The Slavery of Death

by Richard Beck

what we have inherited from Adam and Eve is less a moral stain than the mortal condition, a world and a body infected with death. Rather

than original sin—a moral depravity and incapacity passed on from generation to generation—we have a death-infected world created by a primal act of disobedience. Thus the Orthodox don’t speak of original sin but of an ancestral sin, a primal event where death was introduced into the world. The condition we inherit from Adam and Eve is less moral than mortal.

This isn’t to say that the Orthodox marginalize the power and ubiquity of sin in our lives. But the frame here has shifted in an interesting way. As mortal creatures, separated from God’s vivifying Spirit, humans are fearful and survival-driven animals, easily drawn into sinful an...

As mortal creatures, separated from God’s vivifying Spirit, humans are fearful and survival-driven animals, easily drawn into sinful and selfish practices. Because we are mortal and driven by self-preservation, our survival instincts make us tragically vulnerable to death anxiety—the desire to preserve our own existence above all else and at all costs. And as we’ve seen in Hebrews 2:14–15, Satan uses this fear to enslave us, to keep us rooted in disobedience and continually separated from God. Salvation, in this view, becomes about breaking this cycle—the tragic feedback loop of the human c...

preservation, our survival instincts make us tragically vulnerable to death anxiety—the desire to preserve our own existence above all else and at all costs. And as we’ve seen in Hebrews 2:14–15, Satan uses this fear to enslave us, to keep us rooted in disobedience and continually separated from God. Salvation, in this view, becomes about breaking this cycle—the tragic feedback loop of the human condition—in which sin produces death and death makes us vulnerable to sin. Theologian S. Mark Heim summarizes the Orthodox view; removed from Eden, we are unourished by the divine energy, [and] our existence fades into subjection to corruption and death. In such a state, our mortality becomes a source of anxiety. Futile attempts to defend ourselves from it lead us into active sin and estrange us from trust in God. Now sinfulness is more a result of mortality than mortality from sinfulness. To say ...

unourished by the divine energy, [and] our existence fades into subjection to corruption and death. In such a state, our mortality becomes a source of anxiety. Futile attempts to defend ourselves from it lead us into active sin and estrange us from trust in God. Now sinfulness is more a result of mortality than mortality from sinfulness. To say that humans are “conceived in sin” does not mean that some guilt or evil inclination is passed on to them in the...

In Paul’s epistles our animal vulnerability to sin is captured by the Greek

Paul’s epistles our animal vulnerability to sin is captured by the Greek word sarx, often translated as “flesh.” Unfortunately, Paul’s use of the term sarx in a dizzying array of contexts has led to a great deal of confusion. Sarx is a key term in Paul’s anthropology—it occurs ninety-one times in his letters and twenty-six times in Romans. While sarx is generally translated as “flesh,” it is also interpreted as “human limitation,” “natural limitation,” “weakness of the flesh,” “the weakness of our natural selves,” “the weakness of our human nature,” “the weakness of our sinful nature,” “sinful nature,” “fleshly desires,” and “sinful flesh.” Consequently, it is hard for readers of English translations

word sarx, often translated as “flesh.” Unfortunately, Paul’s use of the term sarx in a dizzying array of contexts has led to a great deal of confusion. Sarx is a key term in Paul’s anthropology—it occurs ninety-one times in his letters and twenty-six times in Romans. While sarx is generally translated as “flesh,” it is also interpreted as “human limitation,” “natural limitation,” “weakness of the flesh,” “the weakness of our natural selves,” “the weakness of our human nature,” “the weakness of our s...

to

know exactly when and where Paul uses the word sarx. This situation is further complicated by the fact that Paul doesn’t seem to use sarx in a consistent fashion. Attempting to clarify the issue, James Dunn offers a helpful analysis that shows how Paul’s use of sarx reflects a continuum of meanings. At one end, there are verses in which sarx seems to have a benign and neutral meaning, a simple straightforward reference to our physical bodies. Consider Romans 11:14: “in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people [sarx] to envy and save some of them.” Here Paul refers to his own “flesh,” his biological relationship with the Jewish people. In this instance, nothing hints at the notion of “sinful nature.” Sarx is simply pointing to bodies, to flesh. Moving away from this neutral meaning, there are passages in which Paul suggests that sarx involves limitation, but a limitation without any moral or sinful connotation—for example, Romans 6:19: “I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves [sarx].” Here Paul suggests that sarx involves a natural limitation, but this “weakness” isn’t moral. Rather, it is a cognitive and intellectual limitation, one that mak...

