BONDMEN OF GOD, OF CHRIST AND OF THE SAINTS

BONDMEN OF GOD, OF CHRIST AND OF THE SAINTS

Romans 6: 17, 18; 2 Corinthians 4: 5; Philippians 1: 1; Revelation 1: 1

No doubt we have all been impressed at times with the wide range of relationships in which we stand to God and to Christ, so wide indeed, that God is to be everything. He is to be all in all, and so with Christ Jesus, He is to be everything and in all. In our relations with God we start with that of creatures. God, the blessed Creator, and we are to be a kind of first-fruits of His creatures. Then we are His people and He is our God. We are His flock, and He is the Shepherd. The flock of God is the subject of His care and provision and oversight. Then we are His children and He is our Father. As His children He watches over us and trains us; He protects us; He loves us; He is a Father to us. Then we are His priests, priests of God, ministers of the Lord, and we serve Him in this way. Then we are of His assembly, His senators. What a wonderful range of relationships and positions we stand in to God in all this. Then we are His sons, “sons,” it says, “of the living God.”

You can see, therefore, how all this, and much more, provides for God being everything. So with Christ, He is everything, as Colossians puts it, He is “everything and in all” to His people. What a range of relationships we stand in to Christ! We are His disciples, He is our Teacher. He is anointed with the oil of gladness above His companions; we are His companions. We are His and we owe everything to Him.

God has given us to Him. “Behold, I and the children which God has given me.” We are also of His assembly. “On this rock,” He says, “I will build my assembly.” We form part of His body, part of that great company that is called the bride, the Lamb’s wife, and we are also His brethren. All this provides, too, for Christ being everything; provides a range for our hearts and minds that is worthy to fill them. Instead of chasing the vanities of the human mind, what a range opens out in all these relationships and positions in which the people of God stand to God and to Christ!

I want to say a few words as to our position in relation to Christ and to God as bondmen. The position of bondmen does not weaken in any way all the others, and yet is perfectly true, as one feature of the truth that is to be taken up. We are bondmen of Christ; we are bondmen to God, and I want to commend this to the brethren here as providing a line of exercises that will lead to each, especially the young, being for God and for Christ. By many, Christianity is looked at as optional and subsidiary, but the acceptance of bondmanship means that the things of God and His precious interests are not optional with us, nor subsidiary to other things, and the great corrective to a manner of life that would make them so is the true acceptance of the bondman position.

The young will understand that the position of “bondman” is entirely different from what we mean by the word “servant” today. The claim to render service for forty or forty-four hours per week for certain rewards and then to be perfectly free afterwards is not what Scripture means by being a bondman. The civilised world has sought to sweep away the position of slavery in which men own other men. This, of course, has been dreadfully abused, but God retains this position in His system, where it is not abused. I commend that position to every heart as most attractive. It is not one to be evaded, as the slaves of America ran away into Canada to be free, but, as understood rightly, this is what the bondman says, “I love my master... I will not go out free”; I love these bonds that bind me as His property, so that I have not any option, any rights, any liberty for aught but the will of my Master. It may seem to be lowering the standard suitable for the great system of liberty that Christianity is, but you will be in good company if you accept bondmanship.

Our blessed Lord accepted it. Indeed, He has taken it, not simply accepted it, for He who was in the form of God, took a bondman’s form. There is no form that the human mind can ever conceive that would correspond with the form of God. It is outside the human range, yet, of the One who was in that form, it says, He “emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form.” As having in mind to come into this scene, into manhood, He selected the form He would appear in as that of a bondman, not that of a king, though He was born a King. It says, He took a bondman’s form and was found in fashion as a man, so that, dear brethren, if we accept the bondman’s position we shall be in company with Christ.

And we shall have Moses with us, “the bondman of God,” as it says of him in the Revelation; that great prophet was called the bondman of God. And we shall have Mary with us, the mother of the Lord,

for she accepted the place of being bondmaid, “Be it to me according to thy word.” We shall have the aged Simeon, the man granted the secrets of heaven, for He said, “Lord, now thou lettest thy bondman go.” We shall have John, “his bondman John,” he says in the Revelation. He will be with us in that position. We shall have James, the bondman of Jesus Christ; Jude, the bondman of Jesus Christ and the brother of James. Peter, also, and Paul are bondmen. How Paul loved to speak of himself thus. And we shall have the prophets with us for they are all bondmen, the Revelation tells us that. And we shall have the angels with us, for the angel says, consequent on Christ taking that form, “I am thy fellow-bondman, and the fellow-bondman of thy brethren, the prophets,” so that, dear brethren, while the position may be one that the world would condemn, it is one in which we shall find excellent company, where all the notables of heaven are found. I want to refer to these four scriptures in this connection, first of our acceptance of being bondmen to righteousness, then of our being “your bondmen for Jesus’ sake,” then a word as to the bondmen of Christ, and finally of bondmen of God, and what that leads to. We start with Romans, because Romans is the beginning for us, the great preparatory epistle for what lies beyond.

