God Could Receive Us as Slaves, but He Treats Us as Children

In this meditation I want to bring our long journey through this parable of the Lord Jesus Christ about the unprofitable servant to a close: we should see ourselves in the same way and have that attitude of total surrender, while also recognizing that God has chosen, in His mercy, to treat us as children and as members of His Kingdom.

And what I want to invite you to do, what I want my brothers and sisters who listen to me and watch me to do, is to hold on to that twofold picture, you know, of our true condition. On the one hand, God could demand absolutely anything He wanted from us and could treat us with utter indifference and with complete, shall we say, arbitrariness if He wanted to, and we must be willing for that to be so. But thanks be to the Lord, God treats us with the utmost generosity, love, and favor. That should shape the way we approach the Throne of God: our prayers should be bold and daring, we should aspire to receive good things from the Lord, and we have a bright future before this God who loves us. Yet we must never presume to be anything other than what we are, and often God treats us with such consideration that it is truly astonishing.

The last thing I want to leave with you is an illustration of this duality that I see recorded in Paul’s Epistle to Philemon. Paul’s Epistle to Philemon is an epistle of just one chapter, twenty-five verses; that is all—a tiny jewel, but one with a very great lesson. In it the apostle Paul writes to this man named Philemon so that he will forgive a slave who had run away from him. Paul was now sending this slave, whose name was Onesimus, back to him so that Philemon would forgive him and receive him as a friend, as a member of his family, instead of treating him as a runaway slave was treated.

Paul had asked Onesimus to go back to the place he had run away from, now that he was a Christian, but he also writes to Philemon so that he will treat him with the consideration and mercy he owes him as a Christian. Paul is writing to a Christian.

But notice how Paul addresses Philemon when asking him for something that was actually a little demanding, wasn’t it? Because I imagine Philemon was upset with Onesimus and, according to the customs of his time, would have treated him harshly and perhaps even had him flogged, or worse. Notice the delicacy with which Paul writes to Philemon.

And he says: “Therefore”—this is in verse 8 of the Epistle—“Therefore, although I have great freedom in Christ to command you to do what is fitting, I would rather appeal to you for love’s sake, being as I am Paul, now an old man and now a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I begot while in prison, who at one time was useless to you, but now is useful to both you and me. So receive him as you would receive me. I would have liked to keep him with me so that he might serve me in your place during my imprisonment for the Gospel, but I do not want to do anything without your consent, so that your favor might not be given out of necessity, but voluntarily; for perhaps he was separated from you for a time for this very reason, that you might receive him forever, no longer as a slave, but as more than a slave, as a beloved brother, especially to me, but all the more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.”

I invite my listeners and viewers to read that passage for themselves and see here this duality in the apostle Paul. On the one hand, Paul says to Philemon: Remember that you came to know Christ through me. I am your mentor, I am your spiritual father, and as your spiritual father I would have the right to ask you for anything I wanted, or rather to order you to receive Onesimus as your brother. But I do not want to do that; I want to ask you as a favor. I want to ask it of you as a consideration I would like you to show me, your spiritual father.

Isn’t that how God deals with us many times, how He treats us? God could make demands of us: He has given us everything, He has done everything for us, and we have no right to say no to Him about anything. But many times God treats us with such mercy. He asks us to serve Him; He does not force us to do the things He wants us to do. He speaks to us through His Spirit and treats us with such gentleness, even though He could turn us into robots, into automatons that did whatever He wanted us to do. God is gentle, just as Paul is gentle with Philemon.

And not only that, but he invites Philemon to receive Onesimus not as a slave, he says, but as more than a slave, as a brother in the faith, just as God has received us. God could receive us as slaves, but He treats us as friends, as brothers and sisters, as children, as members of His family.

So here we see that twofold aspect that we also saw in the parable of the unprofitable servant. God does not treat us as slaves, although He certainly could; instead, He treats us as members of His family. We must keep in mind those two dimensions of our identity as servants of Jesus Christ, but also as friends of the Lord Jesus Christ.

May this parable continue to teach you, instruct you, and enrich your walk in the faith. I say goodbye to you in the Name of Jesus, until our next meditation.