know exactly when and where Paul uses the word sarx. This situation is further complicated by the fact that Paul doesn’t seem to use sarx in a consistent fashion. Attempting to clarify the issue, James Dunn offers a helpful analysis that shows how Paul’s use of sarx reflects a continuum of meanings. At one end, there are verses in which sarx seems to have a benign and neutral meaning, a simple straightforward reference to our physical bodies. Consider Romans 11:14: “in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people [sarx] to envy and save some of them.” Here Paul refers to his own “flesh,” his biological relationship with the Jewish people. In this instance, nothing hints at the notion of “sinful nature.” Sarx is simply pointing to bodies, to flesh. Moving away from this neutral meaning, there are passages in which Paul suggests that sarx involves limitation, but a limitation without any moral or sinful connotation—for example, Romans 6:19: “I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves [sarx].” Here Paul suggests that sarx involves a natural limitation, but this “weakness” isn’t moral. Rather, it is a cognitive and intellectual limitation, one that mak...

cases, sarx creates hostility and rebellion toward God. What can account for these disparate meanings? What did sarx—flesh—mean for Paul? According to Dunn, 1 Corinthians 15:35–50 offers a theological clue. In his discussion of the resurrection Paul plainly communicates that our resurrected state will be bodily in nature (Paul’s word for body in this passage is soma). Paul is clear that the heavenly existence will have soma, embodiment. Each “natural body [soma]” will change into a “spiritual body [soma].” While soma/body will be carried forward in the resurrection, sarx will be left behind. As Paul explains in verse 50, “flesh [sarx] and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” Sarx is here linked with the notion of perishability, the fact that our flesh is corruptible and subject to decay and death. We are mortal. We don’t escape our bodies (soma) at the resurrection. Rather, our bodies shed sarx—their vulnerability to death—as the “mortal takes on immortality.” According to Dunn, the association between sarx and mortality is what gives sarx a consistent and coherent meaning in Paul’s writings. Dunn writes, [Sarx denotes] what...

interpret sarx as a depraved and congenital “sin nature,” the Orthodox see sarx as mortality—our corruptibility and perishability in the face of death. And it’s this vulnerability, Paul explains, that makes us susceptible to sin. The idea here is that we are less wicked than we are weak. As sarx—as mortal animals—we are playthings of the devil, who uses the fear of death to push and pull our survival instincts (our fleshly, sarx-driven passions) to keep us as “slaves to sin.” This explains why Paul, after discussing his struggles with sin at length in Romans 7, goes on to petition, “Who will rescue me from this body tha...

have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.

The formulation here closely follows Hobbes. Why is there violence in the world? Because of a desire motivated by want, lack, and scarcity—whether it be real, potential, or simply perceived scarcity. “You desire but do not have, so you kill.” That’s a neat, tidy, and very Hobbesian formulation. And while this convergence shouldn’t be determinative, such connections between theology and the social sciences are of interest for those who want to foster cross-disciplinary conversation.5

Our predicament, then, is corruptibility and how our mortal natures make us vulnerable to Satan and moral disobedience. Unpacking the dynamics

this problem, Romanides offers a formulation—at times almost Darwinian in tone—that is very similar to the Hobbesian picture described above. Note also how the fear of death functions as “the power of the devil” that leads us into violent and selfish practices: Through the power of death and the devil, sin that reigns in men gives rise to fear and anxiety and to the general instinct of self-preservation or survival. Thus, Satan manipulates man’s fear and his desire for self-satisfaction, raising up sin in him. . . . Because of death, man must first attend to the necessities of life in order to stay alive. In this struggle, self-interests are unavoidable. Thus, man is unable to live in accordance with his original destiny of unselfish love. This state of subjection under the reign of death is the root of man’s weakness in which he becomes entangled in sin at the urging of the demons and by his own consent. Resting in the hands of the devil, the power of the fear of death is the root from which self-aggrandizement,

egotism, hatred, envy, and other similar passions spring up. In addition to the fact that man “subjects himself to anything in order to avoid dying,” he constantly fears that his life is without meaning. Thus, he strives to demonstrate to himself and to other...

