Romans 6:23
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Where this sits
The conclusion of Paul's argument about being slaves either to sin or to righteousness. The chapter began with the question: shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
Reflection
The two halves of this verse are not symmetrical, and the asymmetry is the point.
Wages is a transactional word — what is owed for work performed. It is not a punishment imposed from outside; it is compensation, earned, and paid on time. Paul is describing death as something that arrives on schedule, because it was worked for.
Against that he does not set a better wage. He changes the category entirely: the free gift of God. A gift and a wage cannot be compared on the same scale — one is a matter of accounts, the other of will. And you cannot earn a gift without destroying it.
Had Paul wanted symmetry he could have written the wages of righteousness is life. He does not, and the whole letter would collapse if he had.
The word behind free gift is used elsewhere for a favour granted, and it shares a root with grace. Paul uses it deliberately here, at the end of a chapter answering people who thought grace meant sin no longer mattered.
And the last phrase locates the gift rather than describing it: in Christ Jesus our Lord. Eternal life is not a substance dispensed. It is somewhere you are, or are not.
- Theme:
- Salvation
- Book:
- Romans