Bondage.
It’s a word that conjures up images of medieval-looking dungeons with heavy chains. It is a word that makes us feel helpless and hopeless, because we are helpless and hopeless.
Throughout history, there have been groups of people in bondage to other groups of people. In our own cities across the United States, we are still reeling from the sting of slavery that our country allowed just 5 generations ago.
Bondage. It speaks of inherent evil that overwhelms us and overcomes us.
And it has a name…
Sin.
Where did this bondage of sin come from?
It all started way back in the Garden of Eden. God created perfection but we allowed ourselves to be tempted by Satan and we disobeyed the only commandment that God had given to us. From that one sin comes from the fall of all mankind. You can read about it here.
But that was just Adam, you might say. How does that affect me here today?
Paul tells us in Romans 5 that, “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”
Death was the consequence for sin and it spread to all men because Adam was our representative in the Garden of Eden. And he was the best representative that the human race could have chosen for the Garden of Eden.
Why?
Because he was the only man (except for Jesus Christ, but Jesus was not just man, He was God) who was made without sin. You and me… we were born into sin, because “death spread to all men because all sinned.” We wouldn’t have needed Satan to come tempting us. We would have been drawn away and enticed by our own lust for the forbidden fruit and our sin nature would have led us to fulfill the temptation in our hearts for what the Lord commanded us not to eat.
Adam was different. Adam didn’t have a sin nature. He was created to be perfect. God pronounced him and all of creation “very good.” Thats why we could not have asked for a better representative in the Garden of Eden.
But it didn’t matter because when the temptation came, we still chose to disobey even though we had our best representative in the Garden of Eden.
What can we do to finally be free from it?
Now that we all understand where sin comes from, what can we do to be free from this bondage of sin?
Is it keeping the 10 commandments?
Is it being circumcised?
Is it joining a church?
Is it being baptized as a child?
Or is it something else?
What is it that we can do to free ourselves from this bondage of sin?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
This is where the dividing line between rescue and religion begins. Religion tells us that there must be something we can do to earn favor with God. Religion tells us that if we work hard enough, do enough penance, do enough good works, give enough money, know the right people, or say the right words, we can work our way back into the favor of God.
But it’s still just bondage.
If my salvation depends on me and the things I do, then I know I am doomed to fail. I will be in bondage forever because I can never get at the root of the problem, which is not the sin we commit but the sin nature of our hearts.
Freedom from the bondage of sin means true freedom.
Jesus did for us what we could never do for ourselves. He won the victory over sin and broke the chains of bondage that we were in. Think about this: if there was some way that we could have worked our way back to God, then why did God Himself come out of heaven, be born in a manger, live a perfect, sinless life, be betrayed by one of his own disciples, be beaten unrecognizable, be spit upon, then crucified horribly on a Roman cross to die?
Why would God Himself do that if there was some way we could save ourselves?
Because mankind didn’t need religion, mankind needed to be rescued!
And we are rescued through simple faith. Nothing that we have to do. Nothing that we have to say. Just simple faith.
Simple faith that frees us from the bondage of sin. Simple faith that frees us from the bondage of religion.
Jesus paid the price. Jesus did the work. Jesus did everything we couldn’t do for ourselves.
Jesus.
Jesus is the victory!
This Guest post is by Rob Walters
Visit his website at www.disciplerob.com
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