BONDMEN OF GOD AND OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
BONDMEN OF GOD AND OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST
Acts 2:18; 3 John 14; Revelation 1:1,2; Revelation 10:7; Revelation 19:5-7; Revelation 22:3-5
G. R. Cowell I wish, dear brethren, as a bondman of Jesus Christ, and as, I trust, His happy slave, to speak a word to my fellow-bondmen with a view to each one of us being truly bondmen of God and of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God has great thoughts for men. His great thought for men, as regards relationship is sonship. He has also great thoughts for men as to the dignity He would put upon them through the anointing. We speak of Christ the Prophet, Priest and King. Those offices are involved in the anointing. God would put great dignity upon His saints in the power of the anointing. But the practical enjoyment of our relationship with God, and our coming into the gain of the dignity of the anointing, is dependent upon our accepting our place as bondmen. I do not mean to say that our relationship is conditional; I am speaking of the enjoyment of it. We are all sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus, and God said of old, “Let my son go, that he may serve me”. But if we rightly appreciate God’s grace that has given us sonship, we shall delight, as we think of the greatness of the God who has marked us out beforehand for adoption by Jesus Christ to Himself, to hold ourselves as bondmen of God. It is an immense privilege to be the bondmen and bondwomen of such a God. The apostles esteemed it so. The five epistle writers, Paul, Peter, James, Jude and John, each calls himself a bondman; and they give this designation precedence over any other. So we have, “Simon Peter,
bondman and apostle of Jesus Christ”, and “Paul, bondman of Jesus Christ, a called apostle, separated to God’s glad tidings”.
Now it is a wonderful thing that the Lord Jesus Himself affords us a great Model on this line, though entirely different from us in the manner of His bondmanship. We were thinking of Him today, as recorded in Philippians 2: 6, “who, subsisting in the form of God, did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God”. It was evident when He was here that He did not esteem it an object of rapine to assert His equality with God; but it says. He “emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form, taking his place in the likeness of men” and then it goes on “having been found in figure as a man”, God has great thoughts of dignity connected with man, and the Lord was found here in figure as a man. Headship, kingship, and priesthood belong to man. But being found in figure as a man, He did not, at that time, claim those official positions, though they are His by right, but He “humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and granted him a name that which is above every name”. We see Him now as the Priest and King, God’s anointed. God bears witness to Him as such. But He, in infinite grace, has reached that position by way of bondman service, becoming obedient even unto death and that the death of the cross. He went into depths which the creature could never fathom; into sufferings which the creature could never have sustained. What a service He did! Think of His bondman service on earth ending in that way. God made Him to be sin for us. Think of Him being prepared to go that way in obedience, “Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us, that we might become God’s righteousness in him”, 2 Corinthians 5: 21. No wonder God has exalted Him! It is an act of righteousness on God’s part to exalt such a One as that. How could God do otherwise? “Wherefore also God highly exalted him, and granted him a name, that which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of heavenly and earthly and infernal beings and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to God the Father’s glory”. How right that is! It is the righteous, moral consequence of His bondman service even unto death, and that the death of the cross.
The taking a bondman’s form was His own act. “Once here in the form of a bondman, Thou servedst for wages of love”. The Hebrew bondman is a great type. It says, if he came in with his body, he could go out with his body (see footnote to Exodus 21: 4). But if he said plainly, I love my master, my wife, my children, I will not go out free, then certain consequences were to follow. Thus the Lord Jesus served for wages of love. Love led Him to empty Himself and take a bondman’s form; taking His place in the likeness of men to do bondman service; not, at that point, to take up His kingly position, but to do bondman service even unto death, even to the point of being made sin. And so, in His case, it was a matter of His body. He came in with His body, and bondmanship affects our bodies. According to Hebrews, as coming into the world He said, “Sacrifice and offering thou willedst not; but thou hast prepared me a body” (chapter 10: 5), or “ears hast thou digged”, as it says in the footnote to Psalm 40: 6, referring to the Hebrew bondman who would not go out free and whose ear was therefore bored to the doorpost. And then He adds, “Lo, I come ... to do, O God, thy will”, That passage shows that His bondman service had in view that He would offer Himself as the antitype of the offerings of old. “Sacrifice and offering thou willedst not; ... thou tookest no pleasure in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin ... . Then said I, Lo, I come”. The offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, in all that that meant to Him, was the amazing extent to which His bondman service went. He came in with His body and He surrendered His body in the offering of it to God. So that when it says, “I have completed the work which thou gavest me that I should do it”, you can see how that work centred, as it were, in the altar of burnt-offering. I am not excluding all that He did in His path of service here, but the great climax was there. The great work He came to do involved the offering of Himself.
