has been and it always will be.  Death as a shadow by way of the death of a sacrificial animal, the death of Jesus on the cross as the satisfaction of the death sentence for every sinner who has placed their faith in Him, or eternal death, i.e., the second death, for those who have rejected that sacrifice mercifully provided by God on our behalf. 

So have you accepted this sacrifice on your behalf?  Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb of God?  If you have been, then physical death is nothing more than a process by which you will enter life everlasting.  That’s why Paul said, for the Christian, “to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).  And that “gain” is eternal life in heaven, a place where “death shall be no more” (Revelation 21:4).  However, if you are not a believer and the prospect of not just physical death but also the second death looms over you, by repenting of your sins, accepting the sacrifice that was made for you on the cross by Jesus, and turning to Him as your Lord and your God, you can be pardoned forevermore. But if you will have none of this and choose to go to your grave with multiple death sentences hanging over your head, there will be no remedy, there will never be freedom, and you will surely pay for that sin forever.  That’s true justice, from God, the perfect judge.  It’s a justice that can be wonderfully and permanently paid for you by Christ, or else it will be paid by you, forever.  That is your choice.  It’s as simple as that. 

May God move your heart to accept what He has done for you, for to reject eternal life, which is a gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, is the saddest and most desperate condition in which any human being can find themselves, for it’s a multiple death sentence that will go on forever and ever – eternal bondage, eternal blackness, and eternal separation from the freedom, light and fellowship of God which is the fate of the pardoned, made possible through the once for all sacrifice of  God’s Most Holy Lamb. 

Death is such a sure thing. It’s such a sobering thing. But thanks be to God that He has made a way for us to say “Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Corinthians 15:54-57). 

Do you know that victory over death?  The Righteous Judge has said you can know it, if you will only believe.