Radical Obedience to God isn’t really radical. It is what’s required. A correct understanding of our position in Christ makes us His slave-servants. Yet unlike the modern negative connotation of slave, this is what, paradoxically, frees us to enjoy a glorious eternal future in God’s presence.
That’s not what we always prefer to hear. Even when we recognize our status as slaves in Christ we tend to focus on ourselves. Contrary to some teaching, our best life isn’t now. Then there is the growing tendency of some to see the Bible as a book of selected homilies and mores which shouldn’t get in the way of social progress. This has us viewing the Bible through the lens of diversity and social demands rather than the other way around.
The following excerpts are taken from John MacArthur’s book Slave – The Hidden Truth About Your Identity in Christ:
Make no reserve, exercise no choice but obey his command. When you know what he commands, do not hesitate, question, or try to avoid it, but “do it”: do it at once, do it heartily, do it cheerfully, do it to the full. It is but a little thing that, as our Lord has bought us with the price of his own blood, we should be his servants. The apostles frequently called themselves the bond-slaves of Christ. Where our Authorized Version softly puts it “servant” it really is “bond-slave.” The early saints delighted to count themselves Christ’s absolute property, bought by him, owned by him, and wholly at his disposal. Paul even went so far as to rejoice that he had the marks of Master’s brand on him, and he cries, “Let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” ~ Charles Spurgeon (Eyes Right)
The true position, then, for a man is to be God’s slave. The harsh, repellant features of that wicked institution assume an altogether different character when they become the features of my relation to Him. Absolute submission, unconditional obedience, on the slave’s part; and on the part of the Master complete ownership, the right of life and death, the right of disposing of all goods and chattels, the right of separating husband and wife, parents and children, the right of issuing commandments without a reason, the right to expect that those shall be swiftly, unhesitatingly, punctiliously, and completely performed – these things inhere in our relation to God. Blessed the man who has learned that they do, and has accepted them as his highest glory and the security of his most blessed life! For, brethren, such submission, absolute and unconditional, the blending and the absorption of my own will in His will, is the secret of all that makes manhood glorious and great and happy. ~ Alexander Maclaren (Exposition of Holy Scripture)
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