The preparation for having part livingly in the local assembly of Corinthians, in the true heavenly Christianity of Philippians, and for the spiritual and heavenly side of the universal assembly of Ephesians, all lies in Romans. Romans prepares the individual for the great thoughts of God. We have there the thought of having been bondman to sin. We all know about that, for the great system of sin set up in this world holds men in slavery. We have been in it, like the children of Israel in Egypt, bond-slaves there to the great lawless system of the world. What slavery it is, without option! What bonds hold men there! The mighty power of money is in that world, the bond that holds many a man in its grip, so that he is not free to do as he would. The bond of pleasure, the bond, maybe, of dress, of fashion; all these things and many others are chains that Satan uses to bind his slaves. We have all had part in it; we were all bondmen to sin, but the apostle says, “God be thanked.” How we do thank Him that He has taken us out of the slavery of the world’s system and liberated us. But what for? To become the bond-men of righteousness.

Righteousness is not an optional or subsidiary matter but a compulsory matter, a position in which we are bound. We have no liberty to be unrighteous. Righteousness demands of us as bondmen to it. Let us not think we can travel further in spiritual things if we do not accept its claims. Righteousness in our relationships, in our occupations, in our associations, is a matter of such importance that we, as Christians, stand in the position of bondmen to righteousness. One would earnestly commend that especially to the young men, and young sisters too, that everything begins there, and if we move away from that position we can go no further spiritually. I have no doubt that what the Lord is raising at the present time in this city has to do with the compulsory character of righteousness — the rights of God, that we are His bondmen and bondmen to righteousness. The Lord would help us to accept that position in every sphere of life, as the great initial position that leads to much beyond.

I want to say a word now about what is connected with the Corinthian position, the local assembly. The apostle spent much time in Corinth. He refers to his preaching there, and views the saints in Corinth in such a light that he says of himself and Timothy, “ourselves, your bondmen for Jesus’ sake.” I wonder whether we are prepared to accept that without option. That in relation to God’s people, God’s husbandry in this world, we are “your bond-men.” For the sake of what Jesus would have from this husbandry and this building and what God would have, Paul says “your bondmen.” I would earnestly commend that to all here. If it was good for the great apostle, our apostle, who was not one whit behind the chiefest apostle, let it suffice us.

We shall never serve the saints in this, or any city, unless we clothe them with the thoughts of God. You may say, You do not know what is underneath here. Things are not worse here than at Corinth, yet the apostle clothes the Corinthian saints with God’s thoughts of them. He speaks of them as God’s assembly in that city; he says, “Do ye not know that ye are the temple of God?” and again later, he says, “Ye are body of Christ,” and as he clothes the saints with these great heavenly thoughts, viewing them as God takes account of them in relation to His work he says, “Ourselves, your bondmen,” our life is to serve you without option or desire to be otherwise. He says of the saints at Corinth, “all things are yours;

whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas... all are yours.” That is how he looked on the saints.

Again he says, “Ye are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read of all men.” Wherever Paul went, he spoke well of the Corinthians; he did not discredit them, though he knew there were things that troubled him, his business was not to discredit the Corinthians, but they were his letter, known and read of all men. He boasted of them to other gatherings, rejoicing in the great work of God in that city. We cannot serve God’s people if we do not honour them with divine thoughts and appreciate the work of God that is there, and take up, as to ourselves, the position of bondmen to them. You cannot rightly serve any one you do not honour and so the great apostle says to the Corinthian assembly, “ourselves, your bondmen for Jesus’ sake.” I beg all to open their hearts to this, that the thing that controls them here is to serve that which is so precious to Christ and to God, instead of making our occupations, or our homes, or our health the controlling factor and making divine interests optional and subordinate, alas! as some do, to the great loss of their own souls as well as to the brethren.

The line on which the Lord will bless all of us, and bless His people too, is that of bondmen to the saints; so that we understand that our presence, our support and our contributions to what will build up God’s people are not optional. We are not to do merely what we naturally care to, or go away for weekends if we care to. Paul says, “ourselves, your bondmen for Jesus’ sake.” That is what is wanted, that every brother and sister should take up this bondman position,

not only to Christ and to God, but to the saints; “your bondmen for Jesus’ sake,” and the Lord will bless such.

I will come in a moment to what the bondmen get, but the work of God prospers where there are bondmen. Think, for example, of the one whom the Lord has recently taken to Himself from this city. What an example he was! One who made divine interests first and everything else subordinate. I beg the young men to have such as a model before them, so that, come what may, the Lord’s interests stand as the controlling object; home and business and health and other things being subsidiary.

Now refer to Philippians. How fitting that the apostle should open as he does, for he is going to speak of the One who was in the form of God taking a bondman’s form, and becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. The very first words recorded from the lips of Jesus were, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?” “I must,” that is the bondman’s position. It is not a question of what one would like to do personally, the bondman must attend to the business committed to him. So the Lord says, “I must work the works of him that has sent me while it is day!” The apostle has this before him as inspired to write this wonderful epistle and so he says, “Paul and Timotheus, bondmen of Jesus Christ.”

