St. Paul doesn’t mince words in his Letter to the Romans. In chapter 6, verse 23, he says right out, “For the wages of sin is death.” There is no getting around it. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve sinned. They did the one thing God told them not to do, and they received the very punishment that God imposed for that disobedience: death. No, they did not drop dead immediately, but they did die physically. Even worse, though, they experienced spiritual death, separation from God.
For years upon years, centuries upon centuries, millennia upon millennia, the gates of Heaven were closed to human beings. Sin broke the relationship with God. Sin closed those gates. Sin separated us from our Father Who loves us.
But because our Father loves us, He spent years upon years, centuries upon centuries, millennia upon millennia preparing for the solution to the problem of sin and death. And that solution was something no one could have imagined. Love Himself, Life Himself, Truth Himself, the Word of God Himself, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Son of God became incarnate. He came to take sin and death upon Himself and open the gates of Heaven.
That’s why St. Paul can add that “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God’s grace pours out upon us, forgiving our sins and canceling their punishment. Jesus gives us life. We still die physically (and who would want to live forever in this fallen world?), but we no longer have to die spiritually. We no longer have to be separated from God. We can enter into eternal life through Christ, for when we are baptized and in a state of grace, God’s very divine life indwells in our souls, drawing us up to eternal life in Heaven.
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