Living in the Spirit
June 30, 2017
Scripture Reading: Romans 6:12-23
What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted, and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.
When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. –Romans 6:15-23
Paul presumes in this writing that all humans must be slaves to something. The word slave brings on negative connotations for most of us who understand slavery as out of the slave’s control. Perhaps we need to look more closely at the words if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves. Paul is describing a person who is a slave by choice. I have ancestors who worked as indentured slaves, often called servants, as a youth to learn a viable trade. Such arrangements included binding legal contracts. I think this is what Paul has in mind. While it applies to our relationship with God, it clearly states that we also choose to make ourselves slaves to sin.
Choosing to place our faith in things that separate us from God is idolatry. One of the most insidious forms of idolatry is the prescription drug epidemic laying waste of many across our land. It starts so innocently but clings ever tighter and tighter. The same is true for illegal drugs. Greed and lust for power fit well into the pit of idolatry too. We are surely separated from God when we perceive ourselves as better than others because of the color of our skins or our gender or any other reason. I do not believe God loves any one of his children more than any other. Why do we have a need to establish such standards?
Before we acknowledged the presence of God in God’s righteousness and justice, we did not understand the significance of idolatry. We do now.