This is a very controversial passage of scripture. There are many people who hate to think that the Apostle would imply that he was a slave to sin. So they teach that he was talking about people other than himself. But that is to ignore the fact that he uses the pronouns “I” and “me” about three dozen times here. Others get around this issue by saying that Paul was talking about himself before the Lord gave him a new, regenerated heart. But that doesn’t answer the problem either, because he clearly says, “I am carnal, sold under sin.” “I am,” “I do,” “I would,” all suggest a struggle with problems then current in his life. I cannot honestly tell people that Paul was not talking about battles that he was facing even as a God-honoring, fully time servant of the Lord. In fact, since I experience the same sort of problems, it encourages my heart to know that greater men than myself, struggle just like I do. My heart testifies to the realities that Paul discusses in this scripture.
Remember that the context of this chapter and the last has been the matter of spiritual slavery. Verse 6 – “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” Verse 12 – “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, & your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” Verse 16 – “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.” All these references to “servants” could be translated as “slaves.”
But there is a problem with thinking about modern slavery, or the kind that we had in the 18th & 19th centuries, and applying that to spiritual slavery. For example, a hundred-fifty years ago when someone gave his slave papers of emancipation and permitted him, as a free man, to take up some sort of public business, or gave him liberty to become a preacher of the gospel, he was indeed a free man. But spiritually there is a part of the sinner, which will be a slave, or in potential servitude, until the day that sinner is glorified and brought into the physical presence of the Saviour. That is why we must “likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord, (and) let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.” This the subject to which Paul leans back for emphasis once again. I don’t mind a bit telling you that Paul was speaking about the on-going struggles of Christians in this scripture.
This Ahab had the potential to do great and good things for his people, but alas….. I Kings 16:33 says that “Ahab did more to provoke the LORD God of Israel to anger than all the kings of Israel that were before him.” Ahab provoked the Lord so much that God sent a famine which nearly destroyed everyone in Israel. Ahab was the man who imported and married the Zidonian idolatress, Jezebel, whose name is infamous. He was an outwardly religious, sometimes childish, spoiled, petulant, spineless, disgusting individual. For example, despite his wealth, he coveted the property of a man of Jezreel named Naboth. While he was pinning away with jealousy one day, his wicked wife asked him why he was so sad. With a whine in his voice and tear in his eye, like a child, he said that he wanted Naboth’s vineyard. Jezebel then had Naboth murdered, confiscated his property, gave it to her husband, and everyone pretended that everything was done honestly and with justice.
During this time, God had a voice of reason and revelation ministering among the wicked of Israel. Elijah was fighting to bring the nation back to God, but it wasn’t with a lot of success. Ahab even had his secret service troops out looking to find and kill the man of God. Then on the day that Ahab went to take possession of Naboth’s vineyard, and when he was least expecting it, Elijah appeared in front of him. God had given His servant prophecies which included details about the horrible death of Jezebel and Ahab and told him to share them with the king and his wife. “And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the LORD.”
“Thou hast SOLD thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord.” There is my point in this illustration. Ahab chose to place himself under the slavery of sin – he sold himself for a few temporary treasures. This is a repeated theme, for example we read of the same sort of thing in II Kings 17 – “The LORD testified against (the United States), and against (Canada), by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, & keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets. Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in the LORD their God. And they rejected his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain…. And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire, and used divination and enchantments, and SOLD themselves to do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.” The implication is that these people coveted things that only their sins and their souls could purchase. They sacrificed their God, their freedom, their souls, and their eternities, to possess a few moments of excitement and sin. Isaiah, Peter and the Lord Jesus use this same kind language.
