Our hope is in the Lord. In our heart of hearts we know that we are sinful. Every person who has ever lived is aware of this fact. Apart from God's intervention, our lives consist of various efforts to conquer, transcend, or explain away our fatal disease-sin. The wages of sin is death, and it is ultimately to be faced if it announces that we have lost the battle.
Death is either the door to life eternal or a terrible judgment.
If we die in our sins we are sinners forever. Death stands as a threat to seal us in our sins. We will do anything to avoid this sting. We will dance to any tune, we will buy any philosophy to help us escape it. In Romans, he declares that there is a law, the certain, righteous character of God as it is revealed in Scripture and in creation, against which we have to measure ourselves.