by Mitchell Skelton

On September 22, 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed and presented the Emancipation Proclamation. This great document would change the course of American history and lead us headlong into civil war. The signing of the Emancipation Proclamation meant the legal status of thousands of slaves in this country would be changing. Slavery wasn’t officially done away within this country until the ratification of the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution in December 1865. What Lincoln had done was let it be known that freedom was available and attainable.

In Romans 6:15–23 the apostle Paul proclaims the great emancipation of the Christian from slavery to sin. Yet this emancipation is quite different from the one Lincoln proclaimed. The Emancipation of 1862 was universal and those set free by it were forever free. The emancipation Paul speaks of however is conditional and those set free from sin are freed only to become slaves again.

Slaves to Sin

All men outside of Christ are slaves to sin. “Therefore just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned” (Rom. 5:12). The question you are forced to confront is, “To whom do you pledge your allegiance?” God or Satan? Not many people would openly admit to serving Satan, but when you delay in committing your life to Christ then you are pledging to stay in your sin and thus be a slave to sin. “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?” (Rom. 6:16). Pledging to serve the devil does not require taking up a pitch fork and dancing around a sacrificed goat, all it takes is refusing to allow Christ into your life.

In a curious twist on slavery, slaves to sin are the only slaves who get paid for their effort. Sin pays wages. “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

Freed from Sin

In ancient times slaves could work their way out of bondage or be granted freedom by their master. This “manumission” of a slave was usually signified with much grandeur. The ancient ceremony of manumission was an elaborate ceremony in which the slave’s chains were actually cut off by a blacksmith using an anvil and chisel. It was at this point in the ceremony that the slave’s legal status was changed from slave to free. The Greek expression for being “set free from sin” is a term that refers to this manumission of a slave./1 The point where one is set free from sin is just as defined as this example.

Wholehearted Obedience

The point at which one is set free from sin is when one displays wholehearted obedience to the gospel. “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted” (Rom. 6:17). Salvation starts with the heart (Rom. 10:9–10) and culminates with obedience to “that form of teaching.” It is then that one is freed from sin. Yet, then we “become slaves to righteousness” (Rom. 6:18). Instead of being slaves to sin earning wages of death, the Christian is a slave to righteousness where, though the blessings are plentiful, they cannot be earned. The blessing is a gift of God, “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).

How remarkable it is that being released from the bondage of sin actually means that we are freed to be a slave! This new master we serve pays no wage as did our former master yet this is the very lure that attracts one to make the change. We don’t want to receive what we deserve as a result of our works. Our new master’s gift is so much more than we deserve, yet it shows his love for those who wholeheartedly obey his will.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through him” (John 3:16–17).

/1 J.B. Coffman; Commentary on Romans