Class Outline:

Tuesday February 8.2022

The new humanity is elevated to heaven spiritually, though he may not see any earthly promotion.

 

This includes earthly slavery, which we could argue is man’s lowest place or at least among the lowest, and to be clear, Paul is referring to a person being owned by another person. Slavery is not condoned in the Bible. In the NT it is clearly revealed as wrong, but it is acknowledged as being a part of the world’s kingdoms. Christ did not come into the world to overturn kingdoms. He will do that at His Second Coming. Christ came into the world to save men from sin and death.

 

In the OT Law, slavery was a last-resort means of paying off debt and it was limited to six years.

 

From EPH 4:1-5:21 Paul taught all of us the conduct of the new humanity in Christ. There were no distinctions made other than spiritual gifts and individual ministries or works. No distinctions were made concerning positions of authority or subordination, of social or economic status, or positions in the home. All of us are under the same manner of walking concerning our election in Christ.

 

But then at EPH 5:22, starting with the subjection (to rank under) of the wives to their husbands, Paul then differentiates the conduct of positions in the home, from the highest authority to the lowest. All of them have their roles, but all of them submit to one another in love while maintaining those roles. If they enter into that life through faith in the high calling of their election, they create in their homes a picture or revelation of the kingdom of heaven.

 

We have to make a correction to our understanding of the “slave” as Paul uses the term here.

 

Paul seamlessly flows from the conduct of the new humanity in the church to the home. We have been looking at his final installment of slave and master relationship as applying in our world to our working or professional careers, but that must be changed. There may be some limited application to free workers, but Peter and Paul are not writing about free workers, but slavery, which was almost always a horrible position, and in their world it was in the home alongside the marriage, parents, and children. This lowest and most degrading of places, slaver become a part of the household codes given by Paul.

 

So then, marriage, parents/children, and master/slave are all a part of the household codes for the new humanity.

 

The slave is in the lowest place, in the home and in all society. The slave has no rights, no family, no future, no inheritance, no dignity, and no hope of being remembered after death. He could be lawfully killed by his master under Roman law and he was often beaten. Still, there were aspects of his life that were worse than that.

 

The slave’s elevation by Paul to his spiritual place is encouragement to all who are stuck in a low place.

 

We should look at Paul’s instruction in marriage, parents/children, and master/slave as all being a part of God’s household codes. There exists the singular thread of authority and subordination as well as servanthood for all in the manner of Christ’s way, truth, and life.

 

Christianity is not the first to understand the authority and subordination roles in the home.

 

Looking into that society in first century Rome and the centuries before it, authority and subordination in marriage, parents/children, and master/slave were well entrenched. From Plato to Aristotle to first century writers like Philo and Josephus, we would find in their writings many similarities to Paul’s writing. Wives and children and slaves were to be subordinate and husbands, parents, and masters were to have some level of understanding and care, how much of it depended upon the writer.

 

What is unique to the biblical way is that the authority and the subordinates are all subordinate to Christ, and in many ways to one another.

 

The husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church. Christ died a naked, humiliating death for her during which He didn’t look like He had authority over anything. Crucifixion was meant to humiliate. But at the time, Christ was defeating Satan and death and sin in one fell swoop.

 

Love your wives: never losing His headship, Christ’s humiliating sacrifice was making His bride beautiful and holy for His headship.

 

Every role, both authority and subordinates, have a role of subordination to one another in the way of Christ.

 

The parents are to be careful not to discourage their children or provoke them to anger. The masters and slaves have the same Master, the Lord Jesus Christ and masters must be careful not to threaten their slaves. In Christ’s new humanity, the roles remained but everyone was made equal in Him while they submitted in their various roles.

 

We discover from these chapters as well that the new humanity was not created in isolation. This is seen the most in the relationship shown for the master slave. If they are loving one another as Christ demands, and are not separated by the formidable social barrier that existed between them, then it is clear that the new life in Christ brings people together. Sin, fear, and selfishness eventually drive people away from one another.

 

Christ gave His live that the sinner (a slave to sin and death) might live and be free. Western culture is very individualistic, even in the midst of their own families. An overemphasis on the justified sinner and the hope of eternal life in the hereafter regulates the present life to a secondary status. “Christianity is about me and my afterlife. What do I care about others or their doings or destiny? Leave them to God.” In other words, since a man is saved why should he bother about being a Christ-like husband, or wife, or master, or child, or slave now?

 

We have been made new together, to serve and equip one another, to be bound in love somewhat like the Trinity.

 

It is clear in Scripture that the members of the Trinity have different roles and that in many ways they serve one another while they never give up, as if they could, their deity or their oneness.

 

We have been made new together, hence every one of us has been justly fit into the body, and within the body exists our marriages and families and home environments that have a big impact on society at large, for good or bad.

 

Christians can overemphasize their own life and put no effort into their God given relationships. Your God-given relationships are those in your church, your spouse, your kids, your neighbors, etc. They seek out their own relationships that they think fulfill their individual desires rather than seek to stimulate those that God has put in their lives. They seek other partners in extra-marital affairs, other friends, and church hop in the quest for the perfect church.

 

The cross not only redeems the individual but creates a new humanity who are all in one family.

 

EPH 6:5-9

Slaves, be obedient [same command as given to the children in vs. 1] to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; 6 not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. 7 With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, 8 knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. 9 And, masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.

 

Slaves - in the ancient world they were members of the household and in the lowest caste without rights.

 

We will deal with this in more detail when we do our topical studies.