Section 2
book of life will be cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death (Rev. 20:15). Our burden in this booklet is not with this future, objective aspect of death; it is with the present, subjec tive aspect. At this very moment, the element of death is within our being, endeavoring to kill us.
In chapters five through eight of Romans the subject of death is covered in a full way. In Romans 5 we see that death entered the world through sin and then passed to all men. Further more, as verse 14 makes clear, death also reigns. In 6:21 and 23 Paul says that the end of the things of which we now are ashamed is death and that death is the wages of sin. Romans 7 is a chapter not only on law but also on death. In verses 10 and 11 Paul declares, "And the commandment which was unto life, this was found to me to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me." Furthermore, in verse 13 Paul says that sin works "death to me through that which is good." Therefore, in verse 24 he cries out, "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" The death that Paul is speaking about in chapter seven is not the death coming in the future; it is the death work ing within us right now.