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We have to notice three words.

I. SIN. "Sin is the transgression of the law." Its fundamental idea is deviation from the law, as a standard of excellence or as a rule of conduct. Now, the law supposes a lawgiver, and the possibility of God's law being disobeyed, i.e., that it has to do with moral agents. Well, then, we have to think of them as failing from some cause or other to do God's will, which is sin. Sin is set forth under three aspects.

1. As a principle or law (Romans 8:2).

(1) As sin is the rejection of God's authority, the refusal to let Him reign over us, it follows that by it we set up our own will in opposition to His. See, then, what such autonomy involves.

(a)  The basest ingratitude, for who can deny that we owe all our powers and happiness and our very being to God?

(b)  An imputation upon God's character, viz., that He is unworthy to govern us, that His will is unjust, His law unkind.

(c)  Rebellion against Him.

(d)  Usurpation of His place; and hence idolatry and self-deification.

(2) Why should any creature throw off God's authority and govern himself? It must be for some object of self-gratification incompatible with obedience to God. Now, God's law seeks the greatest good of all; and therefore, to set it at nought for the sake of personal indulgence, is to violate the principle of benevolence.

(3) This selfishness may assume a great variety of forms. Many men have as many different ways of enjoying themselves, yet all may be equally selfish. Some are sensual, some are covetous, others ambitious, and not a few are fired with the intellectual passion for fame.

2. As an act or acts. The law, though in principle always one, has nevertheless many particular precepts, and is outraged by the violation of any of those precepts. There are sins of deed, of speech, of deportment, of looks, of motive, desire, imagination, thought, of negation, and omission. All these are the outgrowth of that self-will and selfishness in which sin essentially consists.

3. As state. Hence, we read of men being "born in sin," and remaining "dead in trespasses and sins." Before we commit any acts of sin, and as the source of all we do commit, we have a sinful nature — a bias to go and to do wrong. The thoroughly sinful soul may be said to live in sin always. Sin is its element and vital air. It lives without God.

II. DEATH.

1. Spiritual death. The soul is dead when destitute of holiness and happiness; of the disposition to do well, and of the power to enjoy God. It admits of degrees; the more it prevails, the more it grows, and the commission of sin inevitably paves the way for the perpetration of many more; and the final stage is reached when the conscience is seared as with a hot iron, proof against every appeal, and resolutely bent on his own eternal destruction.

2. Eternal death. Let us suppose a man, whose soul is dead through sin, removed out of this world into the next, and what shall we behold concerning him? His case is a million-fold more terrible than before. For —

(1) It is confirmed unalterably forever. Though countless ages roll over his head, he that is unholy must be unholy still; he that is filthy must be filthy still.

(2) Besides, he is still the subject of the law of progress; and therefore, as the ages of his immortality advance, each will leave him worse than it found him.

(3) This development of evil will be incalculably accelerated and aggravated by the absence of everything enjoyed on earth, and which helped either to restrain the malignity of the disposition or to relieve the wretchedness of the feelings.

(4) The positive infliction of punishment as a token of God's anger at sin.

III. WAGES. This word denotes a relation of equity between sin and death. The sinner earns death as his rightful recompense. This connection is —

1. Natural. You have only to study the human mind, its laws of association and of working, to be convinced that sin, when it is finished, must bring forth death.

2. Judicial. The wicked are turned into hell by a just and holy God; and the same reasons which send them there must avail to keep them there. They have no power to make themselves good, and being immortally evil they must be immortally shut out from heaven. Certainly God will not lay upon the wicked more of these terrible "wages" than they individually deserve. But who shall determine the full and adequate deserts of sin? Conclusion:

1. Christians should not live in sin, but utterly hate and discard it, and earnestly strive to perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord. They have done with it as a state; let them have done with it as a law, and in its individual acts.

2. Here is a message of warning to the ungodly. See for what wages you are working; part are being paid now, but immense arrears are being treasured up in the future. You think you are working for pleasure, for gold, for honour, but lo! it is for death.

(T. G. Horton.)

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KJV: For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

WEB: For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.