This passage is a concise summary of the entire argument to this point. As mortal creatures the selfish pursuit of survival and self-preservation becomes our highest good, and these survival fears lead us into all sorts of sinful practices. Almost every unwholesome pursuit of humanity—from hedonism to self-aggrandizement to acquisitiveness to rivalry to violence—can be traced back to these basic survival fears. The fear of death creates the experience of the satanic in our lives. In all this we again note the close and intimate association between sin, death, and the devil. But the links here are not mysterious, mystical, mythical, or metaphysical. The psychology at work here is clear, simple, and widely attested to. In my opinion this is a remarkable convergence between theology and the social sciences, a bridge we hope to exploit to the fullest in Part 2. Also worth noting is how this seemingly modern and even scientific view reflects, according to the Orthodox, the earliest teachings of the church. For example, Romanides shares a sermon from the patristic father John Chrysostom: He who fears death is a slave and subjects himself to everything in order to avoid dying. . . . [But] he who does not fear death is outside the tyranny of the devil. For indeed “man would give skin for skin, and all things for [the sake of] his life,” [Job 2:4] and if a man should decide to disregard this, whose slave is he then? He fears no one, is in terror of no one, is higher than everyone, ...

his works. Tell me, though, what can he threaten? The loss of money or honor? Or exile from one’s country? For these are small things to him “who counteth not even his life dear,” says blessed Paul [Acts 20:24]. Do you see that in casting out the tyranny of death, He has dissolved the strength of the devil?

tyranny of the devil. The reason he gives is clear: the fear of death gives the devil moral traction. When we face the threat of loss, want, or lack, we react defensively, even violently. But if the fear of death is absent the devil is stymied. As Chrysostom says, when the devil finds such a soul he can accomplish none of his works in such a person. The devil can find no foothold, no purchase, no leverage in the psyche of one who has no anxiety. The result is clear: “Do you see that in casting out the tyranny of death, [Christ] has dissolved the strength of the devil?”

Let me make a comment for those interested in the work of René Girard and who

might want to connect Girard’s notions of mimetic rivalry with the Hobbesian formulation given here. According to Girard, violence is produced by imitation and desire. Given that humans imitate each other, we often find ourselves desiring the same things. This leads to rivalry, competition, and, eventually, violence. Girard often describes mimetic rivalry as a process of triangulation, with two people desiring (through the imitation of the other) the same object. What I’d like to point out about this is how Girard’s model of triangulation is working with a Hobbesian assumption of scarcity—there is only one object of desire for two people. If there

were two objects—if there was “enough” or a surplus—there would be no competition or rivalry. At the very least, rivalry should attenuate. This is not necessarily to disagree with Girard’s theory, simply the suggestion that his model of rivalry, violence, and scapegoating can complement the Hobbesain formulation given h...

he following story is one you are likely familiar with. Let me tell it in a way that might be less familiar to many Christians. To begin: prompted by his envy, Satan is successful in bringing death into the world (Wis 2:24) by deceiving humanity in the Garden (Gen 3; John 8:44; 2 Cor 11:3). Now wielding death, Satan holds humanity in bondage due to our fear of death (Heb 2:14–15). Under this bondage Satan continues to deceive (2 Cor 4:4), tempt us into sin (2 Cor 11:3), cause spiritual and physical afflictions (Luke 13:15–17; Matt 9:32–37; Mark 5:1–20), thwart the gospel (Matt 13:19), and promote violence (John 8:44). Due to Satan’s power, humans are vulnerable and in need of protection (Matt 6:13) since our “enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Pet 5:8).

