Second Verse

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” Romans 8:14-15 NASB

Again – “Once I was free, now I am lost.” Perhaps we need to reflect on the reverse of our usual lost and found idea. The story of the exodus plays a crucial role in the Hebrew idea of deliverance. It is the defining event of all Judaism. Paul reminds his readers that God’s rescue from the house of bondage did not mean that the people were released in order to serve another taskmaster. What would be the point of deliverance if we were only transferred from one house of slavery to another? Freedom must mean redemption from the fear of slavery, not simply removal from prior enslavement. What God did for Israel He does for us. We are delivered from fear because fear is the root of captivity.

What happens to us when we are afraid? The instinct of self-protection is empowered and we do what we can to lessen our fear by removing the thing that threatens us. But slavery implies that we are unable to remove the captor. We are slaves precisely because we cannot, under our own power, extricate ourselves from the cruel master. We are afraid because we are under constant threat and we are helpless to defend ourselves. While physical slavery is still a reality in this world, Paul has something far more terrifying in mind. He recognizes that the strongest and cruelest of all masters is the self. There is absolutely no escape from this tormentor. Life under the dictator of self-desire is hell on earth, even if it is accompanied with more and more seductive gifts. In the end, the victim is left with nothing but fear. How will we ever be freed from this tormenting?

Paul supplies us with the only solution. Die! The dead are not under the power of the yetzer ha’ra. If we want to escape, we will have to die—and rise again as new. This resurrection life will not return us to fear. Fear has been cast out. It must be a life of reckless abandonment to the freedom of elected obedience. We no longer serve because we must. We serve because we yearn to please the One who gave us back the life we lost. We will not go back again. Paul uses the word palin, a word that describes an oscillating pattern. It is not simply a one-time return but a repetition, a pattern of turning back. If Paul knew anything about additions, this would be the right word.

Paul finds it incredible that any of us should fall back into the life of abject slavery once we have been redeemed. He finds it incredible, but not unusual. We do slip. We do fall. We are seduced by the pull from the other side of the grave because we have been so conditioned by the mentality of slavery. Forty years in the wilderness was not enough to shift the paradigm of the children of Israel and for some of us forty years of wandering may be the only way to reach the Jordan. But we will not die in the wilderness. We will cross over with the freed men and women of God. We will leave that fear behind, in the graves of Egypt where it belongs.

Topical Index: again, palin, to fall back, Romans 8:14-15