Slaves or Sons (Orphans or Heirs)
Jesus answered them, I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, Whoever commits and practices sin is the slave of sin. 35 Now a slave does not remain in a household permanently (forever); the son [of the house] does remain forever. 36 So if the Son liberates you [makes you free men], then you are really and unquestionably free. (John 8:34 AMP)
I have read this verse before, BUT I have never seen it like this before:
For many years when I read these Word of Jesus Christ, I felt condemned, because I have tried to STOP sinning. I have always continually found myself being a SLAVE OF SINNING! I tried to change my life and tried to change my behavior, BUT I couldn't!!!
BUT what then does it mean that the Son can TRULY liberate you and make you absolutely FREE? When do I achieve this FREEDOM?
Not UNTIL I saw that I can be a SLAVE or a SON in my Father's house was I unable to grasp what Jesus actually intended. A slave does not REMAIN in his house, but leaves and becomes an orphan. The SAME SLAVE was once a SON, but left the HOUSE of his Father.
THUS, when we accept the sacrifice of LOVE from the Father, shown through THE SON, we will truly become FREE. The reason we are NOT FREE is because we have NOT unconditionally accepted the sacrifice of THE SON OF GOD!
When a son feels he is just NOT good enough - he feels unworthy of the Father's house and leaves, then he becomes an ORPHAN and a SLAVE. What does he become a SLAVE of? SIN!!!
But if it is impossible to STOP sinning...we all sin in some way everyday...thus we ARE ALL SINNERS and habitual SLAVES OF SIN. If this was IMPOSSIBLE to STOP sinning, then God expects something from us that is only going to continually frustrate us and make us consistently guilty before God! Thus the ENTIRE world is UNDER SIN's POWER and we are ALL SLAVES of sin!
But I am convinced that Jesus is NOT a liar. If Jesus have only given us hope for the world or life here after we are truly wretched people indeed, instead of been FREED indeed! Ask yourself: Do you feel FREE INDEED!!!?
Jesus came to TRULY set us FREE so that we can be SONS OF GOD again and NOT orphans.
The Origin and Definition of SIN
What if, in order to truly understand the FREEDOM, which Jesus refers to, lies in the definition of SIN! When we understand what FREEDOM FROM SIN means, we will be truly set free.
The answer lies in WHAT Jesus came to DO on the earth. He came to save us from not only our sins, but FROM SIN. Now the Word that the apostle Paul explained to the church in Rome, becomes clear and gets deep meaning: What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? 2 Let it not be! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? (Rom 6:1)
This is also the awesome meaning and implication of baptism into water as a seal of our salvation, declaring that we WERE crucified and have DIED with Christ Jesus. Therefore we are NOW dead TO SIN. The sins of the old man and the ability or POWER to SIN in us has been crucified and REMOVED!
When Adam and Eve sinned and ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, mankind died and SIN came into the world. Sin was only the root of the tree that when it grew up would produce many kinds of sins after its own kind.
Only later does Paul give us a parable to help explain what was the challenge and how God overcame this impossible challenge mankind had, having been caught in this body of death, saying:
Or are you ignorant, brothers; for I speak to those who know the Law; that the law has dominion over a man as long as he lives? 2 For the married woman was bound by law to the living husband. But if the husband is dead, she is set free from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband lives, she is married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress. But if the husband dies, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress by becoming another man's wife. 4 So, my brothers, you also have become dead to the law by the body of Christ so that you should be married to Another, even to Him raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit to God. (Rom 7:1-4)
Paul explains that sin came into the world through the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which caused man to ask for a LAW from Moses. By putting themselves under the LAW of Moses, they have been married to the Law as there bond husband. Now they were obligated to keep the law or became known as law breakers, bringing a curse upon themselves, making it impossible to live a perfectly holy and righteous life.