It is not, of course, compulsion by mere arbitrary power, but it is compulsion, by the mighty constraint of divine love. God speaks of “the cords of love,” and “the bands of a man.” They were so bound round the heart of Paul that they made him the bondman of Jesus Christ, ready to do His will whatever the cost, ready to go wherever He sent him, ready for a path of suffering if the Lord called him to it. And He did, for He said, “I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”

The apostle takes up this position in relation to Christ, that he is His bondman. What a solution to many a question in our spiritual histories, if we just quietly, humbly and happily accept the bondman’s position. It makes life simple in so far as it is true that our business is to carry out the behest of our Master who has bought us. It says, “Ye are not your own, ...ye are bought with a price.” Do we accept that we are the property of the Lord, that we are to glorify God in our body and our spirit, which are His? It will lead us into a path of wonderful blessing, and fruitfulness, and joy, if we accept it.

Finally in the Revelation we have the thought of bondmen of God. The “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show to his bondmen what must shortly take place, and he signified it, sending by his angel to his bondman John.” The great undoing of the lawless principle that Satan has introduced at the outset is found in the acceptance of the place of bondmen to God. Our business His will, as the Lord said, “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me.” If we accept this, it leads to another position. The Lord said to His own, “I call you no longer bondmen... I have called you friends.” Let us see that such are bondmen first. The Lord says, I do not call you any longer bondmen, you have been and are bondmen, I have bound you to Myself, but if I have bondmen, I will give them another position,

I will call them friends. There is no other way to be amongst the friends of Christ or the friends of God except by the way of being bondmen.

How perfectly that is seen in Jesus, to whom in this world as in bondman form, the Father told everything. So with the angels, they are His bondmen and the great mystery is understood by them. “God... manifest in flesh, ...seen of angels.” The great mystery of the incarnation is seen by the angels, the fellow-bondmen of the prophets. So with Abraham, to whom God appears, Abraham taking the position of being God’s servant. “For this cause,” he says, “thou hast appeared to thy servant,” and then God says, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?” and He calls him the friend of God — a glorious title!

So with Moses, the bondman of God, God spoke to him face to face as a man speaks to his friend. If He finds a bondman, He will make him His friend and tell him His secrets. He showed the pattern of all the figurative representation of the things in the heavens to His friend Moses. The bondmaid Mary has the greatest secret ever disclosed to a human heart conveyed to her, the incoming of the blessed Son of God; the bondman Simeon has revealed to him that he will not taste death until he sees the Lord’s Christ; the bondman John must know all that is coming, the great working out and fruition of divine thoughts, culminating in the new heavens and new earth; the bondman Paul receives from the Lord. How much he received! “I received from the Lord, that which I also delivered to you.” He received the supper, he received the truth of the rapture, he is given an insight into all the counsels of God, what God purposed in Himself before the ages of time; all is disclosed to His bondman Paul.

So it is today, however feeble the measure, those who have an understanding of what God is doing, to whom divine things are communicated, are bondmen elevated to the nearness of friends. Those who accept the position of obligation without option, to the Lord and to God and to the saints, and to righteousness, are selected for the secrets of heaven. I commend to every heart here, that in the measure in which you take up the position of bondman, you will find that the Lord will say to you, I call you no longer bondmen, I call you friends. The Lord will do nothing but He tells His servants the prophets. A wonderful statement! Everything that the Lord will do He tells somebody; He tells His bondmen, He makes them His friends. Think of twenty, thirty, or fifty bondmen in Brisbane, bound to righteousness, bound to the saints for service, bound to Christ, bound to God for His will, enjoying the secrets of heaven. What fruitfulness, what increase would follow for God! How it would lead to the husbandry yielding more for God and to the building being seen in its true character, as the temple of God, in Brisbane.

One desires to commend this great thought, exemplified in all its perfection in Christ. First we accept, without option, in every sphere the position of bondmen to righteousness, secondly as linked with the saints, we say, “your bondmen for Jesus’ sake.” We do not put our health first, our homes first, or our money first. The controlling thing of our hearts and lives is that we are “bondmen for Jesus’ sake.” Then, dear brethren, we are the bondmen of Jesus Christ,

the One who took a bondman’s form. “It is sufficient,” says the Lord, “for the disciple that he should become as his teacher, and the bondman as his lord.” It is sufficient! Do we want to be different from Christ, different from Paul, different from Moses, different from the angels of heaven? Would we do as we like, go where we like, spend our time as we like? The Lord would help us to say, It is sufficient, that we want nothing better. It satisfied Paul and it satisfied Moses. It satisfied Mary and it satisfied the aged Simeon to his last day.

May the Lord help us to be satisfied thus, and we will find we shall understand the secrets of heaven. The mind of God is disclosed to His friends who, first of all, are bondmen. May the Lord encourage us all to take it up in reality and faith, as seeing it in Christ personally, and delighting in it.