Wages

             For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

This is one of those “important” verses we’re taught as children like John 3:16. I don’t remember whether I was taught that wages are something you earn or not, but that’s the obvious conclusion. In one sense, we like that. It puts us in at least partial control. We can do something that deserves death. What we don’t like about it is that we don’t get to decide what constitutes sin that is sufficient to warrant death.  There are sins we might agree are sufficient, but telling a little white lie? Stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving family? Gossip? One one-night stand in 25 years of marriage? Calling someone a nasty name? Using bad language? Killing a dog? Maybe some people would happily state that most or all of these earn death. I agree that most do, but I’m not happy about it.

We tend to think of some of these as inconsequential. But each time we decide what is right or wrong, we put ourselves in God’s place. We commit treason. The same happens if we decide that doing certain things earns us eternal life. I’ve said it before. This is where Christianity or Judeo-Christianity differs from all other religions. In the other religions, you can earn your way to heaven. You can, in effect, dictate to the god or gods. And in most of those religions, it doesn’t seem to matter much to the god or gods whether you get there or not. It’s only where the chances are basically non-existent that you can get there that it seems to matter. And it is, in that case, not earnable, but a gift.