“Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” (Matthew 12:31-32). “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter…” (Mark 3:28). “And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven…” (Luke 12:10).
Quick answer: Every sin, all sins (speaking against the Holy Spirit is discussed in another blog) will be forgiven, and that will include the sin of kidnapping and slavery.
But first, this blog is prresented in reply to the March 30, 2026 comment in my blog entitled Does the concept of eternal punishment in hell cause some people to become atheists?https://thefallacyofhell.com/2026/03/08/does-the-concept-of-eternal-punishment-in-hell-cause-some-people-to-become-atheists/
The comment raises valid concerns which need to be addressed, and I am thankful of the commenter for presenting his points. Therefore, I will first discuss “will they be in heaven” and if so, what are at least some of the conditions Jesus will probably have for them.
Slave-Owning Christians – “Will They Be In Heaven?”
We know from many passages in Scripture such as 1 Timothy 4:10, Revelation 5:13, Philippians 2:9-11 (where Paul quotes Isaiah 45:23), and Romans 5:18-19, to mention a few, that the answer is affirmative. But, we also know that a God of Justice would not simply wave a magic wand over the unrepentant sinner and say “welcome in good buddy.” No. He will meet the justice needs of the offended person(s) while transforming the offender(s). I am sure there are several conditions like restitution. In addition, here is a biggie: Jesus will require genuine asking forgiveness of the former slaves and He will require genuine giving of forgiveness by the former slave to the former enslaver. How do we know this?
John 20:23 “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
You will notice there is no time limit on this statement, showing Jesus leaves it in place for occurring “on the other side” after physical death of all and after the Great White Throne Judgment and the Lake of Fire where He, our God Who is a consuming fire, will smelt and burn away the evil “dross” from His ultra valuable creation – all of His creation. The Revelation 22 gates of the new Jerusalem remain open and the invitation goes out – Come — implication, come to Jesus for His renewal of our lives and enter into the holy city.
Next, Were Some Christians of the past Slave Owners?
Yes, in the past slavery has been a problem for Christians. The Church of England owned slaves until Great Britain finally outlawed slavery on August 1, 1834, after the slave trade itself had been abolished earlier in 1807. And this is an example where slavery was ended without a civil war. The British abolition movement was mainly under the leadership of William Wilberforce (August 24, 1759 – July 29, 1833) a real Christian. There are “Christians,” and then there are Christ follower Christians.
Wilberforce’s opponents of the 1700s and early 1800s to the abolition movement relied on a small cluster of scriptural passages to justify slavery. The main ones:
- The “Curse of Ham” (Genesis 9:25–27) — Noah’s curse on Canaan was racialised claiming they were divinely destined for servitude.
- The Mosaic permission of bond-servants (Leviticus 25:44–46) — the argument that God had explicitly permitted slavery under His law.
- Paul’s household codes (Ephesians 6:5; Colossians 3:22) — “Servants, obey your earthly masters,” used to argue that the New Testament actively endorsed the institution of slavery.
- The general silence of Jesus: pro-slavery preachers pointed out that Christ never condemned slavery directly.
The Law of God Given Through Moses Argument
Wilberforce’s most sustained biblical rebuttal appears in his Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1807). He considered the appeal to the Mosaic Law the only argument from his opponents that had even the slightest color of reason, and he systematically dismantled it. He made several pointed distinctions:
- Hebrew servitude was radically different from Atlantic chattel slavery. The Jews were allowed to take bondmen from strangers and heathen around them, but these slaves were to be treated with kindness, were to remember Israel’s own suffering in Egypt, were admitted to the chief national privileges — circumcision, the Passover, and other solemn feasts — and were thus instructed in the true religion. This was a world away from the brutal, dehumanizing plantation system.
- The Jubilee law made large-scale accumulation of slaves impossible. Slaves were to be set free at the Year of Jubilee, or every fiftieth year — a command which was alone sufficient to prevent their accumulating in any great number.
