What the Bible says about Sin, Bondage to
(From Forerunner Commentary)
By their own choice, the family of Israel went into a self-imposed exile, from Canaan to Egypt. We see in verse 3 that God Himself wanted this to occur. He had plans for Israel, and the Israelites had to go through this period of Egypt as part of that plan. They did not realize at the time that this voluntary sojourn in Egypt would lead to their forced slavery. Several generations would pass until the time they would be put under bitter bondage, when the Pharaoh would go so far as to call for all the sons of Israel to be killed after their birth.
It was only by God's mighty power in the Exodus that they were ever able to leave Egypt; they could not have done it on their own. In their minds, they were half-Egyptian by that time, perhaps even more. They really did not want to leave. Sure, they loved the idea of freedom, but as soon as they left Egypt, they wanted to go back.
It is ironic how hard it was for them to return to Canaan because they had forgotten that their real homeland was in the land of Canaan, not in Egypt. They had taken the place of their exile as home. They had become so enmeshed in the culture of Egypt that they considered it their own. We see this when, only a month out, they forced Aaron to bring some of that culture back into their lives in the form of a Golden Calf.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
How to Survive ExileRelated Topics: Bondage | Bondage to Satan | Bondage to Sin | Bondage, Release from | Bondage, Spiritual | Egypt as Sin | Exile | Golden Calf | Sin, Bondage to | Slavery | Spiritual Bondage
The Days of Unleavened Bread are a memorial to God's law and to His powerful deliverance from Egypt and bondage. Paul explains this significance to the Corinthians and the urgency attached to cease sinning. He says we should not even keep company with a brother involved in flagrant sin! Also, by ridding our homes of sin, we realize that overcoming sin is hard work!
Staff
Holy Days: Unleavened BreadRelated Topics: Bondage | Bondage to Sin | Bondage, Spiritual | Days of Unleavened Bread | Deliverance | Egypt as Sin | God's Law | Overcoming | Overcoming, Urgency in | Sin | Sin, Bondage to | Sin, Overcoming
God's experience with Israel (recorded from Exodus through Deuteronomy) is helpful in understanding this. Slavery in Egypt, where they faced certain, ignominious death, represents the world, and Pharaoh represents Satan. Leaving Egypt symbolizes what justification accomplishes in God's spiritual plan: It frees from bondage.
But God did not stop working with them at that point. He revealed His law to them, and then commanded them to choose to live by it. They had to endure a forty-year pilgrimage, enduring many trials along the way, before they finally were delivered into their inheritance, the Promised Land, which represented salvation. However, many perished along the way because they did not live by faith, as shown by their disobedience to His revealed law.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Twenty-Nine)Related Topics: Bondage | Bondage to Satan | Bondage to Sin | Bondage, Release from | Bondage, Spiritual | Egypt | Egypt as Sin | Exodus | Promised Land | Promised Land, Journey to | Sin Produces Slavery | Sin, Bondage to | Sin, Slavery to | Slavery | Slavery to Satan | Slavery to Sin
There is something sobering in the instruction Jesus gives here. What was the cross or stake in reality? Was it not the instrument of Christ's death? It is what He was killed on. Certainly, He was killed by sin. We could carry that further, but the actual instrument of His death was the cross. He had to carry His own instrument of death with Him. He stumbled under it, and another had to help Him.
That equates symbolically with something that we carry with us everywhere. What is the instrument of our death? Sin. Sin lodges in the mind. The apostle Paul says in Romans 7 that he found sin still within him. Here is a converted man, an apostle of God, long after he was called, yet sin still lived in him. Every once in awhile, it would get control over him, and he would find himself under its domination once again. That cross that we have to bear and carry with us right to the grave is our own mind laden with sin! Sin lies at the door, as God said to Cain (Genesis 4:7). It is at the door of our minds all the time. God has given us an interesting challenge: Everywhere we go our cross is with us. It is sobering.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Freedom and Unleavened Bread
Obedience is submission. In the context of this verse, if one serves sin, then he is sin's slave. Sin is the master. This does not mean making an occasional mistake, falling short of the mark, or wandering from the way. Paul is referring to sin that is dominating the life, that is lived in as a way of life. If a person is in that position, the master—sin—has jurisdiction over his skill, energy, and time.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Passover and I Corinthians 10Related Topics: Bondage | Bondage to Sin | Bondage, Release from | Bondage, Spiritual | Obedience | Sin, Bondage to | Sin, Slavery to | Slave of Sin | Slavery | Slavery to Sin
Paul was not living a life of sin as he had before conversion. His words reflect the keen perception into the deceitfulness of human nature of a man so close to God he could see virtually every self-centered, evil, twisted, and perverted nuance of carnality that still lurked in him. He abhorred it, groaning and yearning for complete deliverance from it!
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Beatitudes, Part Three: MourningRelated Topics: Carnal Mind | Carnal Nature | Carnal Priorities | Carnal Reasoning | Carnality | Carnally Minded | Human Nature | Human Nature, Controlling | Human Nature, Perversity of | Sin, Bondage to | Sin, Slavery to