On Philemon: A Picture of God’s Grace

The book of Philemon is one of the shortest and most often overlooked books of the Bible. It comprises of a single chapter. In this letter, Paul is writing to Philemon in defense of Onesimus. Onesimus was a runaway slave of Philemon’s, who became a disciple of Paul’s. Paul sent Onesimus back to his master, but pleaded with him to show Christian Mercy to the runaway slaveThere are multiple messages that can be taken from this book. Probably the most common is that we need to show mercy to sinners, just as Philemon was encouraged to do. This is obviously not the most important theme in the book. It is best to look at this book not as a fable, a story with a moral message. We should instead look at it as an allegory, a symbolic story used to communicate a separate idea.

In this story there are three characters; Philemon, Paul and Onesimus. Philemon is the master, the one who will more than likely be looking to exact punishment on his rebelious slave Onesimus. Paul is the mediator between the two. It is quite easy to see this as a symbol of man’s relationship to God. We men are sinful and rebellious against God, just as Onesimus was against his master. Like Philemon, we deserve nothing but punishment for our actions. There is no way we can get around this by ourselves. However, in Paul, Onesimus had a mediator between himself and his master. We too have a mediator between God and ourselves, Jesus Christ.

In both cases, the mediator pleads for the wrongdoer before the master. In both cases, the mediator goes beyond doing this. In verses 18 and 19, Paul tells this to Philemon: “If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it.” Paul not only pleads for the wrongdoer, but offers to take all of his debt and punishment on himself. This is most obviously a symbol of what Christ actually did for us on the Cross of Calvary. He took the punishment for our wrong doing, our sin, and he made the payment for it that we could never make. Paul offered to take the debt, Christ did and paid it off with his own innocent sufferings and death. This is the true Gospel message of Philemon. In this short letter, Paul gives us a very vivid picture of What Christ’s work for us is. He is both our mediator and our redeemer. He is our one and only Savior.

SOLI DEO GLORIA

Christ’s Regal Office

Christ’s third and final office is that of a King.  I have kind of struggled with where I wanted to go with this Third and Final office.  There are many different applications and even interpretations of Christ’s regal office.  There are also many errors and misinterpretations that have been made regarding his office. 

I recently read through Second Samuel, and was struck by chapter 5 when David becomes King over Israel.  What did God tell him about his new role as King?  He said that “You will Shepherd my people Israel.”  Israel’s greatest Earthly king was a simple shepherd.  After he became King, he remained a shepherd. 

The most comforting aspect of Christ’s regal office is that of the Good Shepherd.  I had written much about this, but though of a hymn, based on psalm 23, that says it all better than I ever could, so I will simply leave you with that as the conclusion of this look at Christ’s Threefold office.

The King of Love My Shepherd Is
Henry W. Baker

The King of love my Shepherd is,
Whose goodness faileth never,
I nothing lack if I am His
And He is mine forever.

Where streams of living water flow
My ransomed soul He leadeth,
And where the verdant pastures grow,
With food celestial feedeth.

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,
But yet in love He sought me,
And on His shoulder gently laid,
And home, rejoicing, brought me.

In death’s dark vale I fear no ill
With Thee, dear Lord, beside me;
Thy rod and staff my comfort still,
Thy cross before to guide me.

Thou spread’st a table in my sight;
Thy unction grace bestoweth;
And O what transport of delight
From Thy pure chalice floweth!

And so through all the length of days
Thy goodness faileth never;
Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise
Within Thy house forever.

SOLI DEO GLORIA

On Christ’s Sacerdotal Office

Traditionally, the second office of Christ is that of a priest.  In reality, this is his primary office, the one that embodied his primary, that is Saving, work.  Again we will first examine Old Testament Office of Priest in order to better understand Christ’s how Christ fulfilled the office of Priest.

Under the Old testament Law, the Priests has many duties.  The primary duty they had though was to represent the People before God.  Their office was in fact the direct compliment of the prophets who represented God before the people.  The Priests did this in a number of ways.  They were the ones who distinguished between the Clean and Unclean (Lev 10:10).  They were also able to act as judges in legal proceedings (Deut 17:9).  The priests were also responsible for the maintaning temple conditions acceptable to God.  However, the priests most important way of representing the people before God was through the Sacrifices God Commanded.  The priests were responsible for making all sacrifices according to the specifications of the Mosaic Law.  Before the Mosaic law, the patriarchs offered their own sacrifices.  However after instituting his own law, God set aside certain people to do the sacrificing for all the people.  These sacrifices of course did not actually forgive sins, but they pointed to and reminded people of the coming saviour who would sacrifice himself and actually forgive sins.

