Spiritual Slavery to Sin
CHAPTER 2 - 1.5
The previous chapter observed the context of earthly slavery in the Greco-Roman era, and ancient Israel. As temporal slavery was public among those who lived in the Roman Empire, so an eternal spiritual slavery was widespread and, in fact, common to all. Contemporarily, spiritual slavery is still universal among the entire world. The Bible speaks of this evil spiritual slavery to sin which has eternal, deadly consequences. In short, sinners are spiritually dead and in slavery to sin.
This chapter primarily examines slavery as a spiritual condition that all people are born into and live out under the dominion of sin. Mankind is under the “Law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2), inherited from the fall of Adam. All people are conceived and born into sin––spiritual slavery to sin and death. From conception to death, “All sinned and are lacking the glory of God” (Rom 3:23). Therefore, “no one does good” (Rom 3:12), and there is not a righteous man on earth born of the flesh who fears and loves God.[1] Instead, slaves to sin are forever captive to fear of death. Hebrews describes “those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” (Heb 2:15, cf. Rom 8:15).
All sinners are eternally bound by the debt payment of sin for rebellion to God ever since the Fall of man into sin in the Garden (cf. Gen 3).[2] The Augsburg Confession states how the fall of Adam resulted in the fall of man and how man is born without the fear of God:
Likewise, they teach that since the fall of Adam all human beings who are propagated according to nature are born in sin, that is, without fear of God, without trust in God, and with concupiscence.[3]
Spiritual slavery to sin rightly describes how sinners are under the dominion and lordship of sin and powerless over hell and eternal death––“the second death” (Rev 2:11; 20:6, 14; 21:8).[4] Johann Gerhard’s examination of hell described hell as slavery, “Hell is called ‘captivity’ (Ps. 68:18; Eph. 4:8).”[5] In other words, slaves of sin are hell-bound. The Lutheran Confessions speak further of the slavery to the devil and evil,
Although the scholastics trivialize both sin and its penalty when they teach that individuals by their own power are capable of keeping the commandments of God, Genesis describes a different penalty imposed on account of original sin. For their human nature was not only subjected to death and other bodily ills, but also to the reign of the devil. There this horrible sentence is pronounced [Gen. 3:15*]: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers.” The deficiency and concupiscence are both penalty and sin. Death and other bodily ills, together with the tyranny of the devil, are penalties in the proper sense. For human nature is enslaved and held captive by the devil, who deceives it with ungodly opinions and errors and incites it to all sorts of sins. However, just as the devil is not conquered without Christ’s help, so we, by our own powers, are unable to free ourselves from that slavery. World history itself shows how great is the strength of the devil’s rule. Blasphemy and wicked teachings fill the world, and in these bonds the devil holds enthralled those who are wise and righteous in the eyes of the world.[6]
Human nature is corrupt and godless because of original sin, resulting in being a slave of Satan and his works of lawlessness. Unless repentant faith in Christ is given to the slave to sin, the Second Death (cf. Rev 20:14; 21:8) is the culmination of eternal separation from God’s love and mercy in Christ. The slave to sin will remain under the wrath of God in eternal “outer darkness” (Matt 25:30) and suffering. Spiritual slavery to sin results in an eternal condemnation the entire world suffers.
Slavery to sin is an eternal spiritual condition and yet has physical effects—a spiritually dead state of the physical body and soul. The slave to sin is a whole “[σῶμα] body of sin”[7] (Rom 6:6). Middendorf notes, “The idea is of the body as controlled and dominated by sin, a point clarified by the clause which follows.”[8] A body of sin is “enslaved to sin.”[9] Slavery to sin is an irreversible consequence no man can pay to cancel or redeem. Scripture states, “Truly, no man can redeem his brother; He cannot give to God a ransom for him––For the redemption price for their soul is costly, And it ceases forever” (Psalm 49:7-8). Therefore slavery to sin is a grave and deadly problem for which the payment of death is owed forever. Only God can ransom the slave to sin, as the next chapter will navigate. Tragically, unrepentant and faithless sinners remain ungodly and condemned to death under the Law of sin and death.