There was ONLY ONE way that mankind could get FREE from the Law that was brought in because of sin: Man had to DIE! When SIN has caused death and has been satisfied, it cannot bring anymore judgment upon its victim. The only thing that could satisfy SIN was, that it had to kill its victim and bring death. This was exactly what Paul explained saying:
Therefore, even as through one man SIN entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed on all men inasmuch as all sinned: 13 for until the Law SIN was in the world, but SIN is not imputed when there is no law. 14 But death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is the type of Him who was to come; (Rom 5:12-14)
Dead to Sin Paul begins to reveal the great mystery of God’s wisdom of the cross and the DEATH of Jesus Christ. Only when there is NO LAW anymore, can the sinner be FREED from SIN. Sin can’t exist when a LAW is not there to define it and to give it, its power. SIN is to miss the mark. When man missed the original plan and purpose of God to live in pure life and love and in perfect harmony with God, they missed the original pleasure and function they should have fulfilled to be ONE with God and to reign in life and live in love and peace with all creation.
Thus, in order to be freed FROM the LAW, man had to DIE so that the righteous judgment can be satisfied through DEATH. For the wages of sin is every form of destruction which leads to DEATH. SIN produces sins and this brings destruction, because of disharmony with God.
When MAN dies he is FREED FROM SIN, because his sin has been paid for. BUT God, in His great love for us, because that is His nature, in order to satisfy His judgment, had to find ONE who could recompense for the sins of ALL sinners, who are under the power and law of SIN, taking their rightful judgment. Under SIN, all the laws of destruction that leads to death is alive and applicable. It applies universally over ALL mankind and REIGNS over them, so that DEATH rules and always wins.
Thus, mankind was MARRIED to SIN and all its consequences: The LAW of SIN. The only way to be freed from this universal LAW OF SIN is to DIE! What does it mean to DIE to the law of SIN and DEATH? Paul makes it very easy: "Even so consider yourselves also dead to sin and your relation to it broken, but alive to God [living in unbroken fellowship with Him] in Christ Jesus. (Rom 6:11) I like what Paul said: “…consider yourself…” DEAD to SIN. We simple need to think differently about SIN. We need to DIE to it. We need to realize that we are DEAD to its ability to steal, kill and destroy us.
The Power of SIN
SIN is very powerful. Paul the apostle also described this power of SIN:
But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment [to express itself], got a hold on me and aroused and stimulated all kinds of forbidden desires (lust, covetousness). For without the Law sin is dead [the sense of it is inactive and a lifeless thing]. 9 Once I was alive, but quite apart from and unconscious of the Law. But when the commandment came, sin lived again and I died (was sentenced by the Law to death). [Psa_73:22] 10 And the very legal ordinance which was designed and intended to bring life actually proved [to mean to me] death. [Lev_18:5] 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity and getting a hold on me [by taking its incentive] from the commandment, beguiled and entrapped and cheated me, and using it [as a weapon], killed me. (Rom 7:8-11)
The power of SIN is masterfully deceitful and intensely evil and deeply selfish and destructive to all its surrounding circumstances. When described in picture and nature form it can be best described by the nature of a snake. "NOW THE serpent was more subtle and crafty than any living creature of the field which the Lord God had made." (Gen 3:1 AMP) Paul describes the very character of SIN. Sin has its own personality. Sin is in direct contrast to the character and nature of God. SIN is by default the absences of light. SIN is an opportunist and usurps authority. SIN at first presents itself as attractive and valuable and a ‘must have’ for the sake of self-gratification. SIN is perverse and presents itself as very glamorous, but in the end slowly seeps your strength and steals the very life of a person, leaving you feeling exposed and naked. Outwardly it seems to be a lowly cowardice sheep, but inwardly it is a ferocious beast that is waiting to devour its victims with guilt, fear, shame and compromise, resentment, bitterness toward self and others and produce every kind of perversion and evil. The end RESULT is separation from God, which leads to DEATH!
