Greta was a bright and beautiful girl. Although she grew up in a Christian family and attended church regularly, she became more and more rebellious as she progressed through high school. It started with a bad attitude toward her parents and then led to a life of lies, promiscuity, and experimentation with various drugs. As soon as she graduated, she ran off to New York City. At only 18 years-old, she shook off the dust of her small-town and sought her fortune in the Big Apple. But she would soon learn that some apples aren’t meant to be eaten!
After getting rejected by several modeling agencies, Greta met a fast-talking photographer, who invited her to a private shoot at his studio. It all seemed innocent at first—he promised to help her build her portfolio and break into the modeling industry. But before long, she was mixed up in the middle of an underground pornography network. She genuinely felt guilty about what she was doing, but sometimes guilt isn’t strong enough to guarantee change. Without any other means of supporting herself, she continued to walk down that dark path.
Greta eventually discovered that her photographer was also a pimp who ran a large prostitution ring. He told her that he “managed” many girls throughout the city and that he helped them make a lot of money. Soon Greta found herself doing things that she never could have imagined, but the promise of prosperity never panned out. He barely gave her enough money to survive. He kept a psychological grip over the girls with steady stream of empty promises and terrifying threats—he treated them like slaves. Greta sunk into a deep depression and even began contemplating suicide. She felt ashamed and trapped by what she had become.
But finally, one night, instead of overdosing on pills like she had planned, Greta got up enough courage to call her parents. Her mom and dad immediately ran to New York to rescue their little girl. Although they were heartbroken to hear what she had done, they passed no judgment. They just loved her and cared for her. They got her into counseling and talked about sending her to college after she got back on her feet. The light returned to Greta’s eyes and everything seemed to be looking up.
That is, until one morning, when Greta was gone again. She went back to New York City and her life on the streets.
When we hear stories like this, we just want to scream: “No!!! Don’t do it!! Why would you do this? It doesn’t make any sense!” Perhaps you know someone like Greta. Maybe you’ve had a friend who left an abusive relationship and then turned around and went back? Maybe you know someone who overcame an alcohol or drug addiction and then returned to it when life got difficult? Tragic tales like this beg the question: Why would anyone go back to a life of slavery after they’ve been set free?”
This is precisely the question the Apostle Paul asks in Romans 6:1-14. Not about Greta specifically, but about Christians in general—”Why would Christians return to a life of slavery to sin after they’ve been set free by Jesus?” I imagine that most of us have pondered this question about our own lives! Even after Jesus has delivered us from sin, we have felt temptation to return to our former ways of life. In this passage, Paul helps us understand that we are slaves no more!
Slaves No More: Freedom from Sin through Christ’s Sacrifice (1-11)
Throughout the book of Romans, Paul often anticipates the questions his audience will ask in response to a point he makes. He does it again here in verse 1 when he asks, “What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?” To make sense of this question, we must remember what Paul said back in 5:20—“But where sin increased, grace increased all the more.” He did not want the Christians in Rome to misunderstand him. He was not saying that God’s grace condones sin; to the contrary, he wanted them to know that God’s grace should compel them to live in obedience to God.
The fact that Paul answers his own question in verse 2 with one of the strongest negative responses in the Greek language shows that God’s amazing grace does not issue a license to sin. The Greek phrase (me-ge-noi-ta) can be translated “By no means!” or “God forbid!” or “May it never be!” The idea of Christians returning to the very sin that Jesus delivered them from is tantamount to a man jumping back into a raging surf of shark infested waters after being rescued from them. It betrays common sense—it is illogical lunacy!
