John 8:34

8:34 Jesus answered them, “I tell you the solemn truth, ¹  everyone who practices ²  sin is a slave ³  of sin.

Romans 6:12-14

6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, 6:13 and do not present your members to sin as instruments ⁴  to be used for unrighteousness, ⁵  but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your members to God as instruments ⁶  to be used for righteousness. 6:14 For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under law but under grace.

Romans 6:16-22

6:16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves ⁷  as obedient slaves, ⁸  you are slaves of the one you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or obedience resulting in righteousness? ⁹  6:17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves to sin, you obeyed ¹⁰  from the heart that pattern ¹¹  of teaching you were entrusted to, 6:18 and having been freed from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness. 6:19 (I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh.) ¹²  For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification. 6:20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness.

6:21 So what benefit ¹³  did you then reap ¹⁴  from those things that you are now ashamed of? For the end of those things is death. 6:22 But now, freed ¹⁵  from sin and enslaved to God, you have your benefit ¹⁶  leading to sanctification, and the end is eternal life.

Titus 3:3

3:3 For we too were once foolish, disobedient, misled, enslaved to various passions and desires, spending our lives in evil and envy, hateful and hating one another.

¹ tn Grk “Truly, truly, I say to you.”

² tn Or “who commits.” This could simply be translated, “everyone who sins,” but the Greek is more emphatic, using the participle ποιῶν (poiwn) in a construction with πᾶς (pas), a typical Johannine construction. Here repeated, continuous action is in view. The one whose lifestyle is characterized by repeated, continuous sin is a slave to sin. That one is not free; sin has enslaved him. To break free from this bondage requires outside (divine) intervention. Although the statement is true at the general level (the person who continually practices a lifestyle of sin is enslaved to sin) the particular sin of the Jewish authorities, repeatedly emphasized in the Fourth Gospel, is the sin of unbelief. The present tense in this instance looks at the continuing refusal on the part of the Jewish leaders to acknowledge who Jesus is, in spite of mounting evidence.

³ tn See the note on the word “slaves” in 4:51.

⁴ tn Or “weapons, tools.”

⁵ tn Or “wickedness, injustice.”

⁶ tn Or “weapons, tools.”

⁷ tn Grk “to whom you present yourselves.”

⁸ tn Grk “as slaves for obedience.” See the note on the word “slave” in 1:1.

⁹ tn Grk “either of sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness.”

¹⁰ tn Grk “you were slaves of sin but you obeyed.”

¹¹ tn Or “type, form.”

¹² tn Or “because of your natural limitations” (NRSV).

¹³ tn Grk “fruit.”

¹⁴ tn Grk “have,” in a tense emphasizing their customary condition in the past.

¹⁵ tn The two aorist participles translated “freed” and “enslaved” are causal in force; their full force is something like “But now, since you have become freed from sin and since you have become enslaved to God….”

¹⁶ tn Grk “fruit.”