Release enables us to have freedom. When we were sinners, we were under all kinds of bondage. The Lord came to save us and to deliver us from bondage so that we might obtain release and freedom. Therefore, release—freedom—is one of the blessings of the Lord’s salvation. The Lord’s salvation delivers us not merely from sin and death but also from bondage; it enables us to obtain not only justification and life but also release, freedom.
Every worldly person, no matter how high his education, how high his social position, or how good his behavior, is a person under bondage. If he has not received the Lord’s salvation by faith, he is under some form of bondage, and he has no freedom.
1. “Everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34; see also Rom. 6:17).
The first kind of bondage that people fall under is the bondage of sin. People are like slaves under sin. The Greek word for slave denotes a person sold into slavery. One who is sold into slavery is entirely under the control of his master and has no freedom whatever. People under sin are slaves of sin; they are controlled by sin and mastered by sin to the extent that they have no control over their sins.
People think that sin is merely a wrong action or bad behavior, but the Bible speaks of sin as a living thing within man. It has the authority and power to make people its slaves, causing them to commit all kinds of sins. Just as slaves must obey their masters, people under the control of sin cannot control themselves in the matter of committing sins.
2. “They themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom anyone has been defeated, by this one he has been enslaved” (2 Pet. 2:19).
Sin controls people and causes everything they do to be corrupt. Therefore, anyone who does corrupt things is a slave of corruption and cannot be free. Corrupt things, such as eating, drinking, womanizing, gambling, and smoking, control countless people and cause them to lose their freedom. Many are controlled like slaves to eating, drinking, womanizing, gambling, and smoking. Even though their reasonable mind does not agree with these things, they are powerless to refrain from them.
3. “But I am...sold under sin” (Rom. 7:14).
Man is sold under sin. He is sold as a slave to sin. He is under the authority, control, and bondage of sin. He cannot be free.
1. “I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me a captive to the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:23-24).
In man, that is, in his body, there is a law that wars with his desire to do good and takes him captive against this desire, forcing him to do all kinds of evil and wrong things against his will. This law in man’s body is a spontaneous power that captures him and forces him to do the evil he does not will to do. Under this law, man cannot decide for himself and cannot be free.
1. “Lies in the evil one” (1 John 5:19; see also Acts 26:18).
Satan controls and acts upon man. Today all people are under his authority and control. They lie in the evil one, and having no freedom, they are acted upon by him. People lie under his hand. He acts upon them like a doctor operating on patients under anesthesia, having no control over the doctor’s hand.
2. “The snare of the devil, having been caught alive by him” (2 Tim. 2:26).
Today man has been caught alive by the devil and is trapped in his snare, having no freedom and ability to free himself. The devil is very tricky. He captures people without their knowledge. Even though they think they are released and free, he ensnares people. The truth, however, is that all people have been caught by the devil without their knowledge, regardless of whether they are officials, farmers, laborers, businessmen, males, females, old, or young. They are in his snare, and they cannot escape by themselves.
3. “Whom Satan has bound”; “Oppressed by the devil” (Luke 13:16; Acts 10:38).
Satan uses many things, such as sin, money, and pleasure, to seduce people and take them captive. He also uses sickness and sufferings to bind and oppress people, making it impossible for them to be free. People are either seduced, captured, and enslaved to sin, evil, money, and pleasure or they are oppressed and cannot be free from the bondage of suffering and sickness. This is how Satan treats people.