- The Mosaic Law itself protected fellow Israelites from being enslaved. The Jews themselves were expressly commanded not to retain any of their own nation in slavery except as a punishment or by their own consent; and even these were to be set free on the return of the sabbatical, or seventh year.
- Christ abolished all national distinctions — and therefore the logic of the Jewish law now applies universally. This was perhaps Wilberforce’s most elegant move. We are repeatedly and expressly told that Christ has done away all distinctions of nations and made all mankind one great family; all our fellow creatures are now our brethren. Therefore the very principles and spirit of the Jewish law itself would forbid our keeping the Africans, any more than our own fellow subjects, in a state of slavery.
- Even if God’s law argument succeeded, it would only justify slavery for the Hebrews themselves. Even supposing, contrary to the fact, that our opponents had succeeded in proving that the slave trade was not contrary to the Hebrew law, this would only prove that they would be entitled to carry it on if they were Hebrews, and could, like the Hebrews, produce satisfactory proof that they were the chosen people of God.
Wilberforce Goes On The Offense
Rather than merely playing defense, Wilberforce mounted an offense from scripture. He and the broader abolitionist movement grounded their case in several key texts:
- Acts 17:26 — “God hath made of one blood all nations” — the common humanity and equal dignity of all people before God. Answers in Genesis
- Genesis 1:26 — all men were created in the image of their Creator, making any system that treated human beings as mere property a direct affront to God. Answers in Genesis
- Exodus 21:16 and 1 Timothy 1:9–10 — both passages explicitly condemn man-stealing and kidnapping, which was the very foundation of the Atlantic slave trade. Evangelical Magazine
- The golden rule — loving one’s neighbor as oneself, and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Museum of the Bible.
The Argument from National Sin
Wilberforce also made a sweeping meta-argument: that God punishes nations for their collective crimes, and that Britain’s persistence in the slave trade was inviting divine judgment. Fraud, oppression, and cruelty are crimes of the blackest dye, and guilt is aggravated in proportion as the criminal acts in defiance of clearer light and of stronger motives to virtue. He reflected this in his diary too, writing in 1818: “in Scripture, no national crime is condemned so frequently and few so strongly as oppression and cruelty, and not using our best endeavors to deliver our fellow-creatures from them.” Christianity Today
His Dismissal of the Pro-Slavery Case as Insincere
Wilberforce did not treat his opponents’ biblical reasoning with much intellectual respect. He concluded his rebuttal with some withering frankness: “Really it would be consuming your time to no purpose to enter into a formal proof that fraud, rapine, and cruelty are contrary to that religion which commands us to love our neighbor as ourselves. I cannot persuade myself that our opponents are serious in using this argument. And even if they were convinced intellectually, he doubted it would change their behavior, since they were so little under the practical influence of religion in the first place.” Christian History Institute.
His 1823 Appeal to Religion, Justice and Humanity
Later in life, his final substantial published statement on slavery appeared in 1823. The religious arguments against slavery were, if anything, even more prominent in the 1823 Appeal than in his earlier writings. By this point his argument had deepened: under slavery, Africans were not treated as persons but as animals — as “vendible chattels” rather than “free agents.” Their moral nature was disregarded; they were deprived of the goods required by a rational and immortal being, including personal independence, self-possession, and self-government. This was a fundamentally theological claim: to hold a human being as mere property was to deny the God-given moral nature with which every person was endowed.
Conclusion
In summary, Wilberforce’s biblical strategy had three prongs: demolish the law argument which God gave through Moses by showing that Hebrew servitude was both temporary and humane, and that Christ’s universal brotherhood collapsed the only distinction that had ever made it permissible; attack the trade at its root using the Bible’s own condemnation of kidnapping; and ground the entire abolitionist cause in the foundational doctrines of the image of God in every human being and the universal obligation to love one’s neighbor.
Enjoy the Wilberforce song:
Brother Roger
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