The Sinner’s Bondage and the Song of the Saints
Man is a slave to sin (Jn 8:34; Rom 6:6, 16–20). What is worse is that he is ignorant of his enslavement. Sin reigns (Rom 5:21). It has total dominion over man’s nature (Eph 2:3). The result is futility of the mind (Eph 4:17), and wicked corruption of the heart (Jer 17:9). This means that every inclination in the heart of man is only evil all the time (Gen 6:5). King Solomon observed this and lamented, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity (Eccl 1:2).”
Sin and death reigned from Adam to Moses (Rom 5:14), and then things got worse. What made man’s sin problem worse? Our holy God issued His Law to Moses on Mount Sinai (Ex 24:12). From 1446 B.C. to the present, sins were now known with clarity.
Sin is lawlessness (1 Jn 3:4). Sinners transgress the Law (Is 24:5), as easily as a fish glides through the sea. Man is immersed in a world of sin (Rom 5:12). Sin is in him, and he is enveloped in it.
Sin actually increases when the Law of God is preached (Rom 5:20). For the unsaved, sin has a chemistry that hardens one’s heart (Ex 9:34; Heb 3:13). Sin is not just a poor choice here and again; it is a total experience from conception, until sin pays its wages to sinners, for all their hard work (Rom 6:23). Only death can put a stop to sin and its consequential ravages (Heb 9:27).
What can wash away our sins? Who can deliver us from the power of sin? Where sin abounds, grace abounds much more (Rom 5:21). In other words, grace did not come from God to just counterbalance sin. Grace entered to fully forgive sins (Mt 26:28; Eph 1:7), and then it went way beyond offsetting the negative. Grace put a positive charge on life (Rom 5:21; Titus 3:7; 1 Pet 3:7). Grace gave us something to sing about, and then it put a song in our hearts.
There is an unction in the Spirit-filled Christian. When he opens his Bible, he becomes super-animated. This is unlike the dour lectures, of dead professors of lifeless, humanistic dogma in diverse disciplines. The life giving Spirit illumines the Word of life (1 Cor 15:45; Jn 6:63), which can never return void (Is 55:11). This is the Word of God, the Word of truth (Ps 119:160; Jn 17:17), that sets men free from sin’s control of their minds, hearts, and wills (Jn 8:32).
Every man is resident to one of two states. He is either, “under sin,” or he is “under grace.” He is either under the headship of Adam or the headship of Jesus Christ (Rom 5:12–21). In Adam, all die because of sin (1 Cor 15:22a). Therefore, it is appointed once for a man to die, and then comes the judgment for sins (Heb 9:27). In Christ, man is made alive (1 Cor 15:22b; Eph 2:5; Col 2:13), and he is no longer under condemnation and judgment (Rom 8:1).
Upon the resurrection of his soul, from the spiritual deadness of sin, this man is given gifts from God (Eph 4:8). These gifts manifest the reality that he has a new life (spiritual) because he is a new creature (2 Cor 5:17), part of God’s new creation, the beginning of new things.
With his new mind, the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16), the man made new can now see with the eyes of the Spirit (1 Cor 2:15). His worldview changes and so do his affections. He no longer loves the world, nor the things of the world (1 Jn 2:15–17). Rather, his eyes are on Jesus (Heb 12:2), who is authoring the adopted child’s faith (Rom 8:15, 23).
Faith apprehends the love of God, as grace reveals it. The believer is comforted because he is aware that he has peace with God (Rom 5:1) because of Jesus’ blood and righteousness (Ps 85:10; Is 32:12; Rom 14:17; Col 1:20). The regenerate soul knows that his sins are forgiven — all of them — past, present, and future. He sings, “Amazing grace!”
The new believer in Christ Jesus surveys where he has been. He notes the tyranny of sin that dominated his whole being. He realizes, he was conceived in sin (Ps 51:5), having inherited the original sin of Adam (Rom 5:12). He remembers the dominance of his sin nature and how voluminous and vicious it was before he heard the Gospel of His salvation (Rom 1:16; 10:17).
The child of God acknowledges that he has never been free. For so long, he mocked the sorry slaves of Christianity, thinking he was a free libertine. In retrospect, he realizes he was a slave at the buffet, the bar, the brothel, and at his business. This man was governed by sin, which was far more powerful and totally blinded him, from seeing the truth of his bondage to sin (2 Cor 4:4).
The natural man is not free to think, to feel, to will, or to act. He is under sin until death, or until his helpless, hopeless, enmity with God is resolved by the particular redemption of Jesus Christ (Mt 1:21; Rom 5:10; 8:7; Eph 2:12). The sinner’s blind-following of the media; His morbid affections for all things dark; and His unwillingness and inability to seek God are all remedied by the Redeemer.
Christian, have compassion on the lost, for they are blind, deaf, lame, and hardened. Graciously speak to them of their already state of condemnation (Jn 3:18) and their soon approaching day of sentencing by the just Judge, Jesus Christ (Acts 17:31; 2 Cor 5:10; 2 Tim 4:1; 1 Pet 4:5; Rev 20:11).
It is never enough for us to tell men of the Law of God and its hundreds and hundreds of precepts. We must do that, but we are preachers of God, hence, preachers of grace and truth (Jn 1:14, 17). Therefore, we must preach Christ and Him crucified (1 Cor 1:23; 2:2), as man’s only hope for salvation. Here is the Gospel of life that speaks life into dead sinner’s souls. We believe; therefore, we speak, even singing the song of our salvation.
David Norczyk
Spokane Valley, Washington
June 4, 2022
