God's Slaves
“Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by Him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.” — i Peter ii. 13-16.
Lyrr^T is very remarkable to notice the frequency and earnest-
■’i ness with which the writers of the New Testament
*DiAv insist on the use of that word “slave,” as describing
*Lr es their true relationship to God. It is the favourite
^:<t designation of the Apostle Paul, “apostle and slave,”
T and he even gloried in wearing the brandmarks of
the slavery of Jesus. Not only here, but in the first line of his
Second Epistle, the Apostle Peter describes himself in the very
same terms. And the Apocalyptic vision of the Apostle John
rings with the word, touched with heavenly light, transfigured,
glorified. That wondrous book is prepared for slaves; they are
the sealed; they receive the rewards; they see God’s face and
bear his name upon their brows. Heaven takes our most dreaded
terms, and makes them sparkle in its own light, till what had
seemed the synonym of terror becomes the target of our noblest
aims. The servants of the royal household are nobles.
All this is very singular. For the slavery which throve in the poisoned atmosphere of the pagan world was the most cruel and wicked thing that society has ever seen. The slavery of the Roman Empire was slavery at its worst. The slave was the absolute chattel of his owner, for purposes of crushing labour, bitter torture, degrading crime. There was no appeal, no hope of redress, no escape, e.xcept by the dread door of death. And yet it is this system which the sacred writers never weary of applying to our relationship to Jesus Christ. It presents them with an ideal which stirs their intensest enthusiasm.
It might have been expected that they would have attacked and denounced it, and grasped this thistle by the hand, to uproot it from the harvest field of the world. But this is not the Divine method. God does not deal with society as a whole, but with individuals one by one; not with the abuses, but with the spirit out of which they arise; not with politics, but with principles. It may be that the Apostles did not realize the certain effect of the work which they did. They went quietly forward, telling out the message of God’s love, reminding men that in Christ there was neither slave nor master, insisting that their true position was determined, not by their outward condition, but by their inward temper. And in doing this they were creating a world in which slavery could not live. And perhaps some among us, who do not join in crusades against existing abuses, but concentrate all their energy to bringing individual souls from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, are really doing as much as others to purify and elevate society as a whole. You will best save the world by saving the individuals who go to make it up.
Instead of denouncing slavery they borrowed from it to indicate the disposition of their lives, and interwove it into the fabric of their discourses. And so it shone with a heavenly radiance, as clouds, drenched in the glow of the setting sun, he along the horizon as bars of gold. It is on this fact, then, that we are God’s slaves, that the Apostle founds the exhortations of this paragraph.
I. The Divine Despotism. — This may seem a strong phrase. But it is exactly Scriptural. In the next Epistle, the word used of our Master is that from which our word “despot” was coined (2 Pet. ii. i).* And it will well serve our purpose, if it startles us into a recognition of the absoluteness of Christ’s authority over his own.
We are too easy in our treatment of our Lord. We call Him Master and Lord, and we say well, for so He is: but we do not realize how much the term involves; nor do we do the things that He says. He is our Captain, and we have to go, or come, or do, not because we see the reasonableness of his
bea-TTOTTiv — “Lord” (Master in R.v. ). See also 2 Tim. ii. 21; Jude 4; Rev. vi. 10.
commands, but because He utters them. He is our Owner, who has purchased us for a specific purpose, and whose intentions will be frustrated unless He receive from us absolute and exact obedience. He is the Founder of our order, and surely has a right to look for as much from us as the Jesuit demands of his “black-robed militia,” each of whom must be “as a staff in a blind man’s hand.” *
God hath exalted Him to be a Prince and a Saviour. We are too prone to reverse the order, and make Him a Saviour and a Prince. And we are apt to think much more of being saved by Him, than of doing as He bids. And it is because we know so little of Jesus as King that we experience so little of Him as Saviour.
It would do us good to again take the Gospels in hand, and carefully study them with the one object of noticing their incessant appeals for obedience. Everything in Christian life hinges on doing as we are told.
