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In the movie “The Last Sin Eater” (based on the novel by Francine Rivers by the same name), ten-year-old Cadi Forbes has an encounter with her Appalachian community’s “sin eater”—a human scapegoat who took the sins of the newly deceased upon himself in exchange for food and drink. She tried to tell the sin eater what the man of God told her; what was in his book (the Bible) about another sin eater . . . who ate everyone’s sin. Cadi was trying to help him see that he no longer had to be an outcast; he didn’t have to continue to be a sin eater. The sin eater interrupted and said that he refuses to read that book, because it may reveal that the twenty years of his life as a sin eater have been in vain. That is the dilemma for both A.A. and N.A. members and those who are called by Christ into relationship with Him. Although the truth of God is clearly seen, we seek to suppress it because of what it says about the impotence of our efforts apart from God.
For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:20-23)
Throughout chapter six in Romans Paul used slavery as a metaphor to compare the life of sin and the life of righteousness. Slavery was a common situation of life in Paul’s time. Estimates were that 85-90 percent of the Roman population was either slaves or the descendants of slaves. While they were viewed as “human tools,” slaves were still granted many legal rights.
They could worship as members of the extended family of their owner. They could marry, but the offspring of that marriage became the property of the owner. Slaves could also accumulate money on their own to purchase their freedom or to start a business once they were set free by their owners. While slaves could be architects, physicians, administrators and teachers, they were often hired out as day laborers in construction and industry. And they paid about two-thirds of their wages to their owners.
By the beginning of the first century the numbers of freed slaves had increased dramatically; partly because of the significant decline in the freeborn population of the time. No doubt there were both slaves and masters in many of Paul’s churches, including the church in Rome. According to Martin Hawthorne in the Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, Jewish slaves were particularly evident in Rome: “Jewish slaves had been brought to Rome by the tens of thousands from the time of Pompey’s conquest until the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.”
Continuing with the metaphor of slavery here, Paul observes that while we were slaves to sin, while sin was our master, we were “free” of any service obligations to righteousness. In other words, we could not serve two masters. We either serve sin and hate righteousness; or serve righteousness and hate sin (Matthew 6:24). But what benefit (or fruit) did we get from our slavery to sin, from the lawlessness and impurity of which we are now ashamed? There was no benefit; the end result is death. But now that we are free from sin and surrendered (as slaves) to God, the fruit (benefit) we receive is salvation and sanctification. According to Paul, there will be service to something in our lives. Which will it be? Slavery to sin results in lawlessness—which leads to death. Slavery to righteousness results in salvation and sanctification—which leads to eternal life.
The Greek word for wages in 6:23 was used outside of Scripture to refer to an allowance or salary paid out at designated times. Most often it referred to a minimal subsistence paid to soldiers, thus the use of the same Greek word in Luke 3:14, where John the Baptist tells soldiers to be satisfied with their pay and not to extort money to supplement their income. The recipient had a legal right to expect their “wages” and could bring legal action if they did not receive their justly due compensation. The context here suggests that all three aspects are part of what Paul is saying.
One sense suggests, “The subsistence which sin pays and offers is death.” Therefore, sin is a deceiver; it promises life and gives death. Secondly, it is not a single, final payment; but continues as the just compensation for sin. Thirdly, the legally owed payment for sin is contrasted with the free gift of God: eternal life in Christ. The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament said: “Man has rights only in relation to sin, and these rights become his judgment. When he throws himself on God without claim, salvation comes to him.”
So, we see the radical difference between service to sin and service to righteousness in verse 6:23. The just compensation for sin is death, but righteousness leading to sanctification results in the free gift of eternal life in Christ. God freely gives to us what we cannot earn through our personal efforts; the deliverance from sin through eternal life in Christ.
So too are the consequences of alcoholism or addiction. The delusion or lie that an alcoholic can drink like other people, that somehow, someday the alcoholic will be able to control and enjoy his or her drinking “is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.” The wages of addiction are also death; jail, institutions or death as the saying goes in recovery. The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous noted how many alcoholics pursue the illusion that they can somehow control and enjoy their drinking “into the gates of insanity or death.”
“No real alcoholic ever recovers control.” They are “restless, irritable and discontented” unless they have a few drinks. When they give in to the desire to drink again, the well-known stages of a drinking spree, remorsefulness for having drank, and a “firm resolution not to drink again” occurs as the just compensation for their drinking. “This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery.” This downward cycle of alcoholism reflects of Paul’s description of the cycle of sin in Romans 7.
Paul knows that nothing good dwells in him, that is in his flesh. He has the desire to do what is right “but not the ability to carry it out;” he’s powerless. He does not do the good he wants to do, but does the evil he does not want to do instead. Although he delights in the law of God in his inner being, there is another law that makes him captive to the law of sin dwelling in him. “Wretched man that I am! Who will save me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
The plan for recovery and the plan for salvation strike out in different directions at this point. Theologically, salvation aims high—for eternal life in Jesus Christ. Twelve Step recovery, seeking to be inclusive, does not require a belief in or surrender to Christ, and thus cannot give eternal life. If Christ is not the object of your faith, it isn’t “the power of God for salvation” (Romans 1:16).
Saving faith must have Christ as its object. Faith in the god revealed through the 12 Steps must lead to faith in Christ who died for us. This faith in Jesus Christ is a free gift, available “for all who believe.” It is a manifestation of the righteousness of God by which he has passed over our former sins. “It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).
If you’re interested, more articles from this series can be found under the link for “The Romans Road of Recovery.” “A Common Spiritual Path” (01) and “The Romans Road of Recovery” (02) will introduce this series of articles. If you began by reading one that came from the middle or the end of the series, try reading them before reading others. Follow the numerical listing of the articles (i.e., 01, 02, etc.), if you want to read them in the order they were originally intended. This article is 10th in the series. Enjoy.