Wages

Most understand how wages work: your preform a task for someone in exchange for some form of wages.  Some of us know more than others, and some wish they had more experience with this.  This does however apply to more than just money or goods.



The bible explains that we get wages for our shortcomings.  In one sense of thinking some would say this is a good deal; getting something for a mess up, when normally stuff is taken away.  In other terms, however, it isn't such a pretty picture: we deserve punishment for wrong doing.  As it is said "the wages of sin is death."

How about a comparison?  If you speed... you earn a ticket.  If you steal, you may receive a fine.  Larger infractions receive larger punishments.  We all understand these scenarios, which would be considered lesser crimes.  However, breaking the law makes anyone a law breaker.  In order to avoid the punishment of the law you must not break the law.

If we believe we are created, then we must understand who our creator is and what He requires.  God is just and perfect and requires the same from His creation.  Now it may seem harsh, but God could not be just if he ignored sin (which is missing the mark of perfection).  We all know the story of Adam and Eve in some form or another though the main thought is the same.

The snake told Eve to eat the fruit, she did and so did Adam.  There is a lot more to get into in this story but I am talking about wages so we will stick to that.  God said that in the day that they ate the fruit they would surely die.  Of course they didn't just drop dead, aren't you glad?  But death and decay entered the world and began the state of things as we know it.

Now to the main point, God created man, man disobeyed and death was the requirement.  We can all understand not wanting someone we love to displease us.  The key, however, is reconciliation.  We all desire to be at peace with our friends and family and we achieve that by reconciling.

God, wanting to reconcile with us sent Jesus.  Adam having been perfect, made the choice to disobey bringing death into the world.  Just like Adam Jesus had to be perfect to reverse the conditions brought about by Adam.  The only draw back is that Jesus would have to fulfill the requirement of death.

You can see where this is going.  Jesus' death on the cross was in the place of the requirement upon all mankind to die.  So the wages being death is a hard requirement to pay.  Jesus fulfilled the requirement by living a perfect life and dying.

The paradox was, a perfect person was not deserving of death so could not die....  That is why Jesus had to raise from the dead because death could not keep him.  But the fact remains that the penalty was paid.  That is where we come in, our penalty has been paid.  So we can avoid death by accepting this pardon.

I got the desire to write about this from 2 Corinthians Ch. 5 and Romans Ch. 5.