He Takes Over All My Old and Accumulated Debts

Fie Epistle to Philemon was more and more a great favourite with our Fraser. And no wonder. For in his exquisite and evangelical Epistle to Philemon Paul positively surpasses himself. In all his Epistles the apostle is the perfection of a Christian gentleman. But in this so delightful little Epistle he excels himself. The pathos, the tenderness, the refinement of feeling, the sweet Christian conrtesy of the Epistle to Philemon, all combine to place it away up at the head of all the peace-making letters that have ever been written in any age or in any language. The Epistle to Philemon is simply perfect in its taste, in its tact, in its tenderness, and in its heartsubduing and heart-winning power.

Paul the aged is a prisoner in Rome. And Onesimus is Philemon’s runaway slave. And as God would have it Onesimus in his flight has found his way to Rome in order to hide in that great city from his pursuing master Philemon. By a succession of divinely guided steps that we are not enabled to trace Onesimus was, somehow, brought into contact with Paul. And the result was that Onesimus became one of the apostle’s early Roman converts. ‘ My son Onesimus,’ Paul says, ‘ whom I have begotten in my bonds.’ But in the process of his conversion Onesimus had been led to tell Paul all about who and what he was, and how he had run away from his rightful master Philemon. To whom he would now fain return to deliver himself up if Paul would use his influence with Philemon to appease his righteous anger and to receive back into his forgiveness his runaway slave. But then all this time Philemon himself was one of Paul’s spiritual sons. And not only so, but he was one of Paul’s dearest and most intimate friends in all those apostolic churches. And hence the rare contents and the rare character of this peace¬ making Epistle that Onesimus took back with him to Colosse. Every line of it is a shining seal set to the reality of Onesimus’s repentance and conversion; even as every line of it is a still more shining seal set to Philemon’s fine Christian character. All the three men concerned are at their very best in this shining little letter: Philemon, the injured master, and Onesimus, the injurious slave, and, above all, the peace-making apostle himself. ‘Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, unto Philemon my dearly beloved brother. Grace to thee, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds. Who, in time past, was to thee unprofitable, but is now profitable both to thee and to me. Whom I have sent to thee again. For, perhaps, he departed from thee for a season, that thou shouldst receive him back for ever. But not any more as a slave; but, above a slave, a brother beloved. If thou count me, therefore, a partner with thee, as thou art with me, receive him as myself. And if he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account, I, Paul, have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it. Albeit, I do not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own soul besides,’ The whole of the Epistle to Philemon is intellectually, and emotionally, and spiritually, and skilfully a perfect piece.

Now, what if in all this ‘ earth be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein, each to other like, more than on earth is thought ’ What if Paul’s Epistle to Philemon is but an early incident in, and an abiding illustration of, a great Gospel Dispensation that is going forward among ourselves to this day? Yes, most certainly, so it is. For while the Epistle to Philemon is a piece of real and actual apostolic history, it is at the same time a perfect picture and an impressive parable of what is going on every day before God and among ourselves. For we are all every day wronging and injuring and impoverishing one another. While God is taking upon Himself, and upon His Son Jesus Christ, all our wrongs and all our injuries, and all our impoverishments, and is healing all our wrongs, and all our injuries, and is discharging all our debts for us every day. And He is thus both calling us and enabling us to forgive one another and to receive back one another in love and in a lasting peace. Even as God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven us, and has accepted us back in the Beloved, and that to everlasting life.

We are not told just in what ways and just to what an extent Onesimus had wronged Philemon. Nor just how deep Onesimus had run himself into Philemon’s debt. But the whole Epistle goes to show that the wrong was not little nor the debt small. All the past relations and all the past behaviours of Philemon to Onesimus, and of Onesimus to Philemon, were best known to them¬ selves. But now to Paul also through the full confession of Onesimus. And no more are all our past relations and behaviours to one another known to any one but to ourselves and to God, and that whether we confess it all to Him or no.

And just as we cannot at this distant day even imagine all that had gone on between Philemon and Onesimus in their pagan and pre-Christian and unconverted days, no more can any one imagine nor would any one believe all that may have gone on between us and those who once wronged us, or were once wronged by us. Philemon, in past days, may have bought and sold Onesimus and his wife and his children as if they were so many brute beasts. And, then, Onesimus may have retaliated on Philemon and on his family, as we know that ill-used slaves did retaliate in those days on their inhuman masters. And so is it still: even in our Christian civilisation, and among our Christianised conditions of life. Some of you — who knows? — may have as good as bought and sold the bodies and souls of men and women and children you at one time lived with. Some of you may have broken up and for ever ruined some one’s happy home long ago. Some of you may have fatally shipwrecked some one’s whole earthly life and for ever blasted all their earthly and even their heavenly hopes. Some of you — but you yourselves best know what it was you did to them, and they know, and God knows. And all their tears on your account are to-day kept in His bottle. And all your past and all their past is set down under your name and theirs in His awful judgment book. As it is written: ‘The Lord is in His holy temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven; and His eyes behold, and His eyelids try the children of men. Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee; our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance. Who knoweth the power of Thine anger Even according to Thy fear, so is Thy wrath. If I say. Surely the darkness shall cover me! even the night shall be light about me! Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.’ Now, if that were all that was to be said.

