Posted on 10/21/2021 6:08:46 AM PDT by metmom
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
Christ paid a debt He did not owe to free us from a debt we could not pay.
In the scientific realm there are universal laws, such as the law of gravity. These laws are built into the creation by its all-wise Creator and keep it functioning normally.
Just as God has made inexorable laws to govern the physical dimension, so also has He decreed universal spiritual principles. The most significant of those spiritual laws is that sin demands death; death is the wages sin pays. The Greek word translated “wages” was commonly used to speak of giving compensation for service rendered. When God sentences sinners to Hell, He is merely giving them the compensation that they have earned and that His justice demands.
In sharp contrast to the inexorable law of sin and death is the gracious “free gift of God”—“eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Eternal life is not a wage but a gift, and hence it can’t be earned. Good works, church attendance, or religious rituals will not entitle anyone to it. After recounting his religious credentials—credentials unsurpassed in first-century Judaism (Gal. 1:14)—Paul dismissed them as “loss for the sake of Christ” (Phil. 3:7).
The free gift of eternal life comes only through “Christ Jesus our Lord.” In Acts 4:12 Peter declared that “there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved.” And in John 14:6 Jesus said simply, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.”
“Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15)!
Suggestions for Prayer
Have you lost touch with the reality that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (Rom. 8:2)? If so, spend some time in prayer today, thanking God for giving you eternal life.
For Further Study
What do the following passages teach about the possibility of earning eternal life: Romans 3:28; Galatians 2:16; 3:11; Philippians 3:9; Titus 3:5?
Studying God’s Word ping
The new life is on a spiritual level, not on the 4D level of our physical bodies. BUT that does not mean there is nothing physical on the 'spiritual level'. Paul tells us if there is a physical body there is a spirit body also. We have that seed in every one of us; when we are born our seed of spirit is engulfed by the soul of our flesh and accuulates a sin debt from our living as children of Adam.
. What happens to that seed after we finish living on this 4D coordinate level is at issue. If we have a soul-body accumulation of sin which has not been dealt with by/through believing in Jesus as Whom God sent for our deliverance from that debt to the flesh, then the spirit body is going to go along the pre-ordained/pre-created path for expunging that sin from the Universe to come when God makes a new Heaven and new Earth.
We have as a part of our creation a seed which is existing in the higher coordinate system but engulfed by the power of the flesh nature, thus preventing the spirit 'seed' from blooming, under the burden of sin nature accumulated unrighteousness. (Reference Paul speaking of the seed capsule dying to release the life in the seed.)
Those in Christ have had their seed of spirit set free from the imprisoning of unrighteousness, given the righteousness of Christ, and are already alive in the greater coordinate system, as the thief on the cross episode shows. When Jesus says to him in response to the thief believing Jesus is Whom God sent, "Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise". This other coordinate system exists and when the Rapture happens those in Christ shall be transformed to have real physical bodies, existing in this greater coordinate system, capable of the actions Jesus displayed after His resurrection. We will be invisible to this current 4D realm, but alive, physically, in a greater coordinate system, for eternal living.
The thief on the cross already had a seed of existence greater than the flesh level. Jesus freed that seed, that spirit body, to go with Him to the Paradise side of hades. The thief will receive a new physical body when Jesus - God with us- gathers us to Himself and goes to the Father;'s HOuse.
Kerping
Thanks for offering your observation, my FRiend and brother according to The Father’s Plan.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.