Slaves to Christ (Part 2)

Christianity is a different kind of slavery. I know how that can sound. It can be disturbing and unsettling. But so is the call of discipleship in the Bible. We have often tamed what Scriptures says about following Jesus. But the truth is that Christians are slaves. Now Jesus slavery is freeing. His “yoke is easy” and His “burden is light,” but it’s still a “yoke” that we are told to put on (Matt. 11:29-30). Following Jesus means “dying to self” and submitting to another. It means calling Jesus “Lord”. There are a host of analogies that Scriptures uses to communicate what it means to be a disciple, but slave is certainly one of them. So what does it look like to call ourselves a “slave of Christ”? Let’s unpack that description.

What makes this concept somewhat difficult to understand, and perhaps unsettling, is that the New Testament often affirms an opposite principle: that we are no longer slaves. Jesus makes this clear in John 8 as he interacts with the Jews. He states:

Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave¹ to sin.  ³⁵ The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.  ³⁶ So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (John 8:34-36)

If you are set free by the Son you are not a slave. This is the same thing Paul says to the Galatians, a book about law and freedom. Paul writes:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,  ⁵ to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.  ⁶ And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”  ⁷ So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. (Galatians 4:4-7)

Paul, who calls himself a slave of Christ, is here emphasizing that we are not slaves but sons, if we belong to Jesus. He makes the contrast even more pronounced later in the chapter as he contrasts the Isaac and Ishmael. Paul concludes by saying, “So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman” (Gal. 4:31). He emphasizes the point that we belong to Israel, the free woman, not to the slave Hagar.

So what do we make of this apparent contrast? How can Paul say that we are both slaves and not slaves? There is, again, an important distinction that we have to make here as we seek to understand the difference between these two themes.

Paul is not here advocating a total liberation. The concern is with slavery to something other than Christ. Paul is concerned with slavery to the law, slavery to the rules of men, slavery to religion. Paul demonstrates this clearly when he writes in chapter 5 of Galatians, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (5:1). What is the “yoke of slavery”? It is slavery to the law, to the rules of men. Paul certainly does not want us to be slaves to religion. He says the same thing to the Corinthians: You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men (1 Cor. 7:23). So for Paul there is a slavery that is wrong and slavery that is only natural for those who are followers of Jesus. Paul makes that point clear too.

Slavery to Christ is submission to His Lordship. So Paul writes that though he is not under law, and yet he is under the law of Christ (1 Cor. 9:21). Submission to Jesus means obeying His commands, orienting ourselves towards His will and His way. It means dying to self and exchanging our values for His values. We are slaves, and slaves obey. Slaves surrender. We acknowledge that Jesus is King and we are, as Paul says, his servants.

Being free in Christ does not mean being free to do whatever you want. It means being free from sin, free from the religious rule of men. But it means being joyfully submissive to King Jesus. The question to ask, then, is whether this marks your idea of the Christian life. I pray it does.