The application of this is obvious. There is an addictive, habit-forming, bonding, enslaving nature to sin. But that isn’t all – it is also very, very deadly. Have you ever had a chocolate, or chocolate mint, and found that one wasn’t quite enough? You had to have at least one more, or perhaps three. That is the general nature of sin, and some sins are worse than others. I have had people tell me that unless they get their daily dose of caffeine, they get terrible headaches. That is the general nature of sin as well as caffeine. We could talk about the terrible effects of many kinds of drugs – both illicit and the so-called “legal” drugs, but we could also talk about the addictiveness of adrenalin, fear and excitement. Some of these are without doubt direct sins, but some are only indirectly sinful. And yet the slavery which they produce becomes more sinful over time, because it robs us of our ability to love and serve the Lord. We could also talk about varieties of music, dancing, any kind of pornography, alcohol, but we could also add sins like envy, fear and jealousy. I’m afraid that any and every kind of sin can become enslaving. And as we willingly yield our members as instruments to these unrighteous things, we are selling ourselves, mortgaging our lives and our futures to them. And so indebted can we become that we may even die thus enslaved.
The obvious solution is not to become slaves in the first place – it is your choice.
The average African American thinks that it was Whites who enslaved his forefathers and brought them here. That the Whites have always been a part of that slave trade there is no doubt, but what those people tend to forget is that the vast majority of the Blacks sold into slavery were first captured and sold by other Blacks. The various tribes of Africa so hated each other that they delighted in taking their enemies and selling them to the slavers for silver or other things. My point is that people often became slaves through the sins of other people. Some people are slaves through no direct fault of their own.
And then even in the Bible we see another kind of slavery, which is almost even more odious. The sins of the fathers often mean the slavery of their children and grand-children. Usually it’s not because those fathers want to exchange their children for gold and silver. But when they become slaves themselves their families become servants with them. Then another illustration might be the slavery into which Joseph was thrown by his unloving brothers.
And such was the case, spiritually, when Adam chose sin over righteousness and obedience. When that man became a sinner, he submitted himself to a new master – an evil, wicked, negative master. Then when his first born son came into the world, Cain was just as much a slave to sin as his father. His argument would never have passed muster, but Cain he might have said, after he killed his brother, that he just couldn’t help himself, because he was so filled with jealousy and rage as a result of the slavery caused by their father Adam.
Why is it that people today talk about the “disease” of alcoholism? Even though I basically disagree with them, I can see their logic. As the son of an alcoholic, I find within me a propensity, a weakness, a potential slavery to liquor. If I didn’t have the knowledge that God has provided about this subject, I might need to find an explanation, and “disease” might appear to be about the best non-spiritual explanation. And there might even be chemicals in the body or brain which might accelerate that explanation. But the more basic truth is that sin is the real chemical and the real weakness. The apple doesn’t fall very far from the tree.
There has never been a person born in this world, other than the Lord Jesus, who was not born a slave to sin. Our father, Adam, brought us into this slavery, but Jesus had only an Heavenly Father. We might be able, with strong morals or just plain strength, to live with some degree of freedom, but it is only temporary and relative freedom. I remember a very sad case, which I might have shared with you before: Bro. Ken Johnson met a Calgarian who was an out-and-out alcoholic – a skid-row drunk. Our church worked with him for several years, and despite its ravages we saw him living in basic freedom. But then some old friends met with him to celebrate his birthday. All it took was that first drink, and that first bottle, until a short while later we were having his funeral. Despite the native slavery in all of us, there is a personal responsibility to avoid the triggers of that slavery. Ahab sold himself to do evil in the sight of the Lord. Proverbs 5:21 – “For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.”
I said earlier that Isaiah talked about this slavery to sin.
Isaiah 52:7 will come up again in Paul’s study in Romans. He doesn’t refer to it now, but we can. Isaiah is the great evangelical prophet of the Old Testament. He was talking about the coming of the Messiah and the preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The thought that I’d like you to notice is that he ties it in to the deliverance of Israel from slavery.
Christ Jesus is OUR deliverance from the slavery of sin as well. He is the Saviour, not only of Israel, but of God’s elect from around the world. And it doesn’t matter if we have deliberately sold ourselves to sin and delivered ourselves into slavery, or if we are the not-so-innocent victims of the sins of Adam, in Christ Jesus there is deliverance. Today there is the immediate salvation from the effects and judgment of our sins. And some day soon, either at our deaths or at the general translation of the Lord’s saints, we shall all be entirely rid of the garments, and flesh of our slavery. Even so, come Lord Jesus.
But the question then becomes: Is this Deliverer your Saviour? Repent of your sins and sinfulness before God. Bow before the Saviour and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.