Earning What You Deserve ...

“The wages of sin is death.”  The apostle Paul penned a sentiment that was more profound than a cursory first view might reveal.  Most of us read this text and infer that by embracing evil (committing sin) it will result in our ‘eventual’ punishment – i.e. death.  We interpret the death to be physical, and therefore this text reads like a threat – if you sin, you die.  But perhaps there is more to it than that.

Wages are traditionally the reward for work that you have agreed to do, not a punishment for it.  In this context, death would be viewed as a positive reward for the works-of-sin, not as a punitive measure.  But then how could you see the termination of your life as something good?  What would you compare your death against, that would make your death look like the better choice?  Herein is the mystery of iniquity.

“Give me liberty, or give me death” wrote the patriot.  And his words were meant to convey that a life where you have no choices, and no real freedoms, is a life not worth living.  How many a proud American in our armed services has died to protect our “freedom”.  We as a nation have rationalized (and rightly so), that our freedom exceeds the value of our own lives.  In this way, so it is with sin.  Embracing evil is a horribly addictive, horribly destructive, method of robbing one of his freedoms.  The worst characteristic of evil is the bondage it asserts over its willing victims.  In this way, those who embrace evil, become its slave, and therefore live the life of a slave which according to our patriotism is not worth it.

“We must make it clear that we do not torture” said our new President Obama upon coming in to office.  Torture is the infliction of agony on someone.  Often it does not even require a motive to perform.  The victims of torture depending on their tolerance for pain, all eventually reach the same conclusion – better to die than to continue to live in a state of constant torture.  Given how bad torture hurts, we can all understand this sentiment of the victims.  Death is more merciful than torture.

For our purposes, the next most horrible characteristic of evil is its ability to inflict pain on everyone it touches.  It is not just the perpetrator of a crime who will suffer, but the victims of crime, their families, those who love the doer of evil, literally everyone it touches.  And evil is relentless, it never stops inflicting pain.  Every evil action causes pain to someone. 

To know God is to know everything that is good, everything that would make you happy beyond your wildest dreams.  The slightest deviation away from God leads to the utter degradation we have come to know as evil.  The opposite of God is everything bad.  Living in this condition, is living in constant torture.  And as we already discussed earlier, a slave to torture, with no hope of freedom, living forever in this condition is beyond cruel, it is inconceivable. 

As the author of evil, the devil suffers from its effects perhaps most of all.  He above all others, knows the crushing weight of living in ultimate agony, where his memory would have his life before sin, as living in ultimate freedom and happiness.  The devil like any torture victim craves an end to his own existence, and according to scripture will someday be granted that mercy.

The idea that Hell is someplace where victims are tortured by fire in a never-ending state of being undead and fully conscience of pain is not Biblical, nor is it consistent with the character of a God whose makeup has no evil within it.  Every scripture on the topic of Hell in the Bible clearly states that evil will be consumed by the final flames.  Consumed, not forever tortured by them.  After the flames of Hell the world will be remade new.  How could this be if it never stops burning?  The death of evil is what will be the result of the flames of Hell, and the death of evil will last forever and ever, not the “killing” of evil, the “death” of evil.  Those who believe in a never ending state of torture that requires flames, do not understand the nature of evil itself.  It requires no fire to inflict its misery.  It is the definition of existence in torture.  The flames are actually the mercy of God in that they once and for all time consume what remains of evil.

The idea that death in our original text was something ‘eventual’ and only applies to the physical realm may be something else to take a look at.  God told and Adam and Eve in the Garden that if they ate the fruit of the tree of evil they would die.  They were not even supposed to touch it.  Yet finding herself alone with a talking snake, Eve is already touching it, and the serpent reminds her … she is not dead.  But a deeper view might find that indeed there was an immediate consequence from the touching of that fruit that perhaps she did not see.  Something did die right there, right then.

You could argue that it was her innocence that died.  You could argue that she was naïve against the wiles of the devil, and the tricky serpent tricked her.  Really, not so much.  He flattered her.  He told her she could become more wise, and be like God.  This appealed to the common human weakness of “doing the wrong thing for the ‘right’ reasons”.  But in the end, Eve chose to disobey, and in so doing, she yielded up her freedom from sin.  What died in that garden was her own ability to walk away from the choice of evil of her own accord.  Her freedom died, because she killed it.  It would not take the savior to enter our world, and live out His perfect life of service.  It would take one free from the slavery of sin, to CHOOSE not to embrace sin.  And in this way, her death was immediate.

One of the biggest mysteries of God is the length, depth, and nature of His love for us.  It is really hard to understand WHY He loves us.  We know that He does when we read His word to us, or when we see the tenderness of creation designed for us.  But trying to figure out why He loves us gets very hard.  Yes we have the family unit that teaches much about forgiveness, and the beauty of intimacy.  We have children of our own, that we love somehow in spite of their imperfections, and who love us the same way.  So we can look and see that love does exist.  But why He should choose to give us such a precious gift as love, and love us so unconditionally, remains a bit of a mystery.

This is what draws us to Him.  It is the fact that He loved us first, that makes us want to know why.  “The Wages of sin is death”,  Then it is death that we deserve, it is death we have earned, death should be our reward.  If there only existed Justice, it would demand our death and even then would be showing us a kind of mercy.  But the text does not end with a profound examination of nature of evil, it continues “but the Gift of God is eternal life”.  And just like the first part of the text we so often gloss over, we look at the second part and just assume it is talking about living on streets of Gold, playing a harp, or doing some other mindless activity.  Wrong!

The “Gift” is just that a gift, not something you deserve, you can not earn it.  You can accept it, or reject it, but you cannot earn it.  The Gift comes only from God, nowhere else.  Not from your friends, family, co-workers, or the person you look to for spiritual guidance – it comes only from God, directly to you, no middleman needed, or wanted for that matter.  And the gift is life. 

A life that IS WORTH LIVING.  A life that is without the bondage or torture of evil.  A life that does not require the constant cycle of sin and repent, but a life that is without sin any longer.  This is life.  This is something where eternal begins to matter.  This is the only condition where you would want to prolong your existence, is in a state of perfection.  Life does not start on streets of Gold, it merely continues there.  This is what God intended your life to be, not the miserable existence you contend with now, the perfection of what is to come. 

The gift of life begins now, and reaches fulfillment in the end.  The pain you live with now, begins to leave you, as you allow God to remove the sting of evil from the core of who you are.  And as the pain leaves, the joy replaces it.  Your mind begins to see things differently as evil leaves your soul.  What was once a chore, now becomes the most sacred of privileges; and what was once so desired, becomes that which is now so abhorred.  Without the fog of evil, and its insidious dark influence on who you are, you begin to see more clearly through the lenses of the Eternal one who knows no evil, and truth is revealed, beauty is revealed, and life becomes worth living.