“Ours not to reason why,
Ours not to make reply,
Ours but to do and die.”
The rights of Jesus Christ to exercise this despotic authority are founded on many considerations, on which just now we may not dwell at length. He gave Himself for us; and his supreme gift of Himself for us demands the absolute surrender of ourselves to Him. The blood which He shed on Cahary is the price by which we have been bought; and we cannot be other than the property of our purchaser. His rights over us are also founded on the gift made by the Father to the Son, before all worlds, of those who, in the process of time, should come to Him. Besides all which, we have ourselves knelt at his feet professing our desire to be, ever, only, always his; not in part, but in the entire range of spirit, soul, and body. Who then can challenge his right to be despotic? Because He is what He is, in dignity, in character, in infinite grace, in superior knowledge, we may gladly and safely put the entire control of our lives into his hands, yielding an obedience which we dare not give to any creature living, and obeying absolutely, blindly, dumbly.
* Dr. Maclaren.
II. The Effect of this Conception. — “Submit,.” See how absolutely the Apostle rivets the collar of obedience on the necks of these scattered saints. They might be disposed to hesitate in their submission to every ordinance of man; but he silences their remonstrances, and makes their yoke easy, by whispering, Submit for the Lords sake. They might demand why they should go on in patient well-doing amid the detraction and ignorant opposition of foolish men; but he forecloses every objection, by saying. So is the will of God. They might vaunt their freedom, as having been introduced into a new realm, the tidings of which were beginning to steal through the world, as the first faint breath of spring through the woods: but he met their argument by reminding them that, though they were free, they must not use their liberty as a veil for evil living, because they were the servants (lit. the slaves) of God.
There are wonderful contrasts in these words. Those who stand erect as the brothers of Christ in the presence of God, are bidden to submit to every ordinance of men. Those who avow their determination to live only in the will of God discover that will working through the appointments of foolish and ignorant men. The freemen of God are his slaves; and therefore the servants of men. So great, and full, and rich is that real life which we may live in communion with God, that we can afford to be very liberal in complying with the demands of the human institutions by which we are surrounded, so far as they do not clash with our allegiance to our Master and Lord.
There is great helpfulness in these words. Often, when submission is required of us to some arbitrary and imperious command, we are inclined to resent it: the blood flushes our face, lightning flashes in our eyes, and we are disposed to go off in a rage, saying, “Why should I do this thing?” Then the Master approaches us, saying, “Submit for my sake; do it because I wish it: gently remonstrate against the injustice if you will, and if your remonstrances are likely to avail; but if you cannot alter or amend it, be content to submit: I wish it to be so.” This makes the sullen iron swim; changes Marah into Elim; and fills the lion with the sweetness of the “JFor the lorb’s ^akc.” 95
honey-comb. Oh, do not complain, and fret, and chafe against men.’ Tell your griefs to your King. Wait patiently for Him; and He will set you free. Or, if not, then believe that his permissions are his appointments; and in bending your meek neck to the unwelcome yoke of human ordinances, be sure that you are performing his good pleasure. The talisman of victory in all such cases — the key to earth’s best peace as it is to heaven’s choicest boons — is found in the little words, “/^r the Lord’s sake.”
There is great reasonablefiess in these words. The world from the first hated the religion of Jesus, and professed to suspect it, as inimical to itself It was a favourite charge against the early Christians that they were plotting the overthrow of the Empire, and the dethronement of Caesar, in favour of “one Jesus.” Their private meetings were supposed to be convened for unlawful political purposes. It was therefore necessary that men’s minds should be disabused of the impression that any violence subversive of existing society was contemplated.