In verses 3-11, Paul goes on to explain how Jesus’ death and resurrection frees us from sin. To help us, he employs the metaphor of baptism. When people put our faith in Jesus Christ, they undergo a spiritual transformation. This transformation from death to life is symbolized in the act of water baptism: Falling back into the water represents dying with Christ—being immersed under the water signifies being buried with Christ—and rising out of the water depicts resurrection to new life. Baptism is an outward physical expression of the inward spiritual transformation that happens when we come to faith in Jesus Christ. We are slaves to sin no more—we are set free and are given the ability to “walk in newness of life.” (4)
When we are united with Christ through faith and baptism, we not only receive forgiveness for their sins and the assurance of eternal life, but as Paul clarifies in verse 6, our “old self” is crucified with Christ so that our body of sin might be done away with and that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. The old self is the kind of person that we were before we were united with Christ. Since sin’s power over us have been broken, we should reflect that new freedom in the way we live. Sin should no longer characterize us! (Moo 198) Just as Jesus died to sin and was raised to new life, so we should consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (10-11)
Slaves No More: Living in our New Identity (12-14)
After Paul clarifies how Christ’s sacrifice has set us free from slavery to sin, he goes on to command us to live out our new identity in Christ. In verses 12-14, he shifts from the indicative mood to the imperative mood, he moves from explanation to exhortation, he changes from an emphasis on what we should believe to how we should behave! He begins with the negative: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Jesus won the victory over sin on the cross, but we must put this victory into action. Putting away those sins that plague us does not happen automatically. No, Paul insists, a determination of our own will is called for to overcome sin.
When we experience the spiritual transformation that comes through conversion, sin no longer our master—it has no dominion over us. Like a slave that has been set free, we now have the power to say no to sin and run away from it. We now have the power to resist temptation. We can now choose to use our minds, our words, and our bodies to pursue righteousness rather than promoting unrighteousness.
Therefore, let us exchange our old postures of pride and attitudes of arrogance for manners of meekness and humility! Let us trade in our unwholesome talk and degrading language for words that bring life, hope, and peace. Let us swap the vices of greed and gluttony for the virtues of charity and generosity. Let us put away lifestyles of sexual impropriety and pursue sexual purity. Let us let go of our bitter grudges and extend the same grace and forgiveness that God has extended to us through Jesus Christ! Since we have been freed from sin, let us never abuse God’s grace by returning to behaviors that enslaved us in the first place! Let us act like slaves no more!
As I conclude, let me tell you a story about a freed slave who never turned back to slavery. Freddie was born in Maryland somewhere around the year 1818. Like many slave babies in those days, he was taken away from his mother while he was an infant. He was raised by his grandmother until he was six, when he was then sold to the Wye House Plantation.
Freddie grew up on various plantations until he wound up serving the Auld family in Baltimore. At age 12, Mrs. Auld began teaching Freddie the alphabet. He made great progress until Mr. Auld put a stop to it. He disapproved of the tutoring, feeling that literacy would only encourage slaves to desire freedom. But Freddie continued, secretly, to teach himself how to read and write. As Freddie began to read newspapers, pamphlets, political materials, and books of every description, this new realm led him to question and condemn the institution of slavery. He later often said, “knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom.”
As Freddie got older, he taught other slaves on the plantation to read the New Testament at a weekly Sunday school. As word spread, the interest among slaves in learning to read was so great that in any week, more than 40 slaves would attend his lessons.
But when Freddie was sixteen, the Auld family sent him to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had a reputation as a “slave-breaker”. He whipped Freddie regularly, and nearly broke him psychologically.
Finally, in 1838, when Freddie was twenty, through a sequence of fortunate events, he was able to escape the harsh realities of southern slavery by boarding a series of trains and steamships that took him to the “Quaker City” of Philadelphia and then New York City. His entire journey took less than 24 hours.
Freddie went on to become a preacher, abolitionist, orator, author, social reformer, and statesman. In 1872, Freddie became the first African American nominated for Vice President of the United States. At this point, you may have guessed that “Freddie” is none other than Fredrick Douglas, the man who lived as a slave no more!
In one of his autobiographies, Douglas wrote:
I have often been asked, how I felt when first I found myself on free soil. And my readers may share the same curiosity. There is scarcely anything in my experience about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer. A new world had opened upon me. If life is more than breath, and the ‘quick round of blood,’ I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life. It was a time of joyous excitement which words can but tamely describe. In a letter written to a friend soon after reaching New York, I said: ‘I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions.’ Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be depicted; but gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil.
Friends, Jesus Christ has set our feet on free soil. He has liberated us from sin through his death and resurrection. A new world has opened upon us. It is a time of joyous excitement that which words can but tamely describe—when gladness and joy, like a rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil.
Now that we have been freed from slavery to sin, let us act like slaves no more!