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The apostle Paul liked to argue. With himself. Throughout his letters in the New Testament, Paul consistently sets up a truth based on Scripture or a teaching of Jesus. Then, based on that truth, he often argues against himself in his own letter, just to take the side of someone who may not exactly agree with him on a particular issue. Just to prove his point.

One of these issues was the idea that when Christ changes someone’s soul and saves him, the Christian becomes dead to sin and made alive in Christ.

20 v For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 w But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things x of which you are now ashamed? y For the end of those things is death.

Romans 6:20-21

Paul says, “Hey, before you knew God, you were slaves to sin. You couldn’t get out. You couldn’t do anything good or righteous. To top it all off, you got NOTHING good out of it! The only benefit to being in sin is death. And that’s not cool.”

So maybe I paraphrased a little, but you see my point. Then Paul sets up the other half of his argument:

22 But now that you z have been set free from sin and a have become slaves of God,b the fruit you get leads to sanctification and c its end, eternal life. 23 d For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6:22-23

In the first section I quoted, Paul says that nothing good comes from being a slave to sin. Here, Paul says to the Christian, “BUT you’ve been set free from sin…you’re not a slave to sin but you’re now a slave to God (in a good way)! The only thing you received from being a slave to sin and getting caught up in the world was death, but what you get from being submitted to God is sanctification, and that leads to eternal life!”

In submitting ourselves to God, he begins the process of sanctification. That means he begins the process of making us holy, in his own image. It’s a daily process. It will not happen overnight.

Sanctification is a lifetime process that slowly molds our behaviors and attitudes into the likeness of Jesus Christ in response to how we live in our dependence on the Spirit of God daily.

Wages are something you earn. A gift is given freely. You work for sin and earn death. You submit yourself to the lordship of Jesus Christ and receive the free gift of eternal life.