 Christ is our one and only High Priest.  He too will distinguish between clean and unclean, and be a judge for us when he returns to seperate the sheep from the goats (Matt 25:32).  Jesus too worked to keep Temple conditions acceptable to God when he cleansed it from the moneychangers (John 2:12-17).  As with the Old Testament Priests, Christ’s primary work was sacrifice.  However, instead of simply sacrificing animals he became both the priest, and the sacrifice himself. 

The first part of being a priest and being a sacrifice was to be without blemish (Lev 21:17-23, 22:19-25).  In the Old Testament these were strictly physical characteristics.  For Jesus to become the Great High Priest and for his sacrifice to forgive sins, he had to be perfect in every way.  Christ was able to live a perfect life for us and offer himself as a perfect sacrifice for sin (1 Pet 1:19).  He is the Atoning Sacrifice for our sins (1 John 2:2). 

Christ also continues to represent us to God as a mediator and intercessor. (1 John 2:1).  Through him we have access to God.  Through him we are able to come to God in Prayer as his own sons (Gal 3:26-29).  Christ is our perfect mediator (Rom 8:26).

Through Christ’s Priestly work, we have been Reconciled to God.

 SOLI DEO GLORIA

On Christ’s Prophetic Office

The word prophet brings many different ideas to our minds. The most common of these is the idea of a prophet foretelling the future. In fact, the idea of “Biblical Prophecy” almost exclusively brings this idea to mind. This is a rather limited view of prophecy. In the Old Testament, the prophets were not simply fortune tellers, but they were people whom God chose to use as his messengers.

The foremost job of a prophet was to relay God’s message to the world. The Lord explains this by analogy in Exo 7:1-2. It is more explicitly stated in Exo 4:10-17, and Deu 18:1. Prophecy was therefore any communication from God, transmitted through man, not just the telling of the future. One other distinguishing mark of the prophets was that miracles were performed through them. Through Moses, the Lord parted the Red Sea (Exodus 14). Through Elijah, the Lord raised the son of the widow of Zarephath. (1 Kings 17). Through Elisha, 100 people were fed by 20 loaves of bread. (2Ki 4:42-44)

These two main features of Prophets point to Christ. Christ was able to do both of these things, not only through the Power of God, but as only God himself can do. Any time Jesus taught, told parables, or performed miracles, he was fulfilling his duty as a Prophet. The Old Testament Prophets were only able to Prophecy through Divine Inspiration. (2Pe 1:21). Christ was able to preach and teach by his own power and authority (Mat 23:8-10, Luk 24:19, Luk 4:32).

Likewise, the Old Testament prophets were only able to perform miracles by the power of God. Christ could do this by his own power. It is also worth mentioning that the miracles of Jesus frequently outdo the miracles of the prophets. Moses may have parted the Red Sea, Jesus was able to walk on top of the water (Mat 14:25). Elisha fed 100 men with 20 loaves of bread, Jesus fed more than 5000 with only five loaves and two fish (Mat 14:13-21). Elijah may have raised the son of a widow, Christ eventually raised himself from death. All of these things point to the fact that Jesus was not only a prophet, but that he was The Prophet.

The most important aspect of Christ’s Prophetic office is the message that he taught. He of course taught about many different things, from humility to the true nature of Love, but his primary message was that of his work to reconcile man to God. Just as it is with the Christian Church today, Christ’s main message was the Gospel. He taught that he was the Way, The Truth, and the Life (Joh 14:6). He taught that he was the Vine, from whom our faith and its fruits are based (Joh 15:1-5). Jesus proclaimed himself as the Bread of Life (Joh 6:35-40). As a prophet, Jesus spoke about himself and his work to save us and reconcile us to God.

There is no more fitting message for the Son of God to proclaim. He did this actively while on Earth and continues to work this message through the Church today. Praise be to God for sending his Son to be the ultimate prophet and to spread the eternal Gospel of his perfect life and death on the Cross of Calvary.