Sin and death rule and lord over the slave to sin. James Dunn observes, “ἤτοι ἁμαρτίας εἰς θάνατον, ‘whether of sin to death’ [Rom 6:16]. This is the only instance of ἤτοι in NT. ‘Sin’ continues to be personified as the power which exercises effective rule over those whose lives are confined within this age . . . As in 5:21 death is the final and most complete expression of sins power over man.”[10] Paul connects the Law and the power of sin; “the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the [Law]” (1 Cor 15:56). Therefore Paul writes that “as many as sinned in [the] Law, they will be judged through [the] Law” (Rom 2:12; cf. 6:14, 15). Sin and death reign (cf. Rom 5:17, 21) for slaves to sin under the Law and in their mortal bodies (cf. Rom 6:12; 8:2, 11). Sinners cannot stop or thwart the lordship and power of sin. Richard Lenski commented,
In [Rom.] 5:17 ‘the death reigned,’ here [Rom. 6:12] Paul says, ‘Let not the sin reign,’ meaning ‘the death’ and ‘the sin’ as powers . . . Now it would be useless to tell sinners not to let this powerful king, sin, reign over them, whether in their mortal bodies or in the rest of their being; sinners could not prevent this sin’s reigning over them.[11]
The curse of sin scourges the slave to sin, completely paralyzing the sinner from preventing or averting the reign of sin and death over mankind. Apart from Christ, sin is lord over the sinner. The slave to sin remains a slave who produces only evil deeds and is forever dead in sins and trespasses (cf. Eph 2:1, 5).[12]
[1] Cf. Psalm 14:1-3; 51:1-5; 53:3; Eccl 7:20; John 3:6; Rom 3:9-19, 23. Isaiah writes, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way” (Is 53:6).
[2] Paul writes all sin came through one man, Adam, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Rom 5:12; cf. vv. 12-21; 1 Cor 15:21-22).
[3] Robert Kolb, and Timothy J. Wengert, eds. The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000), 37, 39. Hereafter, Kolb. AC II.1-2; Cf. Ap II; SA III; FC Ep I; FC SD I..
[4] Johann Gerhard, On the End of the World and Hell, Theological Commonplaces (St. Louis, Mo: Concordia Publishing House, 2021), 167.
[5] Gerhard, On the End of the World and Hell, Theological Commonplaces, 181.
[6] Kolb, The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 119. Apology II.46-49.
[7] “σῶμα . . . ‘body.’–– ① body of a human being or animal . . . b. the living body . . . Because it is subject to sin and death, man’s mortal body as τὸ σῶμα τῆς σαρκός (σάρξ 2cα) Col 2:11 is a σῶμα τῆς ἁμαρτίας Ro 6:6.” BDAG, 983-84; “σῶμα sōma; of unc. or.; a body: — bodies . . . (1) slaves . . . ” NASEC, G4983; Middendorf textual note; “σῶμα is not the opposite of the immaterial “spirit” or “soul” in a Platonic sense, even though Paul does occasionally utilize that terminology (e.g., 1 Thess 5:23).” Romans 1–8, 448.
[8] Middendorf, Romans 1–8, 449.
[9] Slavery to sin is a “body of sin” (Rom 6:6; cf. 7:24), dying in the deadness of sin where death reigns (Rom 5:21; cf. 5:12, 14), and evil is present (Rom 7:21). A slave to sin is trafficked under sin (7:14; cf. Rom 3:9; Gal 3:22), under “the curse of the Law” (Gal 3:13; cf. Rom 2:12; 3:19; 6:14, 15), and “the authority of darkness” (Col 1:13). A slave to sin is captive under the evil one, the “spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12; cf. 2:2) and “the authority of Satan” (Acts 26:18; cf.; Heb 2;14; 1 John 5:19), the devil, and truthless father of lies and murderer (John 8:44). The Confessio Augustana states: “Concerning the cause of sin it is taught among us that although almighty God has created and preserves all of nature, nevertheless the perverted will causes sin in all those who are evil and despise God. This, then, is the will of the devil and of all the ungodly. As soon as God withdrew his hand, it turned from God to malice, as Christ says (John 8[:44*]): “When [the devil] lies, he speaks according to his own nature.” Kolb, The Book of Concord, 52. AC XIX.
[10] James Dunn, Romans 1-8, Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 38A (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988), 342.
[11] Richard C. H. Lenski, Interpretation of St Paul's Epistle to the Romans. (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2008), 411.
[12] “And you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all also formerly conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest” (Eph 2:1-3).