Salem Conference 2012 - Pastor Joseph P. Sugrue Friday AM

If you are a believer here this morning then you have been purchased from one master and are now the slave of a new Master, and that new Master is TLJC.

 

Though several English translations find the word “slave” too harsh or too evoking of negative emotions they chose words like servant, minister, or bond-slave to attempt to soften the impact of the word. God desires this impact.

 

In the Greek language the word is doulos is most frequently used and along with other words with the route doul – there is a total of 175 uses of the slavery term in the NT. There is no doubt or serious debate about the definition of this word. It means slave. In the Hebrew the word is ebed and that occurs 801 times in the OT, more often referring to a natural slave as opposed to the NT use of the spiritual slave. The point is that this is a major theme in the Bible.

 

Webster’s defines a slave as a person held in servitude as the chattel (movable property) of another. 2) one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence. 

 

Random House defines a slave as a person who is the property of another. 2) a person entirely under the domination of some influence or person.

 

Slavery is a social institution in which one person owns another, and uses that person, forcibly if necessary, to perform his or her will. Both the person and the labor are owned.

 

While we naturally think of one person owning another we must also understand that an idea or thought or goal can own a person. We have idioms in English like, “slave of duty,” or “slave to fashion.”

 

God the Holy Spirit through the apostle Peter puts it:

Slavery to an ideathoughtgoal

2 Peter 2:19

for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.

 

This aspect of slavery becomes very important for us since we obviously don’t experience physical slavery as an institution as was prominent in the time when the NT was written. Yet we will see some deep parallels of Roman slavery to the potential mental and spiritual slavery of the Church-age believer. We are all slaves. It’s what master we chose that makes the difference.

 

We will focus on the spiritual aspect of slavery while using the typology of physical slavery as it is presented in the scripture for ancient Israel as well as the historical slavery of the Greeks and Romans.

 

 

 

Slave market of sin:

 

Every member of the human race is born spiritually dead and therefore slaves of their inherited OSN, Eph 2:1-2.

 

Eph 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

 

Eph 2:2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.

 

When Adam sinned his first sin he experienced a conversion downwards. He became degenerate and depraved. He developed within himself a fallen nature which is contrary to God and is ever prone to evil.

 

His constitution was altered fundamentally and he thus became a wholly different being from the one God had created. A similar fall into degeneracy had been experienced before by the highest of all angels and by the angels who joined his rebellion against God. No other human being than Adam has ever become a sinner by sinning. All others were born sinners.

 

Distinction is made at this point between sin as an evil act and sin as an evil nature. Mankind is a slave of the nature. Sin is the effect of that slavery.

 

 

Rom 7:20 But if I am doing the very thing I do not wish, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin [OSN] which dwells in me.

 

“I am no longer the one doing it,” means that Paul has handed control of his life over to his sin nature. It is like putting a corpse behind the wheel of your car and rolling down a big hill while you sit in the back seat. It was his decision and so he alone is culpable for it and he is responsible for it.

 

By a sinful act Adam acquired a sinful nature, whereas all members of his family are born with that nature and believers can put themselves right back under its control and thus lose control of what is truly life – the life hidden with Christ in heavenly places. The CWL is not just existing. It is living.

 

Yet as Paul continues he recognizes the fact that he has been purchased.

 

Rom 7:24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

 

Rom 7:25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

 

Paul then illustrates the options of the redeemed believer. Christ as Master and so the law of His Spirit as guide or the law of death under the old master?

 

Rom 8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

 

Rom 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.

 

Rom 8:3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh [OSN], God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,

 

Rom 8:4 in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

 

Rom 8:5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

 

Rom 8:6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,

 

Rom 8:7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so;

 

Rom 8:8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Therefore, what is contained in our transition from one master to another is a double element.

 

If the sinner is not to be destroyed in the presence of God, deliverance must above all contain in itself a double element, a negation and an affirmation, a breaking down of the old and an introduction of the new, namely, clearance from sin and sanctification, for­giveness and new lordship, reconciliation and leading.

 

It would be tragic if we were set free from sin and then given no Master, no leading, no newness, no affirmation, no instruction, or no Lordship. Yet God has given all of these under an unmistakable and unique newness of life.

 

Returning to our fall, the world quickly became populated with people born prone to evil and having lost rulership of the world to satan these evil people were now willing participants in making evil systems, evil governments, evil families, and creating a world saturated with evil under their born master and father.

 

John 8:44

"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature; for he is a liar, and the father of lies.

 

You would think such a world would be burning, but with the restraining ministries of God, there is a certain control, but at the same time an abundance of deceit, lies, and unconscious slavery.

 

Due to the deception and lies coupled with the gullibility and laziness of man, many unwitting persons are ignorant of this slavery. The purpose of the Gospel is to proclaim to the captives their purchased freedom. This heralding gospel moved with the nomadic people of Israel through the desert in a tabernacle of cloth and skins and then later it heralded from the stones of the temple after Israel had finally settled and now it is heralded through the spiritual house consisting of living stones that comprise the living Church.

