Slaves of Righteousness

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Romans 6:5-7 NIV

When one is enslaved, he has been taken against his will to live and serve a new master in constant fear. Initially, the slave’s desire is simply to escape and return to what he used to know. But as a result of the pain and suffering he must endure under the charge of his new master, his desire soon changes to simply getting through the day without injury or recourse.

In the world of human trafficking, young girls (often as young as 10-12, but tragically sometimes much younger) and boys are taken against their will and forced to live in adverse, if not horrific, conditions where they must serve new masters. For them, their desire to initially escape becomes replaced with a desire to simply survive with as little pain as possible.

As “survival” becomes the sole purpose in their tragic lives, they find themselves capable (though quite unwilling) of performing acts in service to their new masters that you and I would never dream of (or more appropriately, have nightmares about)!

With victims of human trafficking, it is noted statistically that a victim, provided with the opportunity to escape the clutches of slavery, will return to that “old life” of slavery (after escaping) 3-5 times before finally leaving it altogether, or dying in it. This happens as a result of that victim not having any resources to stay out. You see, taken into captivity at such a young age, her master (or trafficker) and sibling victims represent the only family she’s known. She’s been cut-off from the outside world, with no education and no knowledge of how to really do anything in the real world that she hadn’t already learned by the time she was abducted.

So without the resources that are necessary for her survival (food, shelter, clothing, companionship, income, education, etc), she must inevitably return to her old master so that she can continue to survive, because she certainly can’t do it on her own.

Understanding this, can we more appropriately understand the Israelites’ reluctance to leave Egypt, even though they lived in slavery? While they were being promised a new life by leaving, they were not familiar with any such dreams, and they didn’t yet know the God who was claiming to offer them a new life.

As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” Exodus 14:10-12 NIV

Without the hope of being equipped for success in this “new life,” the Israelites were continually concerned about their future well-being. All they knew is that they were leaving “all they knew.” They didn’t have any real idea about what the future held, but only that they could continue to “survive” as slaves.

But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness. Romans 6:17-18 NIV

When we were once slaves to sin, it was our master. From a very early age, we were taken from our true home and sold into the slavery of sin. Sin used pain and fear to control us, and over time, we simply learned to just “survive.” We slowly became willing and obedient in doing things we would have never imagined, just so that we might live another day. Eventually, those lives of slavery became all that we knew. This master (sin) was where we received all of our resources. It provided us just enough income to afford the necessities of life, with just a little more that we might return a tithe to that master, if only to be granted a break from the hard work and suffering.

But then, one day, we were given the opportunity to leave that master to be received into the arms of another Master. And while this new Master was nothing like the old one, He was unknown to us. But because our old master was so cruel to us—always hurting us and lying to us, and forcing us to do things against our will, things we were ashamed of—we were eager to run into the arms of this new Master, and a new way of living we had never known.

And though our new Master showers us only with love and blessings, asking us only to tend the garden, walk in that garden with Him, and rest at His feet when we get tired, it’s still too much for us to take in. It’s just all too good to be true. It’s too much for us to comprehend at the time. So we stay with Him for a while, but then eventually run away again.

We return to our old “familiar” master and the life that we’d always known. It was horrible, yes, but it was comfortable. And in God’s presence, we’d forgotten how bad it was, and seem able to remember only the highlights of that old way of living (as if any of it was truly good). And so, in fear of the unknown, using the lifelong training we received in the art of survival, we ask our old master to receive us, which he willingly does.

But this time, each time he strikes us, it seems to hurt more. Each act he forces us to commit, we no longer can stomach. No longer attuned to having to do whatever it takes to survive there, we run again back into the arms of our new Master where we are given rest, encouragement, love, and hope. This Master wraps us in the resources we need to stay in this new life.

This reminds me of a scene in the 1983 movie Trading Places, starring Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis. After Billy Ray (Murphy) is chosen to be given an unearned new life as a wealthy man (replacing Aykroyd’s character), Billy Ray is being shown his new home, wherein, it is explained, everything belongs to him. But, having no confidence that this new life could be real, and having been literally picked from the streets for this new role, Billy Ray could not accept it. So, as his new butler shows him around his new house, Billy Ray continues to pocket those very things that he’s been told are already his. He, therefore, can’t steal them. So then, even though he was being given a brand new life, it took him quite some time to embrace it.

Like Billy Ray, we’ve survived for too long in that old way, so that now it just takes a while for us to learn how to live the new way. And the deeper in the Master’s love we go, the longer we stay in His presence, the more easily we forget the painful parts of what our old master once forced upon us. And so we foolishly abandon again our new lives in Christ to rekindle the lives we once had.

But when we arrive in that old place, we realize immediately that we can’t stay. We quickly discover that we no longer belong there as we once did. For we have tasted the fruit of the Vine, and have consumed the Bread of Life. So now, while we might stand in sin’s company, we no longer stand in fear. We are no longer required to do what it demands, and instead are free to walk away and return again to the open arms of our loving Master.

And each and every time we do, He receives us with tender mercy and great joy! We are His special possession, and He has great plans for us. But those plans are nothing like what our old master intended.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11 NIV

And this is precisely why God moved the Israelites through the Red Sea, from their old lives in slavery and forward into their new lives in the Promised Land. He moved them through the waters of baptism and into their new lives. There was no going back. They could not return to their old lives, not physically. They could only move forward as God sanctified them in the wilderness.

We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Romans 6:2-4 NIV

Paul explains that, as true Christians, we have all died to sin. Since sin was our old master, once we died, we were no longer bound to that master. We are no longer its possession. Sin no longer has authority over us, because we have died. In the movies, this may be like faking one’s death so that the character may live a new life. But Paul uses a real-world example to explain how this works:

For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man. Romans 7:2-3 NIV

Having been released from captivity by Christ’s redemptive sacrifice on the cross, we are no longer sin’s slaves. And while the waters of baptism didn’t save us—anymore than passing through the waters of the Red Sea saved the Israelites—having “passed through” the waters of that baptism did bring us into the wilderness where God will continue to sanctify us in preparation for that day when we will enter His rest Hebrews 4:10.

But unlike the Israelites who, all but a few, perished in the wilderness and never reached the Promised Land, we who stand in the hope of Jesus Christ, sealed by the Holy Spirit, have already been granted an inheritance in the kingdom of God. For we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. We have been adopted into God’s family.

I am no longer a slave to sin.

I am a child of God.