THE TRANSFORMING GOSPEL
Letter writing is almost a lost art. We’d rather pick up the phone or dash off an e-mail but I’m glad that Paul used pen and ink. Doubtless Paul, being a man of letters and bubbling over with ideas for the spread of the gospel, must have written many personal letters to the scores of key people he met in the course of his travels. But of his correspondence, only a few have survived, of which Philemon is one, and that, no doubt, because it was selected for inclusion in the Canon of Scripture. It consists of only 300 words but what a gem it is! It was written about AD64 from Rome, where Paul was imprisoned but on account of his age, and may be on account of his good behaviour, the apostle was allowed to live in his own lodgings, chained to a soldier. Here, under house arrest, his friends were allowed to visit him.
Every book in the New Testament has a purpose behind its writing, a story that prompted the author to take up his pen. This is certainly true in the letter to Philemon. He was a wealthy Christian who lived in Colossi and who had been converted through Paul’s preaching. Philemon had a wife named Apphia and a son named Archippus, and they had many slaves in their household, among whom was a man named Onesimus. It seems clear from the letter that Onesimus robbed his master, Philemon, and perhaps having been discovered or betrayed had to flee for his life. Colosse was not a large town and a fugitive from justice could not stay there and remain undetected. Where better to hide out and disappear from official view than in the capital city of Rome, which would always have large numbers of foreigners within its walls. Yet, in the providence of God, he somehow came into contact with Paul, the very man who had led his master to Christ, and the result of this encounter was that Onesimus became a Christian.
How it was that the truth came out that he had stolen from Philemon we don’t know. It has been suggested that Epaphras, one of Paul’s small band of close friends in Rome recognised Onesimus as a slave he had seen at Colosse. Perhaps it was then that the whole wretched story came out. Or was it a pang of conscience which moved Onesimus to make a confession of his discreditable past and he asked Paul’s help to bring about a reconciliation with his former master? Whatever are the exact facts, Paul gave his help by writing this wonderful letter to Philemon, in which was gently asked to forgive Onesimus and to receive him back.
The letter is a beautiful model of letter writing. It’s an example of tact and charm and fully deserved to be kept for all time. It’s an illustration of the transforming power of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here we find how exposure to the gospel makes a difference at every point where it touches life - because what is Christianity if it does not work? Here we have a marvellous insight in the way we can expect to change when the grace and rule of Jesus Christ begins to effect human affairs we see how:
A PRISONER BECOMES A SPIRITUAL FATHER
Paul sketches a revealing pen-portrait of himself. "I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment." The affectionate reference to Onesimus, "my child, Onesimus" is typical of the warm bond of love, which existed between Paul and his converts. It’s a comment on what the grace of God had worked in the apostle himself.
This is the one-time self-righteous Pharisee, the Jew who was so proud of his parentage and spiritual pedigree going back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But after the transforming encounter with Christ a radical change in his attitudes has come about, enabling him to speak of Onesimus in a way in which he would never have dreamed of. It is no empty formula but a fact which enables him to speak of a Gentile, and a Gentile slave at that, taken from the very dregs of Roman society, and refer to him as a son.
Christianity is nothing if it doesn’t show itself in relationships. The hallmark of New Testament religion is that individual believers become a church family through the relationship that Christ creates. We are to take care of each other, to involve ourselves in each other’s predicaments. If one member of the body suffers, then all suffer this is the way of Christ. This is why Christians have been at the forefront in caring for the sick and the under privileged. Good government steps in with its central resources and so enables us to help other countries. But the need is so great.
Paul’s consuming passion was to win people for Christ, to make men whole, rescuing them from sin and restoring them to a right relationship with God and society. Now it happens that the name Onesimus means "useful", and Paul takes the opportunity of contrasting his former life, saying it was "useless" with what he is now. With a play on the word, Onesimus, the run-away slave, is now "useful" both in name and nature. His new found usefulness is due to his new found faith. It was Paul who was instrumental in bringing Onesimus to God, and he calls him his son. There is a Jewish saying that if one teaches the son of his neighbours the law; the Scripture reckons this the same as though he had begotten him. Paul knew that there is no greater joy than to be spiritual fathers of those coming to Christ.
We have noted how in the operation of the gospel a prisoner becomes a father, but now we must go on to see how the presence of Christ transforms every situation so that:
A SLAVE BECOMES A BROTHER IN CHRIST
In verse 16 Paul tells Philemon, the slave-owner, that he would be receiving back Onesimus "no longer as a slave but more than a slave, " As a beloved brother." This was radical thinking for the first century; it completely overturned the traditional values of that society. The system of slavery was built deeply into the Roman Empire. It was part of the roman culture that certain men should be slaves, to perform the menial tasks, to serve the higher orders. There were 60 million slaves that a danger of revolt was constantly to be guarded against, and any sign of revolt, even minor disobedience, resulted in the harshest punishment.
When the full facts about Onesimus came to Paul’s knowledge, it placed him in a dilemma. Even though Onesimus had grown very dear to him, becoming as it were his son during these months in prison, Paul knew that he must send him back to his master. Christianity is not out to help a man escape his past and run away from it; it is out to enable him face his past and rise above it. Onesimus had run away. Well, then, he must go back, face the consequences of what he did, accept them and rise above them. Christianity is never escape; it is always conquest.