set humanity free from this bondage, with all of its moral, social,

ecological, psychological, spiritual, and physical afflictions, Christ is born into our world. He comes to “share in [our] humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil” (Heb 2:14–15). For “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” (1 John 3:8). Suspecting something about the child of Mary and Joseph, Satan tries to kill Jesus as an infant (Matt 2:13–18; Rev 12:4) but, due to divine intervention, the child escapes. Later, after God publicly identifies Jesus as the Messiah (Matt 3:13–17), Satan immediat...

attack again. For the next three years, Satan and Jesus confront each other in the lives of suffering people as “Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil” (Acts 10:38). By binding Satan on earth Jesus shows that the Kingdom of God has been inaugurated (Matt 12:22–28). Jesus “drives out the prince of this world” (John 12:28–32), setting free those who were held in bondage to Satan (Luke 13:15–17). The Kingdom continually expands, and Jesus’ followers report their own power over Satan; thus the victory seems to be in hand as Jesus sees Satan “falling like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:17–18). On the brink of defeat Satan makes his move, entering the heart of Judas to betray Jesus (Luke 22:2–4; John 13:2, 27; John 14:30). Fully aware that this is happening, Jesus goes to Gethsemane to pray and to wait for Judas. In accordance with God’s plan, there Jesus is handed over and eventually crucified (Acts 2:23–24). “But God raised this Jesus from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him” (Acts 2:25). Being raised from the dead, Jesus “disarmed the powers and authorities and made ...

Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. “He will wipe every tear from th...

crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am maki...

As should be obvious in my telling of the gospel story, I’ve tried to emphasize the conflict between Christ and Satan, particularly in the way Satan comes to control the power of death and how Christ eventually comes to take this power away. In telling the story in this manner I’m attempting to illuminate a thread in the gospel narrative that suggests that salvation might involve something more than the forgiveness of sins. That is, there is nothing in the biblically driven account above that speaks to the necessity of a blood sacrifice to make atonement in order to appease a holy and wrathful God. In the telling above, salvation is about rescue and emancipation, Jesus setting humanity free from the dark powers of death and the devil. And though this emphasis might seem strange to many Protestants, this story is very biblical, as I tried to highlight. In short, while atonement and the forgiveness of sins are a part of the gospel story, the Bible also comments extensively about the role of death as the “power of the devil” in our lives, which are facets of salvation that we tend to overlook.

Gustaf Aulén has done much to recover this understanding of the early church: [Christus Victor’s] central theme is the idea of the Atonement as a Divine conflict and victory; Christ—Christus Victor—fights against and triumphs over the evil powers of the world, the “tyrants” under which mankind is in bondage and suffering, and in Him God reconciles the world to Himself.9

The work of Christ is first and foremost a victory over the powers which hold mankind in bondage: sin, death, and the devil. These may be said to be in a measure personified, but in any case they are objective powers; and the victory of Christ creates a new situation, bringing their rule to an end, and setting men free from their dominion.

Simply Jesus, N. T. Wright gives a rich biblical account of how Jesus understood his mission and shares an insightful observation: Wherever we look, it appears that Jesus was aware of a great battle in which he was already involved and that would, before too long, reach some kind of climax. This was not, it seems, the battle that his contemporaries, including his own followers, expected him to fight. It wasn’t even the same sort of battle—though Jesus used the language of battle to describe it. Indeed, as the Sermon on the Mount seems to

indicate, fighting itself, in the normal physical sense, was precisely what he was not going to do. There was a different kind of battle in the offing, a battle that had already begun. In this battle, it was by no means as clear as those around Jesus would have liked as to who was on which side, or indeed whether “sides” was the right way to look at things. The battle in question was a different sort of thing, because it had a different sort of enemy. . . . The battle Jesus was fighting was against the satan.

Our specific focus will be the emancipation discussed in Hebrews 2:14–15: being set free from our slavery to the fear of death. As noted in chapter 1, if the satanic forces in our lives spring forth from the fear of death, then emancipation from this fear will move us from darkness to light, into a life characterized by a perfect love that has cast out fear. That said, all this talk about the devil may be worrisome. For many of us, discussions of the devil conjure up scenes from The Exorcist, Paranormal Activity, or some other demon-haunted film from Hollywood.

