THIRD QUARTER 2023
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #11
SEPTEMBER 9, 2023
“PRACTICING SUPREME LOYALTY TO CHRIST”

 

 

Our lesson this week examines Paul’s instruction to parents, children, masters, and slaves.  While written centuries ago, the foundational truths that undergird this passage are applicable to all Christians in every age.

 

If not read through the lens of the gospel it might appear from his writings that Paul supports the institution of slavery.  This is not the case, however.  Paul preached that all share a common brotherhood and sisterhood through creation and redemption.  Yet, following the example of Jesus, he made no attempt to overthrow the social order entrenched in the Roman-Greco culture.  Instead, he preached a transformative message.  If not refused, the good news of Christ crucified and risen brings God’s children back into harmony with Heaven and one another.  The image of God is restored in mankind.  As the lesson’s author points out, Ephesians 6:1-9 needs to be read in the context of the full story of salvation as revealed in the Bible.

 

The kingdoms of this world operate under vastly different principles than the kingdom of God.  Laws, enforcements, penalties, and sanctions may either promote or deter evil.  However, even just and reasonable ordinances cannot change the human heart.  Consider the following paragraph from the pen of inspiration.

 

“The government under which Jesus lived was corrupt and oppressive; on every hand were crying abuses, —extortion, intolerance, and grinding cruelty. Yet the Savior attempted no civil reforms. He attacked no national abuses, nor condemned the national enemies. He did not interfere with the authority or administration of those in power. He who was our example kept aloof from earthly governments. Not because He was indifferent to the woes of men, but because the remedy did not lie in merely human and external measures. To be efficient, the cure must reach men individually, and must regenerate the heart.” —Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 509, emphasis added.

 

Order and Authority

 

In God’s original creation there was perfect order.  The social unit instituted in Eden was the family.  Children were to render loving obedience to their parents.  In a perfect world this order would enhance the freedom of each rather than denying or limiting freedom.  Love for, and faith in, the one who commands or requests makes one happy to obey and respond.  Consider the following:

 

“In Heaven, service is not rendered in the spirit of legality.  When Satan rebelled against the law of Jehovah, the thought that there was a law came to the angels almost as an awakening to something unthought of.  In their ministry the angels are not as servants, but as sons.  There is perfect unity between them and their Creator.  Obedience is to them no drudgery.  Love for God makes their service a joy.  So, in every soul wherein Christ, the hope of glory, dwells, His words are re-echoed.  ‘I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart.’ Psalm 40:8.”—Ellen G. White, Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings, p. 109.

 

Sin is the cause of all the abuse and misuse of power the world has witnessed since Adam and Eve sold their dominion to the arch deceiver.  The once light bearer and leader of the heavenly host became the cruelest of tyrants.  What horrendous oppression the many have suffered and continue to suffer at Satan’s instigation!

 

God’s government of love needed to be seen in contrast to Satan’s selfish and hateful rule.  Jesus came, clothed in the garb of humanity, to demonstrate the truth that agape love is the foundation of God’s rule.  Christ’s whole life was a lesson in servant leadership.  He came “not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28, NKJV).

 

“Let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus; Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made Himself of no reputation and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.  Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:5-11, NKJV).

 

The centurion whose servant Christ healed understood Jesus’s divine authority.  “Lord, do not trouble Yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof.  That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to You.  But say the word, and my servant will be healed.  For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me.  I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it” (Luke 7:6-8, NIV).

 

“When Jesus heard this, He was amazed at him and turning to the crowd following Him, He said, ‘I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.’  Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well” (Luke 7:9-10, NIV).

 

The centurion was subject to authority, being a soldier and servant of the Roman Empire.  He was accountable to those above him in rank.  And there were those placed under his care and command, subject to his rule.  They listened to his words and obeyed them.

 

As the centurion reflected on how authority works and the power of the spoken word, he responded to a power above all earthly powers.  He acknowledged the divine credentials of the humble Galilean teacher.

 

“The centurion's servant had been stricken with palsy, and lay at the point of death. Among the Romans the servants were slaves, bought and sold in the market places, and treated with abuse and cruelty; but the centurion was tenderly attached to his servant, and greatly desired his recovery.  He believed that Jesus could heal him.  He had not seen the Savior, but the reports he heard had inspired him with faith…In the teaching of Christ, as it had been reported to him, he found that which met the need of the soul. All that was spiritual within him responded to the Savior's words. But he felt unworthy to come into the presence of Jesus, and he appealed to the Jewish elders to make request for the healing of his servant.”—Ellen G. White, Desire of Ages, pp. 315, 316.

 

Slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ

 

It is of interest to note how each writer of the New Testament letters introduces himself.  In six of the New Testament letters the writers refer to themselves as a doulos (translated slave, servant, or bondservant) of Jesus Christ.  In his second epistle Peter writes that he is a “doulos and an apostle of Jesus Christ.”

