Paul is making one simple statement in the sixth chapter of the Book of Romans. He is saying that now that we have received Christ we have the authority and ability to choose to live righteously. If we choose to obey righteousness we will attain eternal life. But if we, having received Christ and been baptized in water, choose to obey unrighteousness, we will reap spiritual death.

Romans 6:23 often is used to support the "hundred dollar bill" concept of salvation. Actually, Romans 6:23 is the conclusion of an argument that completely refutes this concept. Romans 6:23 is testifying that if we Christians choose to yield our bodies as instruments of unrighteousness to sin we will reap the wages of sin. The believer who, after having received Christ, continues to serve unrighteousness, will die spiritually.

Romans 6:23 is not addressed to the non-Christian, although sin results in spiritual death whether or not the individual is a Christian. Rather, the purpose of Romans 6:23 is to balance the extreme emphasis that Paul in the earlier chapters of Romans had placed on receiving righteousness by belief in the Lord Jesus. The key to the understanding of Romans 6:23 is Romans 6:1,2.

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? (Romans 6:1,2)

The Scriptures themselves acknowledge that Paul's doctrine is easy to misunderstand and that unlearned and unstable believers can distort Paul's writings to their own destruction. This is what has taken place in the churches of today.

Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things [the events which shall take place at the end of the thousand-year Kingdom Age], be diligent [the cooperation of man with God] that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless. And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation [God's patience with mankind, leading all of us to repentance]; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you; As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest [distort], as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. (II Peter 3:14-16)

Both Paul and Peter warned that the doctrine of imputation can be interpreted incorrectly. Paul's doctrine of ascribed righteousness can be distorted to mean that the Christian salvation is an undemanding gift and requires no action on our part in order to gain the values contained in it. The Apostle James found it necessary to warn the Lord's flock that true faith in Christ is expressed in action.

Notice James' response to the distorting of the doctrine of imputed righteousness: "But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?" (James 2:20)

What would move James to raise such a question? It is obvious that some of the Christian teachers were overemphasizing Paul's doctrine of ascribed righteousness. The Holy Spirit in James pointed out the danger of depending on the type of faith that is not true scriptural faith at all but a mental grasp of the facts of theology.

To be continued.