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By Hellen J. Kuleskey
The dictionary defines the word slave as: 1) a bond servant divested of all freedom and personal rights; a human being who is owned by and wholly subject to the will of another, as by capture, purchase or birth. 2) one who has lost the power of resistance, or one who surrenders himself to any power whatever: as a slave to passion, lust, ambition, etc.
The word slave generally causes us to react negatively because it reminds us of what we have read or heard about the ill treatment of slaves. Slavery existed as a part of the social structure from earliest times and seems to have been universal (worldwide).
We have only to turn to the Scriptures to get many personal and detailed accounts of slavery. Who has not read of the 400-year enslavement of the descendents of Jacob in Egypt and been awed by the account of their exodus by the hand of Moses? The ancient Hebrews also used slaves, but were required by religious law to free slaves of their own race at certain fixed times—during the year of Jubilee (the 50th year).
In the New Testament we encounter slavery in the Roman Empire. Christianity did not eliminate the practice of slavery, but tended to improve the slaves’ conditions. The Apostle Paul’s epistles address the master-slave relationship, reminding the believers that whether slave or master, they are all sons of God and there must be fair dealings. Paul’s epistle to Philemon sent by Onesimus, his run-away slave, whom Paul led to the Lord, is a wonderful example of how the gospel cuts across social barriers. Paul calls a slave “one of you”—a believer.
Let us look at the word “slavery” from a spiritual standpoint. We are all born slaves to sin. It isn’t something we chose to do; we bear the result of the sin of Adam and Eve against the God who created them. Paul writing to the Romans (who knew all about slavery) said, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (6:23).
Those of us, who through the new birth, have chosen eternal life must continually count ourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus (Rom. 6:11). We do not need to serve sin any longer! We have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness (Rom 6:18). We are free from sin! We have been redeemed!
The dictionary defines the word redeem as: to buy back; to recover as by paying a fee; to rescue, ransom or liberate from captivity or bondage; to deliver; to rescue.
The word redeem brings to mind the illustration in a book on the life of famed missionary-explorer, Dr. David Livingstone. It shows a godly man, who was horrified by the slave-trade, encountering a slave trader with his possession. Livingstone, in righteous indignation, pays the slave’s ransom and sets the suffering man free.
That story is a feeble illustration of our redemption by Christ. On the cruel cross of Calvary, Jesus suffered, bled and died to atone (pay for) for our sins and purchase our total redemption—spirit, soul and body! He tells us over and over in His Word that we are FREE and no longer slaves to sin. We now have the capacity to be slaves to righteousness—to right living, right thinking, right actions—because our spirits are empowered by God’s Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ did not ransom us and demand that we be His slaves. Becoming His love slave is a matter of our choosing. God will never violate our free wills. We choose to be bond slaves of Jesus Christ, as Paul called himself.
We read of the Old Testament laws governing Hebrew servants in Exodus 21:1-11. If you bought a Hebrew servant, he was to serve you for six years, but in the seventh year he was to go free without paying anything. But if the servant declared, “I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,” then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life (vs 5-6).
Today, ear piercing does not indicate voluntary lifelong servanthood. Our heart attitudes, which work out into our daily lifestyles, indicate whether we love our Master enough to be His servants for life. Only when we meditate on what our redemption cost the holy Son of God will we desire to be His servants forever. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you what it meant to Christ to strip Himself of His glory to come in the guise of a servant (slave), and the total victory He accomplished over the devil, sin and death on the cross at Calvary. When you get God’s revelation of the cost of our redemption, you will gladly declare boldly whose servant you are.
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