If we put aside the forensic interpretation of the relation of sin to death (death as a “punishment” for disobedience), death is “the wages” of sin not because it is a result of it (death existed in creation before sin) but because sin (the fall) has subjected us to death and made it dominate creation forever as part of “reality,” owing to our progenitor’s refusal to lead the world to a future free of death. By failing the test of faith, by not fulfilling the eschatological call, the human being “bought” (ὀψώνια) death as part of the “real” to which it chose freely to subject itself.
