He said he didn't understand "how a person became a thing." His father had opposed serfdom, as had Catherine the Great before him. But trying to get the approval of the nobility was not an easy thing. In fact, Catherine had given up. Yet Tsar Alexander II did not. It took five years and the murder of one of his emissaries to finally, on February 19, 1861, receive the approval he needed to pass the legislation abolishing serfdom forever from Russia. Things did not go smoothly afterward as the peasants expected to be given land along with their freedom, but it is still a monumental event in Russian history, and because of it, Tsar Alexander is called the Liberator.
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and [have] been set free from sin…(Rom 6:17-18). We have been blessed with a far more important liberation. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace (Rom 6:14). We have our freedom now, freedom to choose not to sin. We have been blessed with the ability to overcome with the help of our own Liberator (1 Cor 10:13). We might have wished we were free to choose before our baptism (Rom 6) but it was simply impossible. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members (Rom 7:21-23). Truly we were wretched (7:24) and in need of deliverance.
It took years of planning, and it involved the murder of the King's Son, but finally it happened. The King's Son rose from the dead and abolished the slavery to sin. …Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!...There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. (Rom 7:24-8:1).
And now we are free, never again enslaved to sin, a truly monumental moment in history.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father! (Rom 8:2, 15).
Dene Ward
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and [have] been set free from sin…(Rom 6:17-18). We have been blessed with a far more important liberation. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace (Rom 6:14). We have our freedom now, freedom to choose not to sin. We have been blessed with the ability to overcome with the help of our own Liberator (1 Cor 10:13). We might have wished we were free to choose before our baptism (Rom 6) but it was simply impossible. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members (Rom 7:21-23). Truly we were wretched (7:24) and in need of deliverance.
It took years of planning, and it involved the murder of the King's Son, but finally it happened. The King's Son rose from the dead and abolished the slavery to sin. …Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!...There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. (Rom 7:24-8:1).
And now we are free, never again enslaved to sin, a truly monumental moment in history.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father! (Rom 8:2, 15).
Dene Ward
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