King Edward VIII recalled his boyhood as Prince of Wales. He said: `My father (King George V) was a strict disciplinarian. Sometimes when I had done something wrong, he would admonish me saying, "My dear boy, you must always remember who you are." This is something that Onesimus did. He reminded himself that he was a changed person and should act accordingly, even though the consequences might be painful. It’s something that we should do. We should constantly be reminding ourselves who we are. We need to learn to talk to ourselves, and ask ourselves questions: Don’t you know? Don’t you know the meaning of your conversion and baptism? Don’t you know that you have been united to Christ in his death and resurrection? Don’t you know that you have been enslaved to God and have committed yourself to his obedience? We must go on pressing ourselves with such questions, until we reply to ourselves: Yes, I do know who I am, a new person in Christ, and by the grace of God I shall live accordingly.
Onesimus comes back with a difference. He went away a heathen slave; he comes back as a brother in Christ. Paul doesn’t deny that Onesimus is still a slave. He says he is returning not now "as" a slave. He is still a slave; but he is no longer to be treated as one, for the old relationship of master and slave is absorbed into the new one of brother in Christ. It is going to be hard for Philemon to regard a runaway slave as a brother; but that is exactly what Paul demands. "If you agree," says Paul, that I am your partner in the work of Christ and that Onesimus is my son in the faith, you must receive him as you would receive myself". Here again is something very significant. The Christian must always welcome back the person who has made a mistake. The natural reaction is to view him with suspicion and be slow to trust Him, but Paul saw that Onesimus was genuinely converted and had no hesitation in giving him the warmest commendation, "as a brother beloved ... in the flesh and in the Lord."
I recently saw the film of the American classic ’Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ and realised afresh that slavery is such a terrible institution, a blot on the human race. It has been a source of puzzlement why Paul did not condemn it outright, for here was his opportunity to do so. And yet he remained silent; he doesn’t even tell Philemon to set Onesimus free for it is still as a slave that he would have been taken back. Did Paul, as a man of his time, accept slavery? I hardly think so. Surely Paul’s silence was in accordance with the strategic plan of God.
If Christianity had, in the early days of the church, given the slaves any encouragement of revolt or leave their masters, nothing but tragedy could have followed. Any revolt would have been savagely crushed; any slave who took his freedom would have been mercifully punished; any Christianity would have been branded as revolutionary and undermining the state.
The empty writings are all the more radical for not trying to defy the corrupt society of the time and urging slaves to throw off their shackles in a glorious revolution. If they had Jesus would have been reduced to a political revolutionary. No, they chose ’instead to ignore the boundaries between slaves and masters completely - to treat them as if they didn’t exist at all. Christianity had in it from the beginning the seeds of slavery’s distraction, for how could two men, standing together before God, as sinners forgiven by His grace, be so divided by man-made barriers? Already in Christ the distinction had been destroyed. Paul wrote to the church in Galatia, "there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female - for you are all one in Christ."
Given a Christian faith, emancipation was bound to come, as indeed it did under the guiding had of God when godly men, such as William Wilberforce pricked the conscience of the world. But at the time when Paul was writing to Philemon, the time was not right. There are some things best left to God’s timing. Why was Communism allowed to ruin Russia and many other nations for 70 years? Perhaps the Lord of history let communism ruin itself so that all might see the corruption of atheistic materialism. It’s thrilling to witness the change of heart that has taken place in South Africa with the pillars of apartheid being demolished. God is working His purposes out. It’s our duty to pray and work for the coming of His Kingdom.
We have noticed in this short letter two examples of the transformation brought by the Gospel, of how a prisoner became a spiritual father and of how a slave became a brother in Christ. Now in closing we see how:
A CREDITOR BECOMES A DEBTOR TO GRACE
Paul wrote to Philemon about the debt owed to him by Onesimus. Generously, he says,"I will repay it - to say nothing of your owing me even your own self." Paul had to act with great tact and diplomacy. His objective was to get Philemon to accept and forgive his slave Onesimus. Paul knew all about human nature - how we like to stick up for our own right; how we expect other people to defer to us but find it hard to stand aside in others. Remember Paul’s words to the Christians at Philippi, "Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." Well, here in his relations with Philemon, he was putting his own words into practice.
Paul was starting from a position of power and authority, for he had been instrumental in Philemon’s conversion to Christ and so it could be said that Philemon owed Paul a favour. Paul was Philemon’s creditor. Not only that, but Paul was an Apostle while Philemon was only a local church pastor. But Paul does not pull rank; he ignores his rights and instead offers to repay any debt that Onesimus owes. Paul was giving a written acknowledgement of debt; He was giving Philemon an IOU - that he would repay the slave’s debt. The creditor was willing to become a debtor in the cause of the Gospel.
Paul has now set Onesimus an example of putting others first and so he is in a position to remind Philemon of the far greater debt that Philemon owes him. It isn’t something that can be measured in monetary terms for it is Philemon’s own spiritual life, and there is the implication, very gently put, that Onesimus’s debt which Paul has taken over is more than cancelled. This thought must lead us to the conclusion that we are all debtors to the grace of God shown through the Lord Jesus Christ in giving His life to be our Saviour. This puts everything into context. We owe Him everything and ultimately we have no rights of our own.
The letter to Philemon shows the gospel at work in the life of Paul revealing how the love of Christ constrained him, even while in prison to proclaim the gospel to the end that an outcast of society, a slave, became a Christian, and to him a son. It shows, too, how in Christ, a slave can be embraced as a brother, and that in the presence of the Lord, a Christian who has rights as a creditor can accept the position of a debtor. These are transformations of which the world knows nothing, but come only as an outworking of the love of Christ. May that love be the rule of our lives.