All this bears on us, dear brethren, as to our bodies. Bondmanship is a matter of the body and it raises the question as to what we are doing with our bodies. Romans 6 shows how we become bondmen of God. We are bondmen on different terms from the Lord Jesus; we are bondmen because we have been bought, “Do ye not know ... ye are not your own? for ye have been bought with a price, glorify now then God in your body”, 1 Corinthians 6: 20. What are we doing with our bodies? If a man buys a slave, he wants the use of that man’s body. I would address myself to all my fellow-bondmen and bondwomen. What are we doing with our bodies? How are we using them, how are we adorning them? Are we living on this principle that we are not our own, we are bought with a price? And what a price! The price paid by the One who has marked out the path of bondmanship for us! What a price He paid! The word therefore is, glorify now then God in your body. It is your body that God wants. Man was created in God’s image and glory. “Whose is this image and superscription?” the Lord says, as regards the denarius. “They say to him, Caesar’s”. But man was created in God’s image and glory. We are to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, because God has set up Caesar; we are to understand how far Caesar has rights over our bodies. Chapter 12 of Romans, which sets out God’s rights over the believer, comes before chapter 13, which speaks of Caesar’s rights. And so does chapter 6. In chapter 6 we become bondmen to God. Chapter 12 shows that if we become bondmen we shall have something to present to God as priests. We are priests because we have the Spirit; but I am referring to the practical matter of having something to present in a priestly way. Romans 6 shows how we become bondmen, it is a detailed exercise. We yield ourselves to God, as alive from amongst the dead, and our members instruments of righteousness to God; that is, we have got to think of our bodies member by member. With some of us certain members get out of control, and, with other people, other members get out of control. But in Romans 6 the body is yielded to God, not exactly as a body, but member by member. Thus we become bondmen to righteousness, as it says, and finally, bondmen to God. God does not expect results like this until His grace has been proved. In Romans 5 we have access by faith into this favour in which we stand and we boast in hope of the glory of God. We also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And what is the answer? Our members are yielded to God. But then, if our members are yielded, so that we become bondmen of God according to Romans 6, we are able to serve as priests in Romans 12. “I beseech you ... brethren, by the compassions of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your intelligent service”. The word ‘service’ there is not bondman service but priestly service. We have a body to present to God as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable. How has it come about? Through accepting bondmanship. J.T. used to tell us that the Hebrew bondman of Exodus 21, viewed as a type of Christ, becomes the high priest of Exodus 28. It is the way of practical qualification for priesthood. So it raises the whole question of our bodies; how we are holding them, how we are clothing them, how we are using them. Man as God’s image and glory (1 Corinthians 11: 7) is responsible to express God. Are there any features of the world about us? We need divine adornment if we are to represent God. The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit is, in the sight of God, of great price.
This matter, therefore, affects not only brothers but sisters. All are involved in it. That is how the testimony began in Acts 2. Peter, explaining what had happened, says, “upon my bondmen and upon my bondwomen in those days will I pour out of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy”, Acts 2: 18. I am reading this scripture to show that we come into the gain of the anointing by way of bondmanship. You may say, I wish I had more joy in the Holy Spirit; I wish I were used more by the Spirit in prophecy and praise, and were better fitted to stand here for God in testimony in a kingly way. All those things are connected with the anointing, the prophet, priest and king. You wish you were more in those things? Then look to your bondmanship. Peter speaks of it from the side of grace first, “your sons and your daughters”. Does it not touch our hearts that God has poured out of His Spirit upon our sons and our daughters? But from His side, the persons He commits Himself to are His bondmen and His bondwomen. You may say, I am sure I have the Spirit. I hope indeed that you have the Spirit, because you are not in things vitally at all without the Spirit. But the anointing is not the initial view of the Spirit. If you look at 1 Corinthians 12: 12, 13, the instruction begins with the anointing. “So also is the Christ” (1 Corinthians 12: 12) refers to the assembly, the anointed vessel. Then it says (verse 13), “For also in the power of one Spirit we have all been baptised into one body”. And again, “and have all been given to drink of one Spirit”. Things are presented thus from the divine side, but, on our side, we come into the gain of the Spirit the other way. We have to learn to drink of one Spirit, to open our inwards to the Spirit, as the Lord says, “Every one who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever”. As we open our inwards to the Spirit, we find we are carried along in the current, immersed, and thus in the gain of having been baptised in one Spirit into one body. We find ourselves moving along with the brethren in the great current. This makes way for the grace of the anointing to be upon us and we find we are being used by the Spirit in public service and testimony. That is the way of it on our side. But it begins, as to our state, with our being bondmen and bondwomen. “Upon my bondmen and upon my bondwomen in those days will I pour out of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy”.
