'I bear in my body the marks of the Lord
Jesus.'--GAL. vi. 17.
The reference in these words is probably to the cruel custom of branding
slaves as we do cattle, with initials or signs, to show their ownership.
It is true that in old times criminals, and certain classes of Temple
servants, and sometimes soldiers, were also so marked, but it is most in
accordance with the Apostle's way of thinking that he here has reference
to the first class, and would represent himself as the _slave_ of Jesus
Christ, designated as His by the scars and weaknesses which were the
consequences of his apostolic zeal. Imprisonment, beating by the Jewish
rod, shipwrecks, fastings, weariness, perils, persecutions, all these he
sums up in another place as being the tokens by which he was approved as
an apostle of Jesus Christ. And here he, no doubt, has the same thought
in his mind, that his bodily weakness, which was the direct issue of his
apostolic work, showed that he was Christ's. The painful infirmity under
which, as we learn, he was more especially suffering, about the time of
writing this letter, may also have been in his mind.
All through this Epistle he has been thundering and lightning against
the disputers of this apostolic authority. And now at last he softens,
and as it were, bares his thin arm, his scarred bosom, and bids these
contumacious Galatians look upon them, and learn that he has a right to
speak as the representative and messenger of the Lord Jesus.
So we have here two or three points, I think, worth considering. First,
think for a moment of the slave of Christ; then of the brands which mark
the ownership; then of the glory in the servitude and the sign; and then
of the immunity from human disturbances which that service gives. 'From
henceforth let no man trouble me. I bear in my body the marks of the
Lord Jesus.'
I. First, then, a word or two about that conception of the slave of
Christ.
It is a pity that our Bible has not rendered the title which Paul ever
gives himself at the beginning of his letters, by that simple word
'slave,' instead of the feebler one, 'servant.' For what he means when
he calls himself the 'servant of Jesus Christ' is not that he bore to
Christ the kind of relation which servants among us bear to those who
have hired and paid them, and to whom they have come under obligations
of their own will which they can terminate at any moment by their own
caprice; but that he was in the roughest and simplest sense of the word,
Christ's slave.
What lies in that metaphor? Well, it is the most uncompromising
assertion of the most absolute authority on the one hand, and claim of
unconditional submission and subjection on the other.
The slave belonged to his master; the master could do exactly as he
liked with him. If he killed him nobody had anything to say. He could
set him to any task; he could do what he liked with any little
possession or property that the slave seemed to have. He could break all
his relationships, and separate him from wife and kindred.
All that is atrocious and blasphemous when it is applied to the
relations between man and man, but it is a blessed and magnificent truth
when it is applied to the relations between a man and Christ. For this
Lord has absolute authority over us, and He can do what He likes with
everything that belongs to us; and we, and our duties, and our
circumstances, and our relationships, are all in His hands, and the one
thing that we have to render to Him is utter, absolute, unquestioning,
unhesitating, unintermittent and unreserved obedience and submission.
That which is abject degradation when it is rendered to a man, that
which is blasphemous presumption when it is required by a man, that
which is impossible, in its deepest reality, as between man and man, is
possible, is blessed, is joyful and strong when it is required by, and
rendered to, Jesus Christ. We are His slaves if we have any living
relationship to Him at all. Where, then, in the Christian life, is there
a place for self-will; where a place for self-indulgence; where for
murmuring or reluctance; where for the assertion of any rights of my own
as against that Master? We owe absolute obedience and submission to
Jesus Christ.
And what does the metaphor carry as to the basis on which this authority
rests? How did men acquire slaves? Chiefly by purchase. The abominations
of the slave market are a blessed metaphor for the deep realities of the
Christian life. Christ has bought you for His own. The only thing that
gives a human soul the right to have any true authority over another
human soul is that it shall have yielded itself to the soul whom it
would control. We must first of all give ourselves away before we have
the right to possess, and the measure in which we give ourselves to
another is the measure in which we possess another. And so Christ our
Lord, according to the deep words of one of Paul's letters, 'gives
Himself for us, that He might purchase unto Himself a people for His
possession.' 'Ye are not your own; ye are bought with a price.'
Therefore the absolute authority, and unconditional surrender and
submission which are the very essence of the Christian life, at bottom
are but the corresponding and twofold effects of one thing, and that is
love. For there is no possession of man by man except that which is
based on love. And there is no submission of man to man worth calling
so except that which is also based therein.
'Thou hearts alone wouldst move;
Thou only hearts dost love.'
The relation in both its parts, on the side of the Master and on the
side of the captive bondsman, is the direct result and manifestation of
that love which knits them together.
Therefore the Christian slavery, with its abject submission, with its
utter surrender and suppression of mine own will, with its complete
yielding up of self to the control of Jesus, who died for me; because it
is based upon His surrender of Himself to me, and in its inmost essence
it is the operation of love, is therefore co-existent with the noblest
freedom.
This great Epistle to the Galatians is the trumpet call and clarion
proclamation of Christian liberty. The breath of freedom blows
inspiringly through it all. The very spirit of the letter is gathered up
in one of its verses, 'I have been called unto liberty,' and in its
great exhortation, 'Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ
hath made you free.' It is then sufficiently remarkable and profoundly
significant that in this very letter, which thus is the protest of the
free Christian consciousness against all limitations and outward
restrictions, there should be this most emphatic declaration that the
liberty of the Christian is slavery and the slavery of the Christian is
freedom. He is free whose will coincides with his outward law. He is
free who delights to do what he must do. He is free whose rule is love,
and whose Master is Incarnate Love. 'If the Son make you free, ye shall
be free indeed.' 'O Lord, truly I am Thy servant, Thou hast loosed my
bands.' 'I bear in my body' the charter of my liberty, for I bear in my
body the 'brand of the Lord Jesus.'