Romans 6:12-end
Slavery has been in the news in the last couple of years. It’s nothing new, for in every generation there are elements of slavery of different sorts. The ownership of one human being by another can never be justified, although we should carefully examine the underlying definitions before jumping to conclusions.
If anyone would like to read a long article I found and filed about slavery in the Bible, I would be happy to send it. There were limits and laws concerning members of a household, and any person who was a slave had to be freed after 7 years, and they were usually treated as servants, and with respect; that does not justify one person owning another, but we have to be wise in trying to view the past – or the future - through a particular worldview and presumption.
3 points: FIRST, Paul in Romans 6 identifies the primary slavery in which everyone is engaged, that every human being is a slave to sin, that principle within that us that drives us to do wrong even when we know it is wrong. We cannot be held responsible for the sins of previous generations, only our own.
Slavery affects everyone to a greater or lesser extent. Many are enslaved – addicted – to nicotine, drugs, sexual aberrations, pornography, money grabbing, fear, lust of all sorts, power over others, the desire to control others – from the obsessive partner to the megalomania of the dictator.
We are involuntarily slaves to sin – what is it that drives us to do things we know to be wrong? How deep has our faith in Jesus Christ affected our inner life? Our moral judgements? How often have we given in to something that has had catastrophic consequences, and how we regretted it but were blinded at the time, for our desires overrode our common sense and rationality?
Jesus said “He who commits sin is a slave to sin”; it might be anger – I’ve met a few people that spend their days bristling with anger, and it doesn’t take much for that to spill over. Scripture says the anger of man does not work the righteousness of God. Doesn’t take much for anger to become blind rage. Some people nurse their anger to make it even more vindictive. Others are slaves secretly to all sorts of things – sexual desire turned into lust; unhappiness in a relationship fed in secret to the fantasies that lie to them, forgetting the damage that broken relationships bring to everyone else in our circle.
Money and its’ desire can consume a person, the desire for riches and great gain is as much an enslavement as being addicted to drugs. “The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”
Some need freeing from the slavery to their own past, where emotional issues and brokenness in childhood damaged and deprived them of parental love and kindness, and has driven that person’s real personality deep within, broken, wounded, hurt, and then covered over with coping mechanisms that hide the pain which was buried alive. Sometimes that prevents a person experiencing the love of God by the Holy Spirit, for the emotions are locked up.
SECOND, There is still physical slavery all over the world, including in our own country – people are trafficked across the world; companies who invest in factories where labour is cheap, producing clothes for the Western addictions to fashion industry, at low costs, and we connive with them by making a market, instead of buying products with more reputable working conditions, albeit for higher cost. If we think slavery is wrong, then research where products we buy are sourced.
Slavery, owning another person and ruling their lives – whether sex trafficking, people smuggling illegal immigrants, - or where employers control their staff through poor pay and terrible working conditions –is sin.
There is a contrast between the values of this wicked sinful world and those of God’s kingdom. Are we prepared to pay for God’s kingdom to be more effective by spending our money God’s way? Do we think about where a garment or food or other product is made, when we consider buying it?
Looking at the real truth behind much of the slave trade of the 18th century, where slavers, who sold goods to Africa, purchased slaves from the ARAB Moslem slave traders who had purchased them from African tribes who had captured them in their frequent inter-tribal wars, from other tribes, sold by their fellow countrymen and women, to be taken across the Atlantic in terrible conditions, to the West Indies and North America.
The protesters about statues or memorials of people who apparently made money out of the slave trade, seem not to have done any homework on the real history and jumped on a bandwagon of false presumption. No-one living today can be held responsible for the sins of previous generations or anyone else’s before God; we are only responsible for our own sin, and also to make sure we do not participate in the sins of others. In history there were plenty of white people enslaved and sold in the Middle East and further afield at the same time – people of every race, tribe, colour and language have been enslaved across the world because it flows out of the problem of the human heart, the sinful nature. We don’t hear much outcry over the slavery in Saudi Arabia or in China.
THIRD, Paul’s letter gives us a fascinating insight into real life, in that to be truly free, we need another Master, Christ Himself, another Lord to deliver us from the tyranny of ourselves and the power that sin has over us – we are invited to be set free from sin: Jesus said, “He who commits sin is a slave to sin” – lying, cheating, dishonesty, and so on, but “if the Son sets you free, you shall be free indeed”; But that freedom from being driven, the freedom not to sin, comes by becoming a Doulos, a slave, a servant of Christ who is the perfect Lord. We were made to serve Him, and to serve other gods – and our own vanity and selfishness – is to be a slave to destruction. We find joyous liberty when we submit to Christ, for His Holy Spirit brings us the power to be free from that which brings death, and that free gift of God brings eternal life now in our present experience.
Are you a slave today? Many are enslaved to bad habits that control them – addicted to anger, money and possessions; others may be a slave to personal grievances, unforgiveness; another may be a slave to secret destructive tendencies…Do you want to be free? Christ can free you today from those destructive tendencies when He is invited to be Lord.
Or are we slaves of Christ? The joyous freedom to be what He always intended us to be, gloriously free to love, to forgive, to enjoy, to know healing in our souls of childhood pain and isolation. Every human heart needs to know this joyous healing. One hymn-writer wrote this: Make me a captive, Lord, And then I shall be free; Force me to render up my sword, And I shall conq’ror be. I sink in life’s alarms When by myself I stand, Imprison me within Thine arms, And strong shall be my hand.”
The paradox of faith - True surrender to Christ brings true freedom; and that gives us something to talk about with others who are in chains.
And it gives us motivation to help others who are enslaved literally as well as spiritually and emotionally. There are plenty of examples of real slavery in our own country and across the world - more necessary for us to do something about modern day slavery than to tear down statues or memorials from the past.