Now the first great result of being a bondman or a bondwomen is that you prophesy. I am not referring to the gift of prophecy; there were prophets and prophetesses in Scripture; but I am referring to the fact that the saints as a whole, if they are in the gain of the Spirit, have the mind of God. We belong to the prophetic, anointed vessel, the Christ. And so Paul says, “ye can all prophesy one by one”. He also says, we have the mind of Christ. The Corinthians ought to have had it, they had it potentially in the Spirit, but they were not in the gain of the Spirit because they had not accepted bondmanship. It is to them he says, “Do ye not know ... ye are not your own? for ye have been bought with a price: glorify now then God in your body”. They were using their bodies wrongly, were grieving the Holy Spirit, and therefore had not, in a practical way, the mind of Christ. But if you have the mind of Christ, you are thinking the thoughts of God, and you can speak of the things of God. And that is what the company in Acts 2 were doing. Men and women were speaking the great things of God. Men and women had the mind of God. The women would be acting in a comely way; they would be speaking normally, no doubt, to other women, although the woman of John 4 spoke to the men. But the point is “my bondmen and my bondwomen” were there in Acts 2 and they were prophesying: they had the mind of God. Who does God give His mind to? His bondmen and His bondwomen. How are you using your body? Have you accepted bondmanship? Paul had. He said “I bear in my body the brands of the Lord Jesus”, Galatians 6: 17. Not many of us could say that. But he gloried in it. He had the marks of the stripes he had borne and he viewed them as the brands of Christ’s happy slave, which he loved to be. He said, “For the rest let no one trouble me”. He as much as said, No one can question the reality of my Christianity, “I bear in my body the brands of the Lord Jesus”. In some degree, you know, there should be that about each of us which marks us off as Christ’s happy slaves. Do the people at your office or in the factory or the school, know that you are Christ’s happy slave, and that you would not be anything else for a thousand worlds? That is what they ought to know. You bear the mark of it in your body. If I am clothing myself according to the latest fashion, I am not bearing in my body the brands of the Lord Jesus, I pass muster in the world. This is a practical matter. For if you are not prepared for bondmanship, God will never trust you. God never trusts a man who trusts himself, but He also never trusts a man who is not committed in bondmanship. To His bondman He will disclose His mind. So that if you are a bondman you will become a prophet in this sense that you will have the mind of God; and that is one of the greatest things you could possibly aspire to, to have the mind of God - to know God, to know His thoughts, to know His will. I speak to the young people here. Would you not like to know God and to know His thoughts and to understand His will? Then take up your privilege of being happy slaves of Jesus Christ, bondmen of God. “If I were yet pleasing men”, the apostle says, “I were not Christ’s bondman”, Galatians 1: 10. Give up the idea of pleasing men. O, the bondage, the misery of it! It stands in the way of your spiritual progress. Be a bondman of Jesus Christ. His happy slave - now to please but One. If the young people take this up, they will get on well spiritually. We want the young men and women to get on well. God has committed Himself to us and He counts upon us to commit ourselves to Him. It is the only right thing to do because we have been bought with a price. We are not our own; do not let us think we are our own, think of the price that has been paid. Let brothers and sisters understand that it is their privilege to have the mind of God. God will trust you with His mind if you are trustworthy, and that depends on being a true bondman or bondwoman. So in Revelation 10: 7 it speaks of the mystery of God being completed “as he has made known the glad tidings to his own bondmen the prophets”. He makes known His deepest secrets, the mystery of God to His own bondmen. And that brings us to the point of friendship.