what would be left to the best of us but a certain fearful looking for of judgment? For we know Him who hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto Me; I will recompense, saith the Lord. But that is not all. For, at this fearful state and stage of things we take up a better Book than the Book of Judgment, and we find the place where this is written: ‘Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood; that He might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.’ That is to say, the grace of God is such, and the redemption that is in Christ Jesus is such, and His sin-atoning blood is such, and our faith in His sin-atoning blood is such, that God is seen, by all heaven and earth, to be just, even in justifying such great wrongdoers and such deep debtors to God and man as we are.

Now my brethren, that is the Gospel. That is the good news. That is the evangelical message. And that is what is this day preached unto you. As Paul in another place has it: ‘ Therefore, if any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away; and, behold! all things are become new. And all things are of God, Who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself; not imputing their trespasses to them; and hath committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in ChrisFs stead, be ye reconciled to God. For He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in ^im.’

, And now the God of redemption having reconciled us to Himself, and Himself to us, by the blood df Christ, He goes Himself to all those men who are not yet reconciled to His redeemed people and

exactly what Paul here says to

Philemon concerning Onesimus, He points to you and to me, and He says to all those who have ought against us. He says to them, ‘ If thou wilt count me for a partner, if thou wilt enter into a compact of peace with me; then receive that injurious son of mine as myself. And if he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that to mine account, and I will repay it.’ Not only does God say that to the men and women whom we have wronged, but He refuses to forgive them the wrongs they themselves have done to God and man, unless they are willing to forgive and to be reconciled to us. And more, and better than even that. He puts His own meek and sweet and forgiving Spirit into their wronged and angry hearts, and in that way He both enables and constrains all our most sworn enemies to forgive us and to be at an everlasting peace with us. You will easily see that there are heights, and depths, and ‘intricacies’ here, as Fraser said, into which, even the New Testament, at its very best, does not fully enter, and does not wholly open up. But of this the New

Testament sufficiently assures us that when the end comes, and before Christ finally delivers up the kingdom to God the Father, it will be made evident to all men that no manner of wrong that any of the redeemed have done to man or woman or child will be left unredressed. And that no one farthing of their debt will be left unpaid. Just how Jesus Christ, out of His unfathomable wisdom and unsearchable riches, will do all that, and when, and where. He will do all that, we must, meantime, leave to Him who has the wisdom, and the grace, and who has all the keys of heaven and earth and hell in His hands. Enough for us to know that He says to all to whom we stand in any debt, ‘ I, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, have written it with My own hand, and I will repay it.’ And, O! how blessed is that assurance! not so much to those to whom He pays that debt, as to those for whom He pays it! How blessed is that divine assurance to every burdened and broken heart among His people! For how could they live in peace of mind for a day, in grace on earth or in glory in heaven, unless they believed that all their heavy debts to all men, as well as to God, were sure to be all repaid, and that all the wrongs they have ever done were sure to be compensated for and fully redressed? Could we sit down in peace of mind even in heaven itself if any one was left in the outer darkness whom we had helped to plunge down into that darkness? How could we begin to be merry in our Father’s house while any one on earth or in hell was gnashing his teeth at us and at our blessedness? How could God Himself succeed in wiping all tears from our eyes, while any man, or any woman, or any child, was weeping tears that our bands had at any time wrung from their hearts? But no — ‘ Comfort My people,’ saith your God. ‘ Speak comfortably to My people, and say to them that all the wrongs they ever did will all be atoned for, and that all the debts they ever contracted will all be paid, and that to the uttermost farthing. Say to them: Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, and hath the keys at His girdle, wherewith to repay all that His people owe to any man, living or dead, in time or in eternity.

Now, my brethren, if these Scriptures have this evening in any way awakened your sleeping consciences concerning any old wrongs you ever did to any one go this very night to Jesus Christ — you know where to find Him — go and beseech Him, out of His unsearchable riches, to undertake and take over and settle all your outstanding accounts for you. And to help you in your interview with Him take the Epistle to Philemon in your hand and point Him to it, and say to Him out of it, Shall His apostle be more pitiful and more kind to the runaway Onesimus than He Himself will be to you? And watch what He will say to you on the spot, and then watch all your days what He will do for you. And while He does His Pauline part for you, be you sure to do your own proper part in every painful case of that kind. If you have wronged, or in any way have impoverished, any man or woman, and if they, or any of theirs, are still in this world, and if it is at all in your power, do not let Zacchseus, the chief of the publicans, excel you in your reparations and repayments. But begin at once to act so that you will be able to say: ‘ Behold, O my Lord, if I have wronged any one, or if I owe any one anything, behold I restore to them and to theirs fourfold.’ And He will say in answer concerning you: ‘ This day is My salvation come to this man’s house. Forasmuch as he also is a son of faithful Abraham.’