1 Corinthians 6:19–20 — Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 20 For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
We have touched on this concept earlier in this series, but it is worth returning to and developing more fully, and especially in times and in cultures where this aspect of the Christian life is either forgotten or deliberately avoided.
When Christ shed His blood and died upon the cross, He did more than save His people from the guilt, power and punishment that their sin deserved. It is remarkable and wonderful that He did that, but He did more. As an integral part of the process of saving them, He redeemed them. They were the property and the willing slaves of Satan, who, as a strong man fully armed, guarded his possessions and kept them undisturbed. But then Jesus came as the one stronger than "strong man fully armed", overpowered him and plundered him of his possessions (particularly, his slaves) - see Luke 11:21-22. Jesus released us from the dominion of Satan. In doing so, a price had to be paid - not a payment to Satan, but to God, to satisfy His justice on account of the sins committed by the people. As a result, all true believers are now owned by Jesus, Who bought them with His blood.
We often talk about being set free as Christians, but as with many other things in the Christian faith, we bring our pre-existing ideas of freedom to the subject and decide that they must apply here also. They do not. Jesus did not set us free in the sense that there is now no-one to rule over us and we are "free" to do whatever we want, whether it is good or evil. He did not set us free of all obligations, duties and responsibilities. Remarkably, He did not free us from being slaves. Rather, He freed us from the tyranny of our slave master, Satan, who would have destroyed us ruthlessly and without compassion, and brought us into His own household. Here, we are bound as slaves to a new Master, Who loves us with an everlasting love and works all things together for our best and highest good. For the Christian, being a bondslave of Christ is the very essence of freedom! We have been released from serving Satan and will ultimately be completely free from all other masters than our God - including our sin which still entangles us if we allow it.
Paul recognized that this Christian liberty means becoming a slave to Christ. He introduced himself in some of his letters in exactly this way - "Paul and Timothy, bond-servants of Christ Jesus..." (Philippians 1:1, using a word that is elsewhere translated as bondslave). He calls other believers bondslaves of Christ. Do we think that this was true of New Testament Christians, but is not true of us? Look at the text above. The members of the church in Corinth were not free as we sometimes think of freedom today. They did not belong to themselves (they never had). Rather, instead of being owned by Satan and slaves to sin, a purchase price had been paid and they were now owned by Jesus and slaves to righteousness.
Paul develops this concept of Christians as slaves of Christ in Romans 6:16-23. He indicates that before they were saved, believers were slaves to sin leading to death but in salvation they become slaves of obedience and righteousness, leading to sanctification. He sums this up in Romans 6:22 as follows:
Romans 6:22 — But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.
So when believers are tempted to think of themselves as free, and as having "God-given rights," they need to temper those ideas by the recollection that they are bondslaves to the most wonderful Master imaginable. Their freedom is not for them to do what their old, sinful nature wants, but it is freedom to obey God and to become more like Jesus. They are not citizens of any nation in this world but belong to a heavenly kingdom, and are servants, slaves, of its glorious King!
At the Table, we have a reminder of the price with which we were bought - of the Life that was given up so that our lives might be saved. We should rejoice in this, but also be humbled by it, recalling our proper standing as bondslaves of our God and Savior.
