Slaves to Sin – Being a Pilgrim

“For you are free, yet you are God’s slaves, so don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do evil.”
1 Peter 2:16 NLT

Here is a paradox, if ever there was one! How can we be enslaved and free at the same time? But from a spiritual perspective, we are either slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness. We can’t be both. Romans 6:16, “Don’t you realise that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living”. The problem is that we look at the word “slave” from a natural perspective and an image forms in our mind consisting of prison cells, or chains, or oppressive authoritarian controls. Here in the West we consider ourselves to be free to do what we want, and consequently we are not slaves. But is that really the case? We are bounded by the laws of the land, which are mostly there for the benefit of the citizens, but we can also be restricted by our natural abilities, or lack of them. For example, someone who has lost the use of their legs, forcing use of a wheel chair, may consider that they are slaves of their disability.

Peter, in our verse today, was writing about spiritual freedom. And his fellow Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 6:17-18, “Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living”. Paul really had a gift of clarity, and in Romans 6:19 we read, “Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy”. And Romans 6 finishes with the well know reason for why we need to choose very carefully who or what we allow ourselves be enslaved to. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

The internet throbs with testimonies of people in slavery but who are really some of the most free people we are likely to meet. People living in prison camps, or being persecuted with their homes burnt down, or excluded from all but the most menial of jobs. People who are trafficked to other countries where they are forced to work long hours as slaves. A quote from gotquestions.org, “Slavery has come to mean degradation, hardship, and inequality. But the biblical paradigm is the true freedom of the slave of Christ who experiences joy and peace, the products of the only true freedom we will ever know in this life”.

In John 8 we read what Jesus said about slavery. “Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin. A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family forever. So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free” (John 8:34-36). In Christ we have the freedom we were designed to have. A life enslaved to sin is a life counter to God’s creation plan, but a life enslaved to God guarantees us a life that will never end. A final word for us pilgrims from Romans 6:4, “For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives”. Faced with such a stark choice, we pilgrims have chosen the way of eternal life. There is no other way.

Dear Father God. We thank You that You have laid before us a choice, made possible through Jesus Your Son. Please help us to echo Joshua’s declaration, “…as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord”. Amen.

“Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.”
Romans 6:5-6 NLT

Perhaps we have an image in our minds, of a unified person. Consider a picture of Jesus, and a photograph of ourselves, and then superimpose one over the other. Personally, a unified picture of Jesus and me. How does that make us feel? Good? Apprehensive? Unsure? Yes, all of the above, but that is the reality of the Christian life. Association with Jesus in this way, in true unity, is the only way forward towards our goal of salvation. And Paul’s use of the baptismal imagery continues, with the mental picture of being raised to life just as Jesus was.

The next thought from Paul profoundly impacts a new Christian’s life. And the older Christian’s too, because we must never forget and slip back into our old sinful ways. When we pilgrims fell onto our knees at the foot of the Cross, a pictorial way of describing how one day we brought our sins to Jesus in repentance, asking for His forgiveness, and believing in Him, we effectively crucified that part of us that was our old life, riven by sin. Now, crucifixion was a terrible way to die. A slow, lingering and extremely painful death. But Jesus went through that to set us free from the dominance of sin over our lives. In fact, the whole process in our spirits was, and is, life changing because we realise that what Jesus did for us we deserved ourselves. Sin has to be dealt with sooner or later. The grace of God is breathtaking, because He allowed His own Son, Jesus, to suffer in this way so that we wouldn’t have to.

Why did Jesus have to go through what He did? There were other forms of capital punishment available to the Jews, such as stoning. That happened to the first Christian martyr, Stephen. Crucifixion was a method the Romans used to put someone to death, and in the process they hoped to deter other people tempted to commit the same crime by attaching a list of their misdemeanours to the cross used. Pilate, the Roman governor who authorised Jesus’ death, ordered that “King of the Jews” was written above Jesus’ head. The Jewish authorities saw Jesus as a threat to their rather fragile relationship with the Romans because He challenged their cosy status quo with His radical teaching and miraculous acts. The people were following Him in large numbers, and, because of their unbelief, the Jewish leaders couldn’t allow the situation to continue. Evil ruled the day but God allowed Jesus’ death to happen because it was all part of His plan of redemption for mankind.

Because Jesus went through what He did, taking on board our sins, we have been released from their dominance over us. I’m sure we can all think of sinful situations hidden away in our skeleton cupboards, that emerge from time to time to embarrass and harass us. But we don’t have to be slaves to these thoughts anymore, because Jesus has redeemed us from them. The skeletons are buried. Their power to torment us is gone. As Paul wrote, “We are no longer slaves to sin”. We can shut the door on our cupboards and lock them. But it’s up to us now. The question is – what will we do with the key? Hmmm…

Dear Father God. What an amazing and gracious, loving God You are. We worship at Your footstool. Amen.