“I’m just a sinner saved by grace! I repent in the morning and I’m bound to be in sin by the evening. You know how it goes!”

“Well, we’re all bound to sin now and again.”

I would have identified with these statements in the past. It is more or less the message that I internalized about our relationship to sin. But let’s, for a moment, examine the words we use when we speak like that.

“I’m bound to…”

What are you bound to? Said another way, what are you in bondage to? If we say that we are bound to sin, we are essentially saying that sin is our master. Our lord. 

Matthew 6: 24 – “No one can serve two masters”

Romans 6: 6-7 – “Our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin – because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.”

Romans 7: 6 – “But now, having died to what bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code”. 

If in one breath, we express that we’re bound to keep on sinning, and in another breath say “Jesus is Lord”, we are tearing ourselves in two very separate directions. I’m afraid many Christians are feeling the pain that comes from this.

I realize that for many people Romans 7 may come to mind where Paul says things like “I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin…I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing”. I used to quote that myself. But wait! How can that be? It doesn’t make sense if you read it in context with chapters 6-8. Is it true that Paul is unspiritual? Why are we even listening to him if he’s unspiritual? Is it true that he is sold as a slave to sin? Why did he spend all of chapter 6 saying that he is freed from sin and sin is no longer his master?

Then he asks the question (7:24)…”who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?”

And continues by answering his own question, giving us a clue that this is a question his former self  (unspiritual and a slave to sin) would’ve asked and that his present self (spiritual and free) has an answer to:

“Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Romans 8 goes on to confirm that we are not bound to live by the “sinful flesh” but that we now live by the Spirit (who gives life and has set you free).

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” – Galatians 5:1

“A slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed!” – John 8: 35-36

I realize that these passages in Romans are some of the most hotly debated. I’m not a Bible scholar by any means, but once I saw this, it just suddenly all made so much sense and I hope this is helpful. (And feel free to push back in the comments below if this seems new and hard to swallow. It was a process for me when I first heard these verses in a new light.)