"For the Wages of Sin is Death" - But...

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FOREWORD

The almost universally held belief of Christendom is that the common natural death is a result of Adam's sin. The following article will show this theory to be incorrect, being out of harmony with Bible teaching.

As a creation of God, man was made dependent on food and oxygen to sustain natural life. Natural death occurs when these can no longer be assimilated through accident, illness or old age; however, death as the wages of sin does not refer to this as we explain...

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There is one important lesson that the late F.J.Pearce taught me in our discourses and discussions of the Holy Scriptures. This was that in order to rightly divide the word of Truth one must observe the context, and use discrimination.

Now permit me to use an example of this important fact by demonstrating it from Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 6. There are many who hold the view that natural death as a result of decay and failure of the normal bodily functions is the penalty for Sin inherited from Adam, but this is not true. While we do inherit a corruptible and dying nature from Adam who was created so, this nature is not the penalty passed upon us on account of Sin. The penalty for Adam's sin was judicially inflicted death, as shown from the records from Eden to Gethsemane in the types and shadows, which were fulfilled in the death of Jesus Christ.

Now Paul shows in Romans 5 how death as a legal sentence (verse 17) has been reigning by one man's sin and not as a physical law of man's being. If it were physical, then freedom from the reign of sin and death would be impossible without experiencing physical death, but Paul demonstrates that freedom from the reign of sin and death as a legal position is possible without dying physically.

You will observe the context of Romans 5:21; Paul is stating here that Sin had reigned from Eden to the death of Jesus Christ when by the Grace of God its power was taken away. This depended of course on the faith of individuals under the old Covenant and also those under the New Covenant; they had to know the way by which they could be made free from the reign of sin and death as a deferred sentence hanging or reigning over them, and still remain alive to become servants to God bringing forth fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life (Romans 6:22).

If you have read through Romans 6 to verse 22 you will have seen the contrast Paul shows between servants of personified Sin and servants of God (Righteousness). You will have observed (or should have), that the servants of righteousness had died unto their former master, 'Sin,' but that the servants of 'Sin' had not - and consequently were in receipt of Sin's wages, eventually, for services rendered. Paul says in Romans 6:23; "The wages of sin is death," this can end with natural death (Romans 2:12) for the unenlightened, and in the "second death" for enlightened rejecters. The servants of God do not receive wages but the gift of Eternal Life through Jesus Christ their Lord.

When I say, the servants of God had died to Sin as a Master, holding them in bondage, it means that seeing they are still living people, someone must have released them by ransom or purchase, and there is ample proof in Scripture that their debt to the law of sin and death was natural life which had been put in pledge by Adam's sin, for they were in his loins at the time and would have perished in him if the sentence of the law had been put into effect upon Adam, which Paul styles "death by sin," - judicial and inflicted (Romans 5:-12).

If dying by natural causes is the wages of sin, then this must apply to both servants of sin, whether unenlightened to the way of life, or enlightened, and also to enlightened servants of Righteousness. In that case Paul has wasted his time in writing his Epistle to the Roman believers, for where is the point in his teaching of dying to Sin symbolically into the death of Christ if natural decay and death still awaits them as wages earned?

The first eleven verses of Romans 6 shows the importance of the death of Christ as the means by which the old man of Sin's ownership can be crucified with Him by symbolic Baptism into His inflicted death, thus signifying that His life had been given for Adam's forfeited life, and our own as members of his body in the day he sinned. This is Paul's teaching on Federal Sin and Federal Righteousness, - Adam the Federal Head of Sin, and Jesus, the Federal Head of Righteousness.

Only Jesus Christ, who was born free of Federal Sin, was able to make others free from Sin's dominion; Baptism into His (inflicted) death is not a suffering of His death physically, but is (symbolically) in the place of it. Can you read Romans chapter 6 and still refute the teaching of a man who received the Gospel of salvation by revelation from the risen and glorified Christ who, while on His earthly mission for His Father, had declared, "For the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28)? The fact is fully explained in all Paul's Epistles and confirmed by Peter and John in their own Epistles.

