What Does Romans 6:23 Mean?
For the pay of falling short is death, but the gift of God is the life of the ages in Jesus, the Anointed One, our Lord.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.THE KEY
The verse separates what missing earns from what favor gives: death is a wage, while the life of the ages comes as God’s gift.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to you now: the path of missing bears death as its wage, while God gives you the life of the ages through Jesus Christ. Jesus (Ἰησοῦς, Iēsous; Hebrew יֵשׁוּעַ, Yeshua, deliverance) and Christ (Χριστός, Christos; Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ, mashiach, the Anointed One) name the deliverance and anointing through which this gift comes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie is that life with God can be earned through moral performance; this verse names it as God’s gift.
THE ROOT
ἁμαρτία
hamartia
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρταν-
hamartan-
To miss, err, or fail to reach.
“falling short” in this verse is hamartia. The word translated “sin” carries the sense of missing. The verse’s stark image is what this missing yields: death as wages.
ALSO GROWS
hamartanō: To miss or err.
ἁμαρτάνω
The related verb makes the sense of missing active: a way of moving that fails to reach its end.
hamartēma: A fault, error, or miss.
ἁμάρτημα
This related noun shows the same root naming a particular instance of missing.
χάρισμα
charisma
GROWS FROM
χάρις
charis
Favor.
The gift is a favor-shaped grant: χάρισμα (charisma) takes its form from χάρις (charis), favor. Set against wages, it reveals life as given rather than owed as compensation.
ALSO GROWS
charizomai: To grant freely, or to forgive.
χαρίζομαι
This related verb shows favor taking the form of a free grant.
charitoō: To favor or bestow favor.
χαριτόω
This verb carries the same favor-root into the act of granting favor.
ζωὴ αἰώνιος
zōē aiōnios
GROWS FROM
αἰών
aiōn
An age or era.
“the life of the ages” in this verse is zōē aiōnios. The word rendered “eternal” also carries the sense “of the age.” The phrase opens onto life belonging to the ages God gives.
ALSO GROWS
aiōn: An age or era.
αἰών
This is the root word carried within αἰώνιος.
aiōnios: Of an age; age-long.
αἰώνιος
This adjective connects the life in the verse to an age, as well as to duration.
THE PATTERN
Death is the yield of missing, while life comes from God’s giving.
And the LORD God shaped the ground-being, Adam, from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul.Then craving, when it has conceived, gives birth to falling short; and falling short, when it is full-grown, bears death.For God so loved the world that he gave his only-born Son, that everyone who leans their full weight into him should not perish, but have the life of the ages.THE THREAD
For if through the stumble of one man death reigned through one, much more those who take hold of the overflow of favor and of the gift of alignment will reign in life through one, Jesus the Anointed One.The word “gift” in Romans 6:23 is χάρισμα (charisma), formed from χάρις (charis, favor); Romans 5:17 names that same favor-root beside gift and life. The shared root reveals God’s gift as favor’s answer to death’s reign.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us