SEV Biblia, Chapter 6:23
Porque la paga del pecado es muerte; mas la gracia de Dios es vida eterna en Cristo Jess, Seor nuestro.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - Romans 6:23
Verse 23. For the wages of sin is death] The second death, everlasting perdition. Every sinner earns this by long, sore, and painful service. O! what pains do men take to get to hell! Early and late they toil at sin; and would not Divine justice be in their debt, if it did not pay them their due wages? But the gift of God is eternal life] A man may MERIT hell, but he cannot MERIT heaven. The apostle does not say that the wages of righteousness is eternal life: no, but that this eternal life, even to the righteous, is to carisma tou qeou, THE gracious GIFT of GOD. And even this gracious gift comes through Jesus Christ our Lord. He alone has procured it; and it is given to all those who find redemption in his blood. A sinner goes to hell because he deserves it; a righteous man goes to heaven because Christ has died for him, and communicated that grace by which his sin is pardoned and his soul made holy. The word oywnia, which we here render wages, signified the daily pay of a Roman soldier. So every sinner has a daily pay, and this pay is death; he has misery because he sins. Sin constitutes hell; the sinner has a hell in his own bosom; all is confusion and disorder where God does not reign: every indulgence of sinful passions increases the disorder, and consequently the misery of a sinner. If men were as much in earnest to get their souls saved as they are to prepare them for perdition, heaven would be highly peopled, and devils would be their own companions. And will not the living lay this to heart? 1. IN the preceding chapter we see the connection that subsists between the doctrines of the Gospel and the practice of Christianity. A doctrine is a teaching, instruction, or information concerning some truth that is to be believed, as essential to our salvation. But all teaching that comes from God, necessarily leads to him. That Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification, is a glorious doctrine of the Gospel. But this is of no use to him who does not die to sin, rise in the likeness of his resurrection, and walk in newness of life: this is the use that should be made of the doctrine. Every doctrine has its use, and the use of it consists in the practice founded on it. We hear there is a free pardon-we go to God and receive it; we hear that we may be made holy-we apply for the sanctifying Spirit; we hear there is a heaven of glory, into which the righteous alone shall enter-we watch and pray, believe, love, and obey, in order that, when he doth appear, we may be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless. Those are the doctrines; these are the uses or practice founded on those doctrines. 2. It is strange that there should be found a person believing the whole Gospel system, and yet living in sin! SALVATION FROM SIN is the long-continued sound, as it is the spirit and design, of the Gospel. Our Christian name, our baptismal covenant, our profession of faith in Christ, and avowed belief in his word, all call us to this: can it be said that we have any louder calls than these? Our self- interest, as it respects the happiness of a godly life, and the glories of eternal blessedness; the pains and wretchedness of a life of sin, leading to the worm that never dies and the fire that is not quenched; second most powerfully the above calls. Reader, lay these things to heart, and: answer this question to God; How shall I escape, if I neglect so great salvation? And then, as thy conscience shall answer, let thy mind and thy hands begin to act.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 23. For the wages of sin is death , etc..] By sin, is meant every sin, original sin, actual sin, every kind of sin, lesser and greater: the death which sin deserves, is a corporeal death; which is not owing to the original nature and constitution of men; nor merely to the divine appointment; but to sin, and the decree of God, on account of it; which is inflicted on Christless sinners, as a punishment for sin, though not on believers as such, because Christ has took away the sting and curse of it: a death of diseases and afflictions also follows upon sin, as its proper demerit; which are properly punishments to wicked men, and are occasioned by sin in believers: there is a death of the soul, which comes by sin, which lies in an alienation from God, in a loss of the image of God, and in a servitude to sin; and there is an eternal death, the just wages of sin, which lies in a separation of soul and body from God, and in a sense of divine wrath to all eternity; and which is here meant, as is clear from its antithesis, eternal life, in the next clause. Now this is the wages of sin; sin does in its own nature produce it, and excludes from life; it is the natural issue of it; sin is committed against an infinite God, and righteously deserves such a death; it is its just wages by law. The Greek word oqwnia , signifies soldiers' wages; (see Luke 3:14 1 Corinthians 9:7) and in At which time Simon rose up, and fought for his nation, and spent much of his own substance, and armed the valiant men of his nation and gave them wages, (1 Maccabees 14:32) Sin is represented as a king, a mighty monarch, a tyrannical prince; sinners are his subjects and vassals, his servants and soldiers, who fight under him, and for him, and all the wages they must expect from him is death. So the word is interpreted in the Glossary, misyov stratiwtikov , soldiers' wages; and so it is used by the Jewish writers, being adopted into their language; of a king, they say