We read the word in John’s epistle, “The friends greet thee. Greet the friends by name”. This is not a fellowship within a fellowship, it does not mean special friendships in that sense; but it is a challenge as to whether we are truly in fellowship at the present time, because, if we are, we shall be among the friends. How do we qualify for friendship? The Lord says, “Ye are my friends if ye practise whatever I command you”. Now such a person is a bondman; a bondman is a man who does whatever he is told to do. He is not pleasing men, he is pleasing Christ, “Ye are my friends if ye practise whatever I command you”. Then He says, “I call you no longer bondmen”. The moment you become a true bondman of Christ and are prepared to do whatever He commands you in all your habits of life and service. He will say, “I call you no longer bondmen ... but I have called you friends, for all things which I have heard of my Father I have made known to you”. He will hold nothing back but will disclose every secret. The idea of friend in Scripture is a bosom friend. John was in the bosom of Jesus. He is the great example of a friend. The secrets of the bosom are known to such. And we are to understand who the friends are. I can tell you who the friends are. They are those who are committed to the Lord in bondmanship. They become distinguished, as Paul says of one, “the beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow bondman in the Lord” (Colossians 4: 7), and he names him. “The friends greet thee. Greet the friends by name”. The whole fellowship in these last days should come into this. There is no thought of anyone being outside of it, but you may be outside of it, because if you are not truly a bondman you cannot be a friend. You are outside of divine secrets.
There are great secrets to be communicated. Think of the secret made known to Daniel. He and his friends were men who held their bodies for God. Nebuchadnezzar said of them that they yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any God except their own God. They were bondmen. But see how wonderfully they were let into the secret of God’s ways in government. If you want to know the secret of God’s ways in government you must be a bondman and thus become a friend like Abraham, the friend of God. What an obedient man Abraham was! When he was called he obeyed and he commanded his household after him. God trusted that man. He said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing? The friends have intelligence as to God’s ways in government. But then God has greater things than His ways in government, and that is the mystery, the greatest of all secrets. But the friends of this dispensation understand that. Would you not like to qualify to be among the friends? I like to look round upon the friends, those who know, in some measure, the truth of the mystery, and who understand God’s ways in government. These are the two great secrets at the present time. The friends know them and become distinguished in that way. They are known by name. Let us come into this circle of the friends. It says “the Lord Jehovah will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets”, Amos 3: 7.
While prophecy is the first thing mentioned as to the bondmen and bondwomen in Acts 2, the fact is that, if we are prophets as having the mind of God, we shall be qualified to serve as priests. The gift of the Spirit constitutes us priests, but I am speaking about coming into the service practically. You cannot be a priest intelligently, unless you are a prophet. That is, you need the mind of God if you are to praise and pray aright. How can you praise God intelligently without knowing His mind and will? And how can you pray aright without knowing God’s mind and will? The first thing, you see, is to be a bondman; then you will come into the mind of God, you will be among the friends; and thus you will be qualified for your priestly office. The anointing has in view that you should function as a priest and this is the way of qualification. And so it says of Abraham “for he is a prophet, and will pray for thee”, Genesis 20: 7. Who knows how to pray? The prophet. It is the brother or sister who has the mind of God who knows how to pray. I believe the reference to Abraham is the first mention of a prophet in Scripture. He had not the gift of prophecy, but he was a prophet because he had the mind of God. God had not hidden from Abraham what He was doing. He was the friend of God and had the mind of God, and God says “for he is a prophet, and will pray for thee”. A prophet knows both how to pray and how to praise because he has the mind of God. So you can see how, on this line, we are fitted for the great office conferred upon us as priests of God and of the Christ. We know how to pray and how to praise, and that prepares us for our place in kingship. It says in Revelation 5: 9 “And they sing a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book and to open its seals; because thou hast been slain, and hast redeemed to God, by thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, and made them to our God kings and priests”. It is by way of bondmanship and by way of having the mind of God, that we can serve acceptably as priests and represent God as kings. The elders in Revelation are distinguished all through as having the mind of God, and they are seen on thrones, round the throne, and on their heads golden crowns. They are kings and priests to God. Each of them has “a harp and golden bowl full of incenses, which are the prayers of the saints”, Revelation 4: 4 and Revelation 5: 8.