Specifically, why would an omnipotent God need to do battle

Satan to liberate a captive humanity? There is something about this vision of

a cosmic conflict between Christ and the devil that suggests that Satan is God’s equal. This...

First, our focus in this book is narrow and concentrates on how death anxiety causes us to behave in selfish and violent ways.

Again, N. T. Wright is helpful on this score, describing how modern, scientific skeptics typically respond to mentions of the devil: Many modern writers, understandably, have tried to marginalize this theme [of Christ’s conflict and victory over the satan], but we can’t expect to push aside such a central part of the tradition and make serious progress. It is, of course, difficult for most people in the modern Western world to know what to make of it all; that’s one of the points on which the strong wind of modern skepticism has done its work well, and the shrill retort from “traditionalists,” insisting on seeing everything in

terms of “supernatural” issues, hardly helps either. As C. S. Lewis points out in the introduction to his famous Screwtape Letters, the modern world divides into those who are obsessed with demonic powers and those who mock them as outdated rubbish. Neither approach, Lewis insists, does justice to reality. I’m with Lewis on this. Despite the caricatures, the obsession, and the sheer muddle that people often get themselves into on this subject, there is such a thing as a dark force that seems to take over people, movements, and sometimes whole countries, a force or (as it sometimes seems) a set of forces that can make people do things they would never normally do.13

Wright goes on to note how these forces are still recognizably at work in the world today, still exerting an influence on human moral affairs, despite our quibbles about the language: You might have thought the history of the twentieth century would provide plenty of examples of this [i.e., a dark force taking over people, movements and countries], but many still choose to resist the conclusion—despite the increasing use in public life of the language of “force” (economic “forces,” political “forces,” peer “pressure,” and so on).14 Still, is calling these forces “demonic” or “satanic” a bit too florid and unnecessary? Wright thinks not, and argues that the language of the demonic can do important moral work for us: Without the perspective that sees evil as a dark force that stands behind human reality, the issue of “good” and “bad” in our world is easy to decipher. It is fatally easy, and I mean fatally easy, to typecast “people like us” as basically good and “pe...

lot” into demons; we “demonize” our opponents. This is a convenient tool for avoiding to have to think, but it is disastrous for both our thinking and our behavior. But when you take seriously the existence and malevolence of non-human forces that are capable of using “us” as well as “them” in the service of evil, the focus shifts. As the hazy and shadowy realities come into view, what we thought was clear and straightforward becomes blurred. Life becomes more complex, but arguably more realistic. The traditional lines of friend and foe are not so easy to draw. You can no longer assume that “that lot” are simply agents of the devil and “this lot”—us and our friends—are automatically on God’s side. If there is an enemy at work, it is a subtle, cunning enemy, much too clever to allow itself to be identified simply with one person, one group, or one nation. Only twice in the gospel story does Jesus address “the satan” directly by that title: once when rebuking him in the temptation narrative (Matt. 4:10), and again when he is rebuking hi...

The biblical language regarding “the principalities and powers” helps us see morality as a Gestalt that is distributed throughout the entire web of human existence. In short, such perspectives clarify that in our moral struggles we should focus less on our conflicts with “flesh and blood” and more on our battle with the suprahuman forces that exert influence on human moral affairs. This allows us to take our cue from Paul: For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Eph 6:12 KJV) For our purposes

in this book, the language of the “principalities and powers” will be

used to describe how our slavery to the fear of death comes to manifest itself neurotically and in more repressed guises. We’ll come to see, particularly in chapter 4, how in our quest for meaning and significance in the face of death we idolatrously come to serve, and are thus enslaved by, the principalities and powers—those institutions, vocations, ideologies, or lifeways that hold out the promise of durability and...

another manifestation of our slavery to the...

the Orthodox theologian John Romanides notes, there is a distinction “between those who live according to Satan and death and those who struggle in Christ to attain to unselfish love that is free of self-interest and necessity.”