f120 , that he should not multiply to himself gold and silver more than to pay aynpsa , which they interpret by twlyyj rk , the hire of armies, or the wages of soldiers for a whole year, who go in and out with him all the year; so that it denotes wages due, and paid after a campaign is ended, and service is over; and, as here used, suggests, that when men have been all their days in the service of sin, and have fought under the banners of it, the wages they will earn, and the reward that will be given them, will be death: and it is frequently observed by the Jewish doctors f122 , that ajj alb htym ya , there is no death without sin: sin is the cause of death, and death the fruit and effect of sin: but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord . These words, at first sight, look as if the sense of them was, that eternal life is the gift of God through Christ, which is a great and glorious truth of the Gospel; but their standing in opposition to the preceding words require another sense, namely, that God's gift of grace issues in eternal life, through Christ: wherefore by the gift of God is not meant eternal life, but either the gift of a justifying righteousness, or the grace of God in regeneration and sanctification, or both, which issue in eternal life; the one is the saints' right and title, the other their meetness for it: so that as death is the wages of sin, and is what that issues in, and brings unto, eternal life is the effect of grace, or what the grace of God in justifying and sanctifying his people issues in; even a life free from all sorrow and imperfection; a life of the utmost perfection and pleasure, and which will last for ever: and as the grace of God, which justifies and sanctifies them, is through Christ, so is the eternal life itself which it brings unto: this is in Christ, comes through his righteousness, sufferings, and death; is bestowed by him, and will greatly consist in the enjoyment of him. All grace is the gift of God, and is freely given, or otherwise it would not be grace; particularly the justifying righteousness of Christ is the gift of God; and the rather this may be meant here, since the apostle had been treating of it so largely before, and had so often, in the preceding chapter, called it the gift of righteousness, the free gift, and gift by grace, and justification by it, the justification of life, because it entitles to eternal life, as here: it may be said to issue in it; for between justification and glorification there is a sure and close connection; they that are justified by the righteousness of Christ, are certainly glorified, or enjoy eternal life; and though this may be principally intended here, yet is not to be understood to the exclusion of other gifts of grace, which have the same connection and issue: thus, for instance, faith is the gift of God, and not of a man's self, and he that has it, has eternal life, and shall, Or ever possess it; repentance is a free grace gift, it is a grant from the Lord, and it is unto life and salvation; and on whomsoever the grace of God is bestowed, so as to believe in Christ for righteousness, and truly repent of sin, these shall partake of eternal glory. It may be observed, that there is a just proportion between sin, and the wages of it, yet there is none between eternal life, and the obedience of men; and therefore though the apostle had been pressing so much obedience to God, and to righteousness, he does not make eternal life to be the fruit and effect of obedience, but of the gift of the grace of God.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 21-23 - The pleasure and profit of sin do not deserve to be called fruit Sinners are but ploughing iniquity, sowing vanity, and reaping the same. Shame came into the world with sin, and is still the certai effect of it. The end of sin is death. Though the way may seem pleasan and inviting, yet it will be bitterness in the latter end. From thi condemnation the believer is set at liberty, when made free from sin If the fruit is unto holiness, if there is an active principle of tru and growing grace, the end will be everlasting life; a very happy end Though the way is up-hill, though it is narrow, thorny, and beset, ye everlasting life at the end of it is sure. The gift of God is eterna life. And this gift is through Jesus Christ our Lord. Christ purchase it, prepared it, prepares us for it, preserves us to it; he is the All in all in our salvation __________________________________________________________________
Greek Textus Receptus
τα 3588 T-NPN γαρ 1063 CONJ οψωνια 3800 N-NPN της 3588 T-GSF αμαρτιας 266 N-GSF θανατος 2288 N-NSM το 3588 T-NSN δε 1161 CONJ χαρισμα 5486 N-NSN του 3588 T-GSM θεου 2316 N-GSM ζωη 2222 N-NSF αιωνιος 166 A-NSF εν 1722 PREP χριστω 5547 N-DSM ιησου 2424 N-DSM τω 3588 T-DSM κυριω 2962 N-DSM ημων 2257 P-1GP
Vincent's NT Word Studies
23. Wages (oywnia). From oyon cooked meat, and later, generally, provisions. At Athens especially fish. Hence ojywnion is primarily provision-money, and is used of supplies for an army, see 1 Corinthians ix. 7. The figure of ver. 13 is carried out: Sin, as a Lord to whom they tender weapons and who pays wages.Death. "Sin pays its serfs by punishing them. Its wages is death, and the death for which its counters are available is the destruction of the weal of the soul" (Morison).
Gift (carisma). Rev., rightly, free gift (compare ch. v. 15). In sharp contrast with wages.
Robertson's NT Word Studies
6:23 {Wages} (oywnia). Late Greek for wages of soldier, here of Sin. See on Lu 3:14; 1Co 9:7; 2Co 11:8. Sin pays its wages in full with no cut. But eternal life is God's gift (carisma), not wages. Both qanatos and zwen are {eternal} (aiwnion).
