I am very familiar with it.
"The wages of sin is death,..........
We sin - we die. That is our pay. Our wages are paid to us. It is what we are owed. YOU get what you deserve or are owed.
You DON'T DIE TO BECOME SINLESS!
You DIE BECAUSE YOU SIN.
......................................................."but the gift of God is eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.""
BUT- the GIFT of God is eternal life in CHRIST._ Here we get the opposite of what we deserve, IT Is the GIFT of ETERNAL LIFE.
It is not earned. It is not deserved.
There is a choice in Ro 6:23- sin resulting in eternal DEATH or Christ resulting in eternal LIFE.
To JWs, that means that when you physically die you have paid for your own sins & are are now sinless. That is wrong.
It does not say that there, or ANYWHERE in the bible. Physical Death can't not make anyone sinless. WE become sinless by being born again and having our sins forgiven thanks to Jesus who paid our sin debt for us. Do you want your sins acquitted? Then you must believe in Jesus as your Savior who gave His life for your sins. Then, you become a child of God and your sins are forgiven- gone- you are set free from sin. Sin will no longer rule over you because God gives His Spirit to you to live in you. This is sanctification.
Jesus PAID our sin debt & ONLY Jesus could pay our sin debt.
Paul is speaking about NOW in this present LIFE-- PLEASE READ THIS in CONTEXT-
RO 6: 1-23
6:7 is 1/7 of one sentence- is speaking about how we are crucified with Christ NOW and our body of sin dying NOW to be set free of our sins.
Always read IN context.
1What shall we say then?
Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
2May it never be! How shall
we who died to sin still live in it?
3Or do you not know that all of us who have been
baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? 4Therefore
we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father,
so we too might walk in newness of life.
5For if we have become
united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be
in the likeness of His resurrection,
6knowing this, that
our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7for he who has died is freed from sin. 8Now
if we have died with Christ, we believe that
we shall also live with Him,
9knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
10For the death that He died,
He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
11Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
12Therefore
do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts,
13and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin
as instruments of unrighteousness; but
present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members
as instruments of
righteousness to God.
14For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.
15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be!
16Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone
as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey,
either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
17But thanks be to God that though
you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed,
18and
having been freed from sin, you became
slaves of righteousness. 19I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in
further lawlessness,
so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
20For
when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
21Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are
now ashamed? For the outcome of those things is death. 22But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit
, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
You sins must be atoned for by the ONE who is sinless. That is Christ.
You must be forgiven your sins. God provides. The bible teaches that over and over and over again--> Jesus paid for our sins.
You must believe God ,and be born anew to receive the Holy Spirit and walk in newness of life NOW. Otherwise death awaits you eternally- 2nd death. You will be raised unrighteous and sent to the lake of fire. There IS NO 2nd chance to earn eternal life. ITIS A GIFT.