Salvation from SIN
God wanted to spare us and SAVE us FROM this terrible death TRAP of SIN and its powerful deceitfulness and hold it gets upon its victim. He, being a righteous God, being perfectly righteous has to judge SIN in all mankind and therefore had to remove His LIFE from them, so that disharmony would make mankind spin out of control, totally unbalanced, until it is dashed to pieces and brought to utter ruin and destruction.
Thus God made a way where there was NO WAY, by becoming THE WAY for mankind to escape. Yes – He literally made us the scapegoat that could go free so that He could become the sin offering and the PERFECT Lamb of God that could make a way so that God could take away the sin of the world. Man had to be GIVEN righteousness and PERFECT right standing with God as a FREE gift. They could NOT achieve it nor could they earn it. They would have to get it FREELY. But this was a gift that God gave out of His heart of compassion, in grace and love for us, by Himself coming to die on the cross for our sins and to BREAK the POWER of SIN over our lives. Yes, He could forgive our sins, but HE also had to BREAK the power of SIN, otherwise we could NEVER BE truly FREE.
Freedom in deed
When we are still slaves of SIN we might try to STOP sinning, and might even live a righteous life of a high degree of holiness and perfection, BUT this does NOT FREE us FROM the POWER of SIN. Only once when we have DIED can we become FREED from SIN and the law of destruction that applied over our lives. We must completely REMOVE the reign of the LAW OF SIN in and over our lives, replacing it with another LAW which will give us LIFE and FREEDOM to be FREE in DEED!
Sins are rooted in SIN and SIN produces sins. Only once when the TREE has been removed with its ROOTS, can we be FREED from all sins that was produced through SIN’s power. ONCE when we are FREE FROM SIN, the sins that used to be produced because of rebellion and fear of God, having made us hostile towards God, can’t be produced anymore. Then the eyes of the one who sinned against God, due to SIN, realizes that God is NOT his enemy, BUT loved us so much that HE came to demonstrate His love for us, by DYING to pay for our FREEDOM. Then the POWER of SIN and the reason to rebel is removed. NOW sin has LOST its STING! Therefore Paul wrote:
And when this perishable puts on the imperishable and this that was capable of dying puts on freedom from death, then shall be fulfilled the Scripture that says, Death is swallowed up (utterly vanquished forever) in and unto victory. [Isa_25:8] 55 O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? [Hos_13:14] 56 Now sin is the sting of death, and sin exercises its power [upon the soul] through [the abuse of] the Law. (1Cor 15:54-56)
With the sting of SIN is gone, the power of SIN is broken and man is FREED from DEATH.
Adoption as a son of God
Now man is FREED to marry another Master or husband. Not a hard task master, but a loving and gracious FRIEND and COMPANION. NOW for the first time ARE such a man INDEED and TRULY free. Now he is NOT a slave, but has become a loved and acceptable son in his father’s house. This why Paul wrote:
For [the Spirit which] you have now received [is] not a spirit of slavery to put you once more in bondage to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption [the Spirit producing sonship] in [the bliss of] which we cry, Abba (Father)! Father! 16 The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies together with our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are children of God. 17 And if we are [His] children, then we are [His] heirs also: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ [sharing His inheritance with Him]; (Rom 8:15-17)
An orphan son has a ‘spirit of slavery’ mentality and is STILL in bondage to FEAR. But a BELOVED son feels accepted and loved and knows that He was taken in by His Father and was FREELY adopted into His father’s house and that ALL in His father’s house belongs to him. He has now in every sense became the total heir and have ALL authority as a SON to use all His Fathers privileges and abilities. Glory to our Loving God and Father who has FREELY accepted ALL who has accepted the sacrifice and demonstration of Love He gave us through the cross, NOW considering themselves DEAD to sin and ALIVE to God and His goodness. Help restoring the truth to Jesus’ church (Act 3:21-23)
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Restoration to the original is always the best.
Radical return to the way the Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated and gave it to His disciples.”
