DD: Employees of Sin
Even though this is Lent, I’ll start this DD with a quote from Dicken’s “A Christmas Carol”. This happens in the very first chapter of this classic story — Scrooge meets up with the ghost of his business partner Marley, and sees him bound with chains. Marley tells Scrooge that his chain is even longer.
“I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?” Scrooge trembled more and more. “Or would you know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!”
Scrooge was a terrible man, and in the story learned just how terrible he was — and how alone he was. At the end of the story, he had changed and started to make up for his past transgressions. This change is all well and good, but it isn’t enough. According to Scripture, Scrooge’s good acts were not going to save him, because there would still sin in his life. But those who have accepted Christ have seen the way out of a life ruled by sin:
Romans 6:11:17 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.
Paul didn’t say that we weren’t going to sin anymore — just that it wasn’t going to be our master any longer. As our pastor put it in his sermon one recent Sunday, we are no longer slaves to sin, but we are it’s employees. We now know better and can walk away from our temptations. If you haven’t accepted Christ, how you can expected to know anything else but sin? What else can be your master? A sinner will always wear the chains he or she forged in life — because sin is their master.
But if we just had the law, we would still be wearing the chains we have forged, because we can’t follow the law. We can do nothing to save ourselves from our fate, but Christ has already done that for us by sacrificing Himself on the cross and rising from the dead. Paul really said it best — sin is no longer our master, not because of the law, but because of the grace of Jesus Christ.