“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.
Being a Pilgrim 