 

In most of his epistles Paul introduces himself as “Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ,” but in Romans, Philippians, and Titus he includes “a doulos of Jesus Christ.”  In his beautifully crafted letter to Philemon Paul identifies himself as “a prisoner of Jesus Christ.”  He appeals to Philemon, a fellow believer and slave owner, to receive Onesimus back as a brother in Christ rather than as a slave.

 

Sharing the same earthly father as Jesus, James and Jude might have claimed human kinship to Christ.  During Christ’s years of ministry, as the elder brothers of Jesus, they had attempted to exercise their authority over Him on at least two occasions (Matthew 12:46-50, John 7:2-10), but after Jesus’s death and resurrection they knew Jesus as the divine-human Savior.  At the beginning of his letter James introduces himself as “a doulos of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,” and Jude opens his letter with, “The doulos of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ and called.”  In other words, Jude is saying, “Yes, I am the brother of James, but Jesus Christ is my Lord.  I am His servant.”

 

“Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ” (Matthew 23:10, KJV).

 

“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether to sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?”  (Romans 6:16, KJV).

 

The grand irony of the truth is, that when we yield ourselves to be servants of Christ Jesus, we pass from enslavement to freedom.  Jesus, in answering the Jewish leaders who claimed they had never been in bondage replied, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.  And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.  Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:34-36, NKJV).

 

Christ obeyed God’s law throughout His life.  Luke records the story of Mary and Joseph searching for their missing son and finding Him in the temple.  After the young Jesus announces His Divine kinship (obedience to His Heavenly Father must take precedence), He “went down with them [His parents], and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them” (Luke 2:51, NKJV).

 

Love for God, zeal for His glory, and love for fallen humanity were the controlling motives of Jesus’s life. The genuine Christian wholly submits to the authority of Christ.  His desire is to love, honor, and uplift His Lord in all social interactions.

 

Practicing Supreme Loyalty to Christ

 

I do not know why I missed it previously, but in studying the fifth and sixth chapters of Ephesians this time around I was awestruck at seeing how the gospel saturates the whole passage from beginning to end.  Focus on the following bold-faced words.  A careful reading of the passage brings out that whether we are called to lead or follow another’s lead, we do it “as to the Lord.”

 

Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children.  And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and gave Himself for us, an offering, and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma (5:1, 2, NKJV here and onward) …Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God” (5:20, 21).

 

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.  For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body.  Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything” (5: 21-24).

 

“Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.  So, husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.  For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.  “For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church.  Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband” (5:25-33).

 

“Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.  “Honor your father and mother,” which is the first commandment with promise: “that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth” (6:1-3).

 

“And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (6:4).

 

“Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free” (6:5-8).

 

“And you, masters, do the same things to them, giving up threatening, knowing that your own Master also is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him” (6:9).

 

Note that each is called to submit and love as to the Lord.  Christ’s followers are never to blindly submit or to yield their reasoning powers to another human.  The submission is guided and directed by Christ’s own example.  We are His body and our desire should be to reveal Christ in all we do!  Our social interactions with others are as to the Lord, not to men!  Study characters in the Bible such as Joseph, Ruth, Abigail, and Daniel.  In their lives we can see that their social interactions were lived “as to the Lord.”  This is the preaching of the gospel.  Take for example the witness of a Christian family:

 

“Parents, God desires you to make your family a sample of the family in heaven.  Guard your children.  Be kind and tender with them.  Father, mother, and children are to be joined together with the golden links of love.  One well-ordered, well-disciplined family is a greater power in demonstrating the efficiency of Christianity than all the sermons in the world.”—Ellen G. White, MS 31, 1901.

 

A theme of the book of Ephesians is our adoption into the family of God made possible because we have a most wonderful Savior, whom God gave us because of His great love for us.  We are united in Christ.  The amazing topic of the divine-human family will be studied for all eternity!  Christ’s last act of love before He went to the cross was that of stooping to perform the task of a servant.  He washed His disciple’s feet.  In looking to the example of Christ, we learn that true humble service, motivated by genuine love, elevates rather than demeans.  And it is important to keep in mind that Christ never relinquished His God-given dignity.  Behold Jesus, just hours later, enduring the most horrific Satanic-inspired abuse at the hands of His enemies.  Throughout it all He remained calm, self-possessed, and dignified.  His kingly bearing was witnessed by all.

 

We worship a God Who is just and compassionate.  Supreme love for God will manifest itself by responding with love toward others.  Love breaks down walls and unites hearts.

 

Let us live our lives “as to the Lord.”  Let us remember our calling and not cast aside so great an inheritance.  When the body of Christ lives and loves “as to the Lord” the world will take notice.

 

~Martha Ruggles