The failure to understand and accept their teaching is due mainly to the false and erroneous writing and teaching of men using the Scriptures without discrimination and logical reasoning. One such writer and Author of the book entitled "Eureka" explained correctly Paul's teaching in Romans 5 and 6 concerning the Federal Principle of Justification and Redemption on pages 19 to 22 and I have sent out a booklet recently confirming this but some of his adherents have not received it with any enthusiasm. This may be due to the fact that in this same book Eureka, volume 1 pages 1 to 454, the writer describes the "Law of Sin and Death" as pertaining to the physical constituents of the human body causing decay and death, and therefore having this power to cause death; he states at page 248, bottom paragraph:

"This perishing body is 'Sin' and left to perish because of 'Sin.' The power of death is in its very constituents, so that the law of its nature is styled "the law of sin and death..." so that "to destroy that having the power of death," is to abolish this physical "law of sin and death," and instead thereof, to substitute the physical "law of the spirit of life," by which the same body would be changed in its constituents, and live for ever."

This is in opposition to what the Author believed and wrote around the year 1869; it was also refuted in 1965 as unscriptural, by one of his adherents, an Editor of a monthly magazine claiming him as the pioneer of its teaching. But most incredible is the fact that this Author of Eureka refutes what he has written on pages 19 to 22 of volume 1 and in doing so repudiates and sets at nought Paul's very statement made in the present tense of Romans 8:2. Here Paul is referring to the Law of Moses which also incorporated the Edenic Law where Death had come as a legal sentence and he says, in Romans 5:20, "Moreover, the law entered that the offence might abound." What offence? Why, the offence of one man. "But where sin abounded grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death (what death? - The symbolic death into Christ), that grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 5:21).

Paul is not speaking of a physical law of decay (this was in operation at Creation), but of a legal sentence passed on Adam for disobedience and styled Sin, and because it was imputed to all in his loins, it was styled "the law of sin and death" under which all were legally, not physically constituted, and because Legal, a transfer from the state of alienation and bondage to Sin to a state of freedom and relationship to God was possible without a physical change of nature. Thus Paul says of himself and others of like faith "But now are we delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit" (Romans 7:6), hence the phrase "the law of sin and death," from which "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" had made Paul free. (Romans 8:2).

Sadly, the Author of Eureka, in volume 1, page 248, contradicted his own writing, repudiated (not intentionally) the teaching of Paul in Romans 5 and 6 and left his own followers in the mire of confusion by their acceptance of his "Physical Law of Sin" teaching, as being "the perishing body or Sin, left to perish because of Sin." The power of death not having been taken away by the "law of the Spirit of Life" in Christ, because of this man's misconception and false interpretation of Paul's discourse to the Roman believers.

When those who profess him as their Pioneer from the 1860's are laid to rest in the grave they must admit to being still servants of Sin before that sad occasion arrives, so in that respect Paul's words will be true for them, - not having changed Masters in the manner explained by Paul, "For the wages of sin is death."

I was witness to a similar burial of a sincere woman and Bible student of many years and regarded as a servant of Jesus Christ, but he who conducted the funeral regarded her natural death as the Adamic penalty and quoted Paul, "The wages of sin is death," thus consigning her to oblivion. A lesson to whom it may concern, but will they ever learn? "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and he that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." The words of Jesus in John 6:37.

We are either the servants of Master Sin or the servants of God and His Son, for Jesus said, "No man (servant) can serve two Masters." (Matthew 6:24 & Luke 16:13).

The choice must be made now, of transfer to freedom in Christ the Resurrection and the Life, and not as described by the Author of Eureka whom I have quoted, and which is in error of interpretation of Romans chapter 6.

He that readeth let him understand, and if Truth and salvation is sincerely desired, may the Lord give you understanding.

Phil Parry.


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