Does Paul mean we are handed the fullness of eternal life as an undemanding gift, apart from any change in our conduct, when we make a correct doctrinal profession concerning Christ, His atonement and His resurrection?

Not at all. Such a statement coming at the end of the sixth chapter would destroy the exhortation of the chapter.

Paul wrote Romans 6:23, and then turned to the Jews (in Chapter Seven) and explained that the Law was unable to bring us into life because the Law merely emphasized sin. The Law does not have the power to deliver us from sin. It is sin that results in both spiritual and physical death.

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Romans 7:24)

Paul, in the eighth chapter, proceeds to explain what he meant by saying "the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

In the eighth chapter, Paul pulls together his teaching concerning forgiveness as a gift through the atonement, and his exhortation in the sixth chapter that the attainment of eternal life is based on what we do after we are forgiven.

In Romans 8:1, Paul explains the conditional aspect of the attainment of eternal life:

There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ, who walk not in the appetites of the flesh, but after the Spirit.

The forgiveness from wrath, of Chapters Three through Five, is balanced by the requirement of following the Spirit. Freedom from condemnation persists only as we walk in the Spirit of God. If we, having been forgiven by the blood of Jesus, continue to live in the appetites of the flesh, we will come back under condemnation.

Perhaps most of us have known of someone who accepted Christ and then neglected to walk after the Lord. The result of such neglect is obvious spiritual death. Such death can be observed in the worldly "believer." To then claim that the individual is not under Divine condemnation because he once made a profession of Christ is to depart from spiritual and scriptural reality.

We must pursue eternal life. We must attain the resurrection.

Paul continues to state that "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2).

This means there is authority and power in the Spirit of God that will, if we live in the Spirit, enable us to overcome the sin and death that dwell in our personality. If we walk in the Spirit we can overcome the most cunning, the most powerful temptation to sin.

We walk in the Spirit by praying much, by meditating in the Scriptures, by gathering together with fervent saints as we have the opportunity, by presenting our body a living sacrifice so we may prove the will of God in our life, by serving the Body of Christ with the gifts the Spirit has given us, and by doing all else in our power to serve the Lord.

We must, if we would enter Divine Life, set aside our own adamic life, take up our cross, and follow Christ with total, unswerving diligence and dedication.

To be continued.