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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Cause and Effect, #5
But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:22,23—NIV)
Romans 6:23, "the wages of sin is death," is often preached to the unsaved. The verse is not addressed to the unsaved but to the Christian concerning whether he has chosen to be the slave of righteousness or the slave of sin.
Heaven and Hell are not mentioned. The issue is life and death.
"The result is eternal life." If we have chosen to be the slave of God, we reap holiness, that is, freedom from sin, and pure behavior. The result of freedom from sin, slavery to God, and holy personality and behavior, is eternal life. Eternal life is not as much a reward as it is a direct result.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. (II Corinthians 5:10—NIV)
The above verse implies that we will be rewarded for the things we did while living on the earth.
But the King James has what I believe to be the original emphasis:
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. (II Corinthians 5:10—KJV)
Do you see in the King James translation that each person receives what he or she has done? If he has been hateful he receives hate. If he has been a liar he receives lying. If he has been a thief he receives thievery.
As I said previously, if we have come to Christ and been washed in His blood we have a new chance to sow better seed. But—and this is where the error is today—if we do not take every opportunity after becoming a Christian to change our behavior, as the Lord helps, we are going to reap death instead of life.
I do not know what Christ will do with any specific individual under any given circumstance. I do know, however, that the current teaching that no matter how we live we are going to receive a glorified body and be crowned as a king and priest at the coming of the Lord is not scriptural. This is not how Divine grace operates under the new covenant.
Speaking of being clothed in our own behavior, as it were, there is a verse in Revelation that is not ambiguous.
Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear. (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints.) (Revelation 19:8—NIV)
There is no ambiguity here. The Bride will be clothed in her righteous acts, righteous acts brought forth as Christ has been formed in her.
The hope today is that the sinning Christian will be clothed in white at the coming of the Lord. It is true rather that the sinning Christian is destroying his or her own resurrection.
Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. (Revelation 3:4—NIV)
Not the whole church in Sardis will walk with the Lord in white but the minority who through Christ have overcome that which has sought to turn them from Christ.
To be continued.