But what is in mind is what we are now in a priestly and kingly way. We are a kingly priesthood and, as such, we are not only to serve God intelligently in prayer and praise, but to represent Him, as manifesting the true features of royalty, in our testimony in this world. We have a higher calling and greater power in the Spirit than the power that God has delegated to the authorities in this world. They are set up by God and we are to recognise what rightly belongs to Caesar, but we are above all to recognise what belongs to God; and the God we represent is the God who gives strength to His people. Daniel says, wisdom and might are His; and He gives us might, in the Spirit, to represent Him in a kingly way down here.
But in Revelation 22: 3 - 5 we have the culmination. It says “the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him”. The word ‘servants’ is ‘bondmen’ (see footnote). Think of the way bondmanship is carried through into the heavenly city! We cannot even say that the Lord Himself does not still take on bondman service at times. It says in Luke 12: 37 “that he will gird himself ... and coming up will serve them”. The word ‘service’ there is a different word but the girding Himself shows what the glorified Lord would do in love for His own. But then, as to the saints, it is evident that bondmanship is carried through into the heavenly city. His bondmen shall serve Him. The word ‘serve’ there is priestly service. His bondmen shall serve Him as priests. I believe the idea of God as God necessitates the thought of bondmen being carried right through. When we think of God as God, in His majesty and greatness, then, whatever relationship He brings us into, even sonship in the most blessed way, and whatever dignity He confers upon us as kings and priests, what place could we take but that of bondmen? And so “his bondmen shall serve him and they shall see his face; and his name is on their foreheads”. That is the mark of the bondmen. Let His name be on our foreheads now, let us move about in this world, having the evidence upon us of divine ownership, the evidence that we are the happy slaves of Jesus Christ and of God. Then we shall have liberty to serve Him now as priests; His bondmen will serve Him, and they will see His face. You would like to see His face? These are the people who see His face! And it goes on to say “they shall reign to the ages of ages”. The bondmen are both priests and kings, but they are still bondmen, they love to be, they love to recognise God’s complete rights over them.
So I come back for a moment to chapter 19. A voice came out of the throne in verse 5, and I believe it is the voice to us tonight, the voice from the throne. There is much about the throne in Revelation. It stands related to the temple in this book. Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple, and one seraphim called to the other saying, “Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And here there is a voice out of the throne. Are not you going to obey the voice from the throne? A voice came out of the throne, saying “Praise our God, all ye his bondmen”. I look round this hall tonight, and I address my brethren in this way, “all ye his bondmen”. You have been bought with a price, you are not your own, and the throne is speaking to you, and what is it saying? “Praise our God, all ye his bondmen, and ye that fear him, small and great”. Soon the beast is coming and it says of him that both small and great have to have his mark upon their forehead or upon their hand. Thank God it is God’s mark that is upon us. Let it be so, dear brethren; let us have in our body, in some way, the indication of divine ownership; let His mark be upon us. And if we really surrender to God in this way as bondmen, there will be no lack of praise. We shall understand the throne, we shall understand the thoughts of God and we shall respond at once to this voice, “Praise our God, all ye his bondmen, and ye that fear him, small and great”. Who would not be in this note of praise? There is an immediate response: “And I heard as a voice of a great crowd, and as a voice of many waters, and as a voice of strong thunders, saying, Hallelujah”. Four hallelujahs occur in this passage. Hallelujah, though a hackneyed term in Christendom, is one of the greatest notes of praise. Praise ye Jah, the great self-existent God! It is praise to God, God as God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For this title applies to Jesus. The first three verses of John’s gospel assert who He is; He is the great self-existent One. He always was, and all things began to be through Him. He is Jah, the great I AM. I AM is His own assertion of it, our answer is, “Praise ye Jah”. How wonderful to hail the Saviour in this way. Jesus our Saviour is the great self-existent One, co-equal with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. And we would say tonight, “Praise our God, all ye his bondmen”. And there is the answer, “Hallelujah, for the Lord our God the Almighty has taken to himself kingly power. Let us rejoice and exult, and give him glory; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready” - the great consummation of the mystery.
May we all be caught up in this note of praise tonight. I would say again, “Praise our God all ye his bondmen”. I call upon my brethren, and myself more than any, to be true in this matter of bondmanship. May the Lord help us for His Name’s sake.