The Bondage: From Slaves to Friends

For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord’s freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ’s slave. (1 Corinthians 7:22)

In the Bible, the story of the Israelites being enslaved in Egypt is well-known. The Israelites were subjected to over 400 years of bitter hard labor making mortar and bricks, and performing all kinds of labor in the field (Exodus 1:8–14; 12:40). When God had seen enough of the harsh treatment of the Israelites, He sent Moses to Egypt to tell Pharaoh to, “let My people go!” Of course, Pharaoh did not comply until after God had sent ten plagues against them (Exodus 3:7–10; 5:1–2; 12:30–32).

We see a parallel to this in the story of Jesus Christ. As slaves of sin, we work hard to obey sin. God sent Jesus to rescue and redeem us from slavery to sin, so that we would be slaves of righteousness (Romans 6:16–23). Our slavery to righteousness, though, is not harsh like that of the Israelites in Egypt. Our bondage is to a loving Lord and Teacher who desires to give us rest from our sin, and teach us how to live righteously (Matthew 11:28–30; John 13:12–17).

Our Lord has commanded that we love each other, and has shown us through His own example of dying on the cross, how far we should be willing to go in love (1 John 3:16). By coming to earth as a man and then dying on the cross, Jesus gave the ultimate example of obedience, as a slave^[1] (Philippians 2:5–8). A slave is a person who is the property of another person. There is no democracy or labor union, only obedience to every command of the master.

Jesus willingly gave His life to redeem us from the slavery of sin and did this in obedience to His Father. Before His death, Jesus told His disciples, “You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends” (John 15:12–17).

FOOTNOTES

1. Some English translations of the Bible render the Greek word doulos as servant or bond-servant. However, the correct meaning of the word is slave. Various resources point out that Bible translators have consistently hidden the fact that the original text of the New Testament uses the word doulos about 130 times, but is not always translated correctly as slave. For more information on this topic, see the book, The Gospel According to Jesus by John MacArthur (Zondervan 1988, 1993, 2008) 26-33. ↑