After the Christmas holiday, I always ambitiously take down the tree and all the decorations, glad to get the mess of pine needles and dusty decorations cleaned out of my living room. I get the tree to the front porch or lean it against the house, expecting to deal with it later. Probably somebody might have left that tree out in the yard, until April. (certainly not me!) Sometimes I forget that it is there and it just becomes a part of the porch. Some terms in our “religious speak” can be like this, I have heard them so many times, that like my Christmas tree, they become a part of the wall, without thinking about their meaning. We are familiar with the words of Paul:
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. – Romans 6:23
Perhaps it’s a small detail, but there is a slight difference between a cost and a salary, but perhaps in this case it’s not much different. What comes to your mind when I say, “The price of sin”?
In Ukraine I heard a sermon and I have never forgotten it. Listening to the preacher detail the sacrifices of the Old Testament, I was overwhelmed with the bloodshed of it all. The work of a Jewish priest was very different from our modern idea of a priest. A Jewish priest was a butcher, covered in blood. According to Exodus 29:36, a bull was sacrificed every day, he kept the fire of the sacrifice burning all day every day. If you bring a Jewish priest through time from, say 400 B.C. and told him he was going to have to perform his priestly duties in the robes that modern priests wear, I think the first thing he might think how impractical it all is. “Am I going to catch on fire in these flowing robes. Certainly the fine material is going to be soaked in blood in the first few minutes.
Another modern day thought struck me that we overlook. If you look at the modern cattle market, a healthy bull will go for anywhere between $5,000- $12,000. According to Jewish law, other sacrifices for special circumstances and occasions were made depending on your financial capabilities. In addition to the daily sacrifice, burnt offerings, and grain offerings, peace offerings and guilt offerings were made. For guilt offerings and sin offerings a goat was sacrificed. Currently, a male goat fetches a price tag around $400. and an adult ram $800. To a Jew, this was the wage of sin.
In this way it was also a salary. You were watching your wealth get stabbed and then burnt to a crisp with nothing to show for it, except forgiveness, of course. But then there was the worst part. It was temporary. You knew that you would be back again with another $400, $800, or $5,000.
But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year, For it is not possible
that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. – Hebrews 10:3,4
So why did God ask the Israelites to sacrifice so much? Every day, they offered sacrifices which can never take away sin. (Hebrews 10:12); daily sacrifices for thousands of years. The priest was up to his eyeballs in the blood of bulls and goats.
If we had the mental picture of every time, you lose control of yourself, an innocent animal would have to forfeit their life, would we live our lives a little differently? The reality is as stated in Roman’s 6:23, the price of sin is so much higher, than any monetary cost.
In some churches recompense for sin can be made by going to confession, or by earning indulgences. (The sale of indulgences was banned in 1567, but they can still be earned through donations to ‘the church’). Some might try to cover the cost of sin, by giving to the church, feeding the poor and hungry, some might even dedicate their lives to a foreign mission field.
In some countries, where there is a great degree of superstition and fanaticism, some will even crucify themselves! Ruben Enaje, a carpenter from the Philippines, fell three floors from bamboo scaffolding while working on a construction job. To express his gratitude he has crucified himself 34 times! His daughter survived an asthma attack and then his wife developed a lump on her cheek. As recompense he submits to the torture of the crucifixion. He drags his 81 pound cross up hill for 1 mile. before four 3” nails are driven into his hands and feet, he is whipped 5 times.
According to the scripture, Ruben’s sin is still on him. God never asked us to be crucified. He was the only one who could perform that task! The question then is not how we earn that, but how do we touch that?
Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. – Romans 6:3,4
Most won’t go to the literal extreme of being nailed to a cross to make recompense for sin. None of this will pay your debt of sin. Fortunately, the answer is much simpler. The words again:
The wage of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.
It is a gift. The second half of Romans 6:4; Even so, we also should walk in newness of life. When you give your life to Christ, God has made you a new creature.
Live like it.