 

Luke 4:16 And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read.

 

Luke 4:17 And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book, and found the place where it was written,

 

Luke 4:18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,

Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.

He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,

And recovery of sight to the blind,

To set free those who are downtrodden,

 

Luke 4:19 To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord."

 

He quotes Isa 61:1 and the first line of vs. 2. He stops there since the rest of the passage speaks of the second coming.

 

Luke 4:20 And He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed upon Him.

 

Luke 4:21 And He began to say to them, "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

 

“proclaim release to the captives” is the command to believe and walk out of the slave market of sin. This is orders to “move out!” but not everyone does. Some say no to that command and remain in the slave market, though the door is wide open. Those who reject Christ’s call are hoping to be able to ransom themselves, having someone else ransom them, or are just not caring. The unbeliever remains a slave the OSN without hope.

 

Our Master has left us behind to communicate His release of the captives to the cruel fallen master.

 

However ignorant or cognizant, not only were the people hopelessly enslaved but so was the entire system around them. This is what the Bible calls the cosmos. It saturates practically everything.

 

Through the baptism of the HS the believer has been separated from the OSN and the world system and unto Christ as His possession, Rom 6:6; John 15:19.

 

John 15:19

"If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

 

Rom 6:6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin;

 

“Sin” in the singular here represents the old sin nature.

 

All unbelievers in all dispensations are slaves of the OSN and are hopeless to do anything about it other than faith in the work of Christ. All are born into the slave market of sin.

 

Why do we call it a slave market?

 

Slave market of sin – avgara,zw[agarazo] = to buy or purchase in the market place; evxagora,zw[exagorazo] = to buy out from or to redeem.

 

The reason we call it a slave market is that the main verb in the NT denoting purchase or buying is agorazo, meaning to buy in the market-place. While most of its uses are strictly commercial there are several occasions in which it depicts the purchase of Christians. Exagorazo is one of the words used for redemption, using the same root agora which means market place.  

 

Satan would love to buy everyone for use in his own purposes, but he doesn’t have the purchase price; he doesn’t possess the coin of the realm, which is the spiritual death of the sinless, impeccable Mediator, known to the Jews as the Messiah.

 

1 Tim 1:18-20

fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered over to Satan, so that they may be taught not to blaspheme.

 

Never mind needing permission from God to put pressure on someone, here he needed permission from Paul. He has truly been rendered powerless, as has your OSN, as we will document, so to place yourself under their authority again after being purchased by Christ is mind numbingly stupid.

 

2 Peter 2:1

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought [agorazo] them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

 

If He is a Master then we are His slaves. We see initially that a transfer was made from a cruel master (OSN) to a wonderful Master (TLJC). So although you have been ransomed you are still a slave.

 

Rev 5:9

And they sang a new song, saying,

"Worthy art Thou to take the book, and to break its seals; for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase [agorazo] for God with Thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.

 

1 Cor 6:20

For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.

 

1 Cor 7:23

You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men.

 

The compound verb exagorazo meaning to buy out from as well as redeem is used in:

 

Gal 3:13

Christ redeemed [exagorazo] us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us —  for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree" —

 

Christ redeemed the entire human race, but not all accept this by faith. Those who believe in Christ have the OSN crucified (RPT) and the new nature created brand new (CPT). At salvation we are identified with Christ in His death (RPT) and simultaneously identified with Christ in His resurrection (CPT).

 

The transition is accomplished by means of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which enters every believer into union with Christ.

 

Rom 6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?

 

Rom 6:1 “Therefore what are we to conclude? Are we to continue in the sovereignty of the sin nature in order that the grace of God might increase?”

 

This is to answer the false conclusion that is drawn from the previous two verses:

Rom 5:20 And the Law came in that the transgression might increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

 

The asinine reasoning of us sheep is that if I continue under my old master that my new Master will fight harder or get stronger somehow. It’s what we do in any self-justification for our inordinate desires. Remember your old master is still within you. Keep him caged and keep the guard posted, vigilantly watching.

 

Rom 6:2 May it never be! [idiom, absolutely not!] How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

 

Rom 6:3 Or do you not know [always the root of the problem] that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

 

Rom 6:4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that [purpose for Christ’s cross] as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

 

RPT – purchase from your old master. CPT – purchase unto your new Master. The separation from and to is positional sanctification.

 

 “walking in newness of life” – freedom from the sovereignty of the old master by rejecting its trends, which are human good and evil.

 

This is made possible by knowing, metabolizing, and applying the pertinent doctrines concerning who you are in Christ by means of God the Holy Spirit.

 

Rom 6:5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection,

 

Rom 6:6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin;

 

Rom 6:7 for he who has died is freed from sin.

 

Rom 6:8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,

 

The position we have in Christ is mentioned in verse 5 and here in verse 8 we see that there is a faith or doctrine(s) needed to live with Him as our Master.

 

Rom 6:9 knowing that Christ [contrasted from verse 3 “do you not know], having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.


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