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A Letter of a Ransomed Slave

If any person has escaped the snare of spiritual slavery it is not because they are the greatest of slaves; rather it is the pity of a good Master that rescues them from their evil master. Meanwhile, the slave who has not been rescued is mastered by sin, yet loves the beatings of their slavery. That is the unregenerate heart. However, the good Master not only offers mercy by making a way of escape for stricken slaves, but He also grants happy and everlasting freedom – that is grace.

I speak as a woman who was once a slave to my own sin, but I have been freed. Indeed, I was wounded by the harsh beatings of my unrighteousness, and my previous evil master continually convinced me that my condition was one of freedom. The evil master would say, “Why run to the good Master? His yoke must be tormenting.” There was some truth to this. The good Master’s yoke was agonizing, but it was not I who had to suffer the agony, it was Christ who took the hard yoke that mine may be easy. So it was not until the good Master came and said, “unbind him and let him go” (John 11:44) that I was truly free. Though there was a cost to my freedom. I was ransomed by a payment that none could make but one man – Jesus Christ. And His payment was far costlier than what was typically given to free a slave.

Let us look to the scripture that testifies to these truths. As Peter urges God’s people to put aside their former ways of sin He asks them to know this: “you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19). That is the costly payment I speak of – the blood of Christ. Our forefathers, the Israelites, were gloriously delivered from slavery in Egypt, but they continued in sin, worshipping the evil master rather than the good. That is why their ways were futile, and we inherited their futility. Therefore, from the beginning, our Lord saw that we needed a greater deliverance – one that was eternal, so He sent the perfect Lamb. The one who could satisfy the debt the Passover lamb could not. So if we wish to worship our good Master all we must do is recall the Lamb that was our ransom. Since we were not bought with perishable things let us never covet silver and gold as poor slaves; rather, let us say “oh, what a pathetic pile of metal that could have never freed me!”

For Christ came to proclaim liberty to the captives – to us who were oppressed by our evil master. However, we shall never be bound by His yoke again. As Paul says, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1). So then, who the Son sets free is free indeed. All the former slaves need no longer fall to the ground weak from the beatings of their slavery, for we have a new Master who makes us stand firm. And our good Master has said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28-30).

He does not ask us to bear a hard yoke, for our Master rebuked the Pharisees for the heavy burden they laid upon back-broken slaves. For they told the people to keep the law by their works while they stood ignorant of the chains that bound them from doing any good work. However, the good Master saw our broken backs, our bruises, and our shackles, and seeing that we could do nothing He gave us everything. So, we who have been freed are now heirs of our good Master. The Scripture says, For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” (Rom. 8:15). We were not simply freed then abandoned by Him who paid our debt; rather, we live as children of our Deliverer.

Still, we may cry, “If I am so free, then why do I still sin as though I was still a slave to it?” I have once heard it put like this: For a while, we were enslaved to