For this purpose the early Christians were specially exhorted to conform, so far as they could, to the demands and usages of the people amongst whom they sojourned as pilgrims and strangers. They were to render to Caesar the things that were Caesar’s. If they accepted the order, and safety, and privileges of a settled national and corporate life, they were to bear their quota of its cost, and yield homage to the form of government which they found in vogue, agreeing to modify or alter it only by orderly and constitutional methods. They were therefore called upon to render to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour. A quiet and peaceable life was to be their model; submission their law; well-doing their purpose. Thus, in the process of time, they would disarm prejudice, and conciliate their foes, by the exhibition of the graces of an inoffensive, tender, and beneficent life.
It is very beautiful to remark how literally these precepts were obeyed. Tertullian contrasts the early Christians with the heathen. These delighted in the bloody gladiatorial shows of the amphitheatre, whereas a Christian was excommunicated if he went to it at all. When the pagans deserted their nearest relatives in the plague, Christians .ministered to the sick. When Gentiles left their dead unburied on the field of battle, and cast their wounded into the streets, the disciples hastened to relieve their sufferings. Thus they muzzled the ignorance of foolish men. The tide began to turn. The more microscopic (ver. 12) was the inspection of the world, the more evident was it that a new and blameless character was abroad. Pliny admitted in his letter to the Emperor Trajan that there was no cause of blame in the followers of the new religion, “save a perverse and extravagant superstition.” And the holy example of the primitive believers is cited by Merivale as one of the four causes of the conversion of the Roman empire.
Bid, of course, there are limits to the application of these words. — Our first service must always be to God. And when the demands of the king or his governors clash with the commands of the Supreme, there is no longer place for submission, but for refusal. Instantly the soul recognizes that there is no room for vacillation. Indecision is not to be thought of. The Apostles, who were the first to advocate obedience to existing authority, were also the very first to exclaim, when that authority was intruding into the realm of conscience: “We must obey God rather than men.” And they accepted the consequences to the bitter dregs.
The two kingdoms need not clash. We may obey God in submitting to the ordinances of men. We may do well in Caesar’s empire, without contravening our allegiance to Christ. Nay, more, we shall be better citizens to Caesar, because we are citizens of the kingdom of heaven. But when Caesar steps over the line of the material and outward into the spiritual and eternal, there must be persistent refusal, though we rot in gaol as a consequence. But even then we are God’s freemen, because his slaves.
III. The Fourfold Application. Hojiour all men. Perha.ps value or esteem would better render the force of the original word. They were to manifest such a kindly interest in all men as would arise from a recognition of the worth of each. There is some worth in the most worthless. In each human being there is something which, in the eye of God, is of infinite value: a lost money-piece which has rolled away into the dust, but is worth sweeping the house to find. Put the most degraded in one scale, and the weight of a world of gold in the other, and the world would kick the beam. The blood of the Son of God is its only equivalent. Let us try to view men as God does, so shall we fulfil this injunction.
Love the brothe7’hood. — Love is not sentiment, but self-sacrifice; not liking every one necessarily, but making others, instead of self, the pivot of our living. And this is the spirit which we should show to all who own the same Fatherhood, and therefore belong to the same Brotherhood.
Fear God. — True love expels the fear that hath torment, and begets godly fear that dreads to cause Him pain. And every step of growth in holiness is measured by the increase of this fear, as the rise of the Nile is measured by the breadth of territory over which it spreads itself “Love persuades a man,” says Leighton, “purely for the goodness and loveliness of God, to fear to offend Him, though there were no interest at all in it of a man’s own personal misery or happiness.”
Honour the kifig. — Respect human institutions. That lesson lay at the beginning of this paragraph, and it is repeated at its close; and, surely, if so much is said of honour for an earthly monarch, much more might be urged on the behalf of the claims of the King of kings. Oh that men would honour Him, with the honour they give to the Father! He is worthy to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honour, and glory, and blessing; for He was slain, and has redeemed us to God by his blood. Let us honour Him with no stinting love.
Those who give themselves most absolutely to God, are given back by Him most completely to live for others. Christ does make us members of another sphere; but at the same time He bids us, for His sake, to take a warm and living interest in all that touches human life around.