SOLI DEO GLORIA

On Christ’s Threefold Office

Christ’s work on earth is commonly said to be divided into three seperate offices. These are the offices of Prophet, Priest, and King. These three also happen to be the three offices of the old testament for which people were anointed. Those anointed were those people whom were set apart by God to perform certain tasks for God’s chosen people. The prophets were set aside to communicate God’s will to the people. The Priests were set aside to be a mediator for men towards God. The Kings were set aside to Rule over the chosen people as God’s representative. The title “Christ” simply means “Anointed”. The Old Testament offices of Prophet, Priest, and King were instituted to point towards Christ and His work. Christ is the culminations of these offices, and as such, the reason none of these offices are still needed to be fulfilled by mere humans.The next three mediations will be on each of these offices of Christ.

On Ephesians 2:1-10

A meditation on Ephesians 2:1-10.

Ephesians 2 is one of the most famous chapters in the bible.  It contains the gospel in its purest form.  It is the most essential & central of all messages in the scriptures.  Its central message is that of Salvation by Grace through Faith. 

The chapter in fact is a brief description of the entire life of a Christian, from before conversion through the entire process of sanctification.  This chapter cannot be covered too well, or too many times.

  V. 1-3  And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

In the first three verses of this chapter, we have the description of our state before being converted to know Christ as our savior.  The very first thing the apostle notes about our state is that we were “dead in our trespasses and sins.”  We were not injured or weakened by our sin, be we were in all reality spiritually dead.  (See Also Pro 21:16, Luk 15:32, Joh 6:53, and Col 2:13)

Being Spiritually dead, we had no choice but to follow Satan, who is “The Prince of the power of the air.”  The one who still works in the lives of sinners, was our master.  Not only were we subject to the Devil himself, but we were subject to our own sinful flesh and our own selfish desires. 

In this state, it was not possible for us to please God.  (Rom 8:8, Rom 14:23, Gal 5:17)  In this state, without faith and without any spiritual powers, we were all together objects of wrath (vs. 3).  We deserved nothing but God’s punishment.  We were wretched sinners, and the wages of sin is Death (Rom 6:23)

Fortunately, God saw our pitiful state and had mercy on us.

V. 4-7 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved–and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

God not only has mercy, but he is rich in it.  He is in fact so rich in mercy that he loved us even when we were in our despicable state of spiritual death and separation from God.  It is important that the apostle states that he loved us when we were dead.  He did not love us for our works, or because we loved him.  He loved us when we still hated God (Joh 7:7, Joh 15:18) and were still doing all things contrary to his will.

Through mercy God loved us, and he showed his love by raising us from the dead.  Because of his love, and only because of his love, he made us alive together with Christ.  Not only were we granted new life, but we were raised to the heavenly places.  Through Christ, we have access to God (On The Comfort of Prayer).  Because of his love, he promises us immeasurable riches.  These are not earthly riches, but spiritual riches.  These are riches of his Grace.  What do these riches do for us?

V. 8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,  not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 

These riches promised to us in love save us.  We are saved by Grace, the love God gives us that we do not deserve.  We did not work to earn it, we did not ask for it, we really did not even desire it.  We certainly did not deserve it.  We cannot boast and brag that we have earned God’s love, it was purely and simply a gift.  If we are to boast, we should boast of God’s love. (1Co 1:31)

There is not a more comforting thought than this, that we were loved by God and saved for no reason but his love.  So many people take it as a negative that we cannot earn this for ourselves.  It is certainly not a negative thing.  We have the burden taken from us, we cannot do it, therefore it has been given to us freely, not by works.

What is the result of us being saved?  We have treasures awaiting us in heaven.  We are no longer dead in our trespasses and sins.  We have been made alive in Christ.

V.10  For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Instead of leaving us Dead in our sinful ways, God has made us a new creation of his own workmanship.  We were created to do Good works.  God has prepared Good works for us to do and through Christ alone (Joh 15:5) we can do them.

In this remakable little section of scripture, the apostle sums up our entire life into 11 verses.  We were sinful and opposed to God.  God had mercy on us and sent His Son to take our punishment and die a cursed death on  the cross of Calvary.  Through this we are saved, and through Christ we are able to do Good works to show our thanks.  This truly is the Good news of Christ Jesus.

SOLI DEO GLORIA