SLAVERY TO SIN AND DEATH

Nearly all people have been talking for centuries about achieving freedom. Why? Because they do not have it. All are slaves, not necessarily to men, but to sin and death. This means that to be really free, a person would have to be relieved of sin, which would mean release from sickness and death, which are produced by sin. (Rom. 6:23) When Jesus Christ was on earth he said to the Jews: “Every doer of sin is a slave of sin.” He told them how they could be free from this deadly plague, saying: “If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. . . . If the Son sets you free, you will be actually free.”​—John 8:31-36.

Well, greater freedom in every respect will be enjoyed soon by those who live under God’s Messianic kingdom, which will rule from the heavens for a thousand years. Jesus Christ as its King will represent God’s sovereign power. Under the Kingdom, complete freedom from man’s greatest enslaver, sin, along with the death that is a result of sin, will be brought about. (1 Cor. 15:26; Rev. 21:3, 4) Through the administration of Christ as King and High Priest, humans, including many resurrected ones, will be lifted up to absolute perfection of mind and body.​—Rev. 20:11-13; Heb. 11:39, 40.

Then, when the thousand years reach their end, Christ will turn perfected mankind over to Jehovah God himself. (1 Cor. 15:24) All who then love God’s sovereignty and who do not have the desire for the ruinous course of self-determination will be declared ‘sons of God.’ The apostle Paul, referring to this purpose of God, says: “The creation itself also will be set free from enslavement to corruption and have the glorious freedom of the children of God.”​—Rom. 8:21.

Children of God! Men and women will be God’s own sons and daughters, in his own family​—clean, perfect and holy, as he is. Under his love for them as Father, what freedom they will have! They will enjoy perfect health, free from any destructive natural calamities. (Isa. 25:6-8) There will be no man-made governments, no dictators, no bosses. (Luke 22:25, 26) People will not regard the practice of immoral things as “freedom.” They will be subject to laws for the orderly operation of affairs, but they will not need laws against immorality, theft, murder and the depraved things to which man is now subject. About this the apostle Paul wrote:

“Now we know that the [Mosaic] Law is fine provided one handles it lawfully in the knowledge of this fact, that law is promulgated, not for a righteous man, but for persons lawless and unruly, ungodly and sinners, lacking loving-kindness, and profane, murderers . . . fornicators, . . . liars.”​—1 Tim. 1:8-10.

When Jesus Christ was on earth as a perfect man of flesh and blood, he had no tendency to do these degraded things. Keeping the Law was natural for him. He proved that sin is not a necessary or inherent thing for fleshly persons, as the apostle Paul explains: “God, by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin [he came to offer himself as an atonement sacrifice to do away with sin], condemned sin in the flesh.”​—Rom. 8:3.