Ellul on God and human freedom

God does not mechanize man. He gives him free play. He includes issues of every possible kind. Man is at the time independent. We cannot say free. Scripture everywhere reminds us that man’s independence in relation to God is in the strict sense bondage as regards sin. This man is not free. He is under the burden of his body and his passions, the conditioning of society, culture, and function. He obeys its judgments and setting. He is controlled by its situation and psychology. Man is certainly not free in any degree. He is the slave of everything save God. God does not control or constrain him. God lets him remain independent in these conditions.

- Jacques Ellul, The Politics of God and the Politics of Man
(trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; Eerdmans, 1972 [1966]), 16.

I wonder how Ellul understands Paul's discussion of being "slaves to righteousness" in Romans 6. Immediately after using the phrase, Paul does mention that he considers it imprecise. So Ellul is certainly onto something important here in how God exercises his authority. Being a slave to sin is a very different kind of service to being a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose service is perfect freedom.