EPHESIANS: Voluntary Slavery
EPHESIANS Number 32
Ephesians 3:1-21 (KJV)
“For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles,
Paul, who elsewhere wrote that it was for freedom that Christ has set us free, refers to himself as the prisoner of Jesus Christ. This immediately brings to mind his comments in Romans 6:18 “Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.”
Spiros Zodhiates, in “The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament” (2000). Says, “It denotes not so much a relation of service as primarily one of dependence upon, or bondage to, something.”
Paul is bound to Christ. He is dependent on the Lord Jesus as are we all.
TDNT (Kittle et.al.) speaking of this passage says, “this authority is Christ. Hence those who work by His commission, represent His cause and must give account only to Him, are rightly called His δοῦλοι [slaves, or bondservants].
Understood thus, the self-designation δοῦλος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ [slave of Jesus Christ] as used by Paul expands the parallel ἀπόστολος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ [Apostle of Jesus Christ]. If the latter describes Paul’s office according to its significance and operation towards those without, the former describes it according to the relationship to Christ and therefore its final basis, which consists in the fact that Christ has won Paul from the world and made him His possession.” --Karl Heinrich Rengstorf, Theological dictionary of the New Testament, (TDNT) 1964–, 2, 277.
I really love this thought because it perfectly describes our own situation relative to the Lord Jesus. He has won us. We are the joy that was set before Him for which He was willing to endure the cross. We are not our own, we were bought with a price. But this enslavement to Christ, this slavery to righteousness, did not come about by conquering. Quite the contrary. It came as an invitation to a relationship. A relationship based on love.
This is a sort of slavery we are free to reject, but it is beautiful because it frees us to live as Father designed us to live.
