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The analogical field of Scripture renders bondage and freedom in moral colors that illuminate the inner dominions of the heart and the social dominions of the house without confusing the two. The slavery-to-sin metaphor speaks of a mastery that is not external chain but internal rule, where desire and disobedience command the will like a tyrant and reduce the person to instrument. This metaphor reveals that sin is not simply a set of acts but a lordship that recruits the body into service and pays out death as wages. The announcement of liberation is therefore not only social; it is spiritual and existential, where allegiance transfers from sin’s mastery to righteousness under the lordship of the Anointed. The language ties obedience to the pattern of service, making morality a matter of whom one serves and freedom a matter of whose yoke one bears. The metaphor’s power lies in its ability to expose the illusion of neutrality; every person serves a master, and the question is which master grants life.
Original: ἦτε δοῦλοι τῆς ἁμαρτίας, ὑπηκούσατε δὲ ἐκ καρδίας εἰς ὃν παρεδόθητε τύπον διδαχῆς
Transliteration: ēte douloi tēs hamartias; hypēkousate de ek kardias eis hon paredothēte typon didachēs
Literal Interlinear Etymological Translation in English (Sinaiticus, SVO): You were: slaves: of the sin; but you obeyed: from heart: into which: you were delivered: a pattern: of teaching. (Sinaiticus – Romans – 6 – 17)
Original: νυνὶ δὲ ἐλευθερωθέντες ἀπὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας, ἐδουλώθητε τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ
Transliteration: nynide eleutherōthentes apo tēs hamartias; edoulōthēte tē dikaiosynē
Literal Interlinear Etymological Translation in English (Sinaiticus, SVO): But now: having been freed: from the sin; you were enslaved: to the righteousness. (Sinaiticus – Romans – 6 – 18)
Original: τὸ γὰρ ὀψώνια τῆς ἁμαρτίας θάνατος, τὸ δὲ χάρισμα τοῦ Θεοῦ ζωὴ αἰώνιος ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ
Transliteration: to gar opsōnia tēs hamartias thanatos; to de charisma tou Theou zōē aiōnios en Christō Iēsou
Literal Interlinear Etymological Translation in English (Sinaiticus, SVO): For: the wages: of the sin: death; but: the gift: of the God: life: eternal: in the Anointed: Iēsous. (Sinaiticus – Romans – 6 – 23)
These lines render slavery as a moral condition, with service to sin yielding death and service to righteousness yielding life. The metaphor does not baptize social bondage; it exposes spiritual bondage and declares that the Inhabited liberates captives at the deepest level, transferring allegiance and reorienting obedience.
The adoption and sonship motif lifts status within the assembly and undermines ownership logic by declaring that in the Inhabited there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all are one. This declaration does not erase social roles with a stroke; it reframes identity so that social hierarchies cannot claim divine endorsement and cannot define worth. Adoption makes persons heirs rather than property, sons and daughters rather than instruments, family rather than assets. The motif plants the seed that dissolves possession: if slaves and free are one in the Inhabited, then ownership of a brother or sister is incoherent under the gospel’s grammar. The household of faith is commanded to see status through kinship, and kinship through grace, so that the ledger of the city surrenders to the family register of the kingdom.
Original: οὐκ ἔνι Ἰουδαῖος οὐδὲ Ἕλλην, οὐκ ἔνι δοῦλος οὐδὲ ἐλεύθερος, οὐκ ἔνι ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ· πάντες γὰρ ὑμεῖς εἷς ἐστὲ ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ
Transliteration: ouk eni Ioudaios oude Hellēn; ouk eni doulos oude eleutheros; ouk eni arsen kai thēly; pantes gar hymeis heis este en Christō Iēsou
Literal Interlinear Etymological Translation in English (Sinaiticus, SVO): There is not: Jew: nor Greek; there is not: slave: nor free; there is not: male: and female; for all: you: are one: in the Anointed: Iēsous. (Sinaiticus – Galatians – 3 – 28)
This line sets kinship as the measure of identity and dissolves hierarchies into unity, establishing the theological ground that forbids possession and requires mutual honor. Adoption language elsewhere marks the transfer from bondage under elemental principles to sonship, crying “Abba,” and inheriting promise; status is elevated, and ownership logic collapses under the weight of grace.
Original: υἱοθεσίαν ἐλάβετε, ἐν ᾧ κράζομεν· Ἀββᾶ ὁ πατήρ
Transliteration: huiothesian elabete; en hō krazomen; Abba ho patēr
Literal Interlinear Etymological Translation in English (Sinaiticus, SVO): Adoption: you received; in which: we cry out; Abba: the Father. (Sinaiticus – Romans – 8 – 15)
The guardrail must be erected clearly: the metaphors that speak of slavery and freedom at the level of sin, righteousness, and adoption cannot be misused to justify social bondage. Spiritual slavery’s liberation is not a warrant for social enslavement; metaphors reveal truth about allegiance and identity, not policy about ownership. The covenant and the gospel address social bondage with instruction and commands that constrain, release, and reframe status; the metaphors address the inner dominion where hearts are trained to serve. To conflate these realms is to deny the integrity of each and to invite oppression under the banner of piety. The assembly is commanded to keep the metaphors in their proper field and to apply their light to the house’s practice by recognizing that if allegiance and identity are transformed into kinship and sonship, then social relations must follow the same path toward justice and freedom.
In this analogical context, Scripture teaches that every person serves a master, and the only Master who grants life calls His people into unity that collapses ownership and into adoption that elevates status. The metaphors do not soften the Torah’s edges; they sharpen the community’s vision. They expose tyranny within and call for liberation without, so that the house will be ordered by truth and the city will be confronted by grace.
