From the Slavery of Sin to the Total Consecration to Jesus Christ

The Slave . . .

If Paul’s calling as an ‘apostle of Christ’ was ever questioned, and so the value of his word, he was quick to defend himself. He was also aware of his status as a descendant of Abraham and minister of Christ (2 Cor. 2:22). The Acts of the Apostles shows him, too, sensitive to his Roman citizenship. It is all the more strange then when writing two letters free from and external pressure, the word he finds best to describe himself is, ‘slave of Christ Jesus,’ as in the opening of his formal letter to the Romans. He had not yet been with them in Rome, but that is how he first introduces himself. (Rom. 1:1).

In prison, writing a letter of thanks to his people in Philippi, he begins simply (and startlingly); “Paul and Timothy, slaves of Christ Jesus”. (Phil. 1:1). He knew exactly what the word slave meant, and wrote a superb letter to protect one from his master Philemon. The slave takes his identity from his owner. He has no rights.

. . . of God

Once, when Paul was cut by what he felt to be unfair criticism, he responded. “if I were still trying to be pleasing to men I would not be a slave of Christ at all”. (Gal. 1:10). Clearly, this word spoke for him when it expresses his basic identity so immediately, whether on formal occasions, or when he is particularly happy, or under pressure.

In using such a word in a climate that knew its meaning, Paul, a sensitive man with a real command of language, speaks the language of total self-giving. Whether living o dying, “we are the Lord’s”. (Rom. 14:8). Even in the face of a grave with its fear and apparent annihilation, “we are Christ’s”. (1 Cor. 15:23). To see himself as a ’slave of Christ Jesus,’ is to speak of utter commitment. He has no identity apart from Christ. This is total self-giving from one who has been wholly ‹captured by Christ.

This so colors Paul’s outlook that he sees all Christians in this light.

He begins and ends his letter to the Romans saying that he has been called to urge everyone to “the obedience of faith”. (Rom. 1:6, 16:26). This acceptance of Christ means breaking with the slavery established by sin for the “free gift,” (Rom. 5:15) of an unbroken relationship with God. “Thank God! that though you were once slaves of sin, you became obedient from your hearts … and since you have been freed from sin, you have become the slaves of right-doing”.  (Rom. 6:17-18). We take our identity from whom we belong to or give ourselves to. Sin pays death for wages, whereas ‘heart-felt obedience’ to God in Christ implies and effects freedom from so much that is negative, and guarantees eternal life.

We Take Our Identity from . . .

Paul expects to be understood since, “I am speaking in familiar human terms … since you have been freed from sin and have become slaves of God”.  (Rom. 6:19,22). This is plain speaking. ‘Slaves of God’ can only mean being willingly bound hand and foot to the compelling love of God in Christ as a result of ‘heart-felt obedience’. To the extent that this vision is personally assimilated, the heart of reality is to belong completely to God in Christ. Such status (or absence of it, if viewed without faith and commitment), is received as a gift and a privilege, and life is a response. This is Christian identity, though to so many who do not share what we see, “we have become a spectacle to the universe, to angels as well as men. For Christ’s sake we are held as fools … the scum of the universe”. (I Cor. 4:10,13).

It may be felt that obedience and slavery, hard to take in Paul’s day when the ugly reality was so unmistakably plain, are even more unfortunate today in commending the Gospel.

But to whom do we listen? This is a genuine lover of God speaking. If we are afraid of the language of commitment, how heartfelt is our grasp of the reality? It may be that we are enslaved to the cult of the contemporary, offering to a God reflecting ourselves, a personality largely created from what others think.

.. . Whom We Belong to or Give Ourselves To

Freedom from the contemporary is very elusive. In an often un-Christian environment with a possibly disproportionate emphasis on self, we may be deceived into thinking that freedom lies in keeping all the reins in our hands, and not going out to others, especially to Our Lord. If we really wanted God’s will we would be detached even from the vocabulary of commitment, as long as we were possessed by the reality. We are Christ’s, says Paul, wholly his, taking our identity from him. ‘Slave’ says just that, ‘because Christ Jesus has made me his own’. (Phil. 3:12).

Wanting . . .

This is the heartfelt obedience of the engaged, to one who is wholly theirs, Lord and God. Far from limiting or demeaning, it is the instinctive expression of the marrow of his commitment to Christ, from one who is magically aware that, “you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back again into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ . . . we are children of God”. (Rom. 8:15-16). Any metaphor is open to abuse, which is not to say that no one can use it. One wonders at the light which brought Paul to the edge of language, attempting to express how he felt from his entire center in Christ. In so far as we glimpse what Paul saw, will we understand why Paul used such language of himself and his people.

It just may be that the word and the reality it carried, lodged so deeply in Paul, because of his understanding of the mind of Christ. Once, writing from prison to encourage his people to love and self-sacrifice, with no pretensions to status in anything but Christ, he urges them, if their feelings for him and their union with their Lord means anything, to have the mind and outlook of Christ himself.

. . . God’s Will

“Though in the form of God … he laid it aside as he took on the nature of a slave . . . so as to die, even to die on a cross”. (Phil. 2:6-8). Again Paul is struggling to try and express Christ’s total self-giving to his Father’s will and to us, and finds ‘slave’ best to express it. If, as some suggest, he is here using a very early Christian hymn, it says even more of the Christian understanding of commitment and its cost.

Emphasizing, as Paul does, ‘death on a cross,’ he evokes the degrading end of someone without rights or identity. To such lengths did Christ go to identify with us, and be at one with his Father’s will. Over-whelmed by that vision, Paul knows he can do no other but to make that reality his own. Obviously, he thinks it will do as much for his people. The vocabulary follows, therefore, from what he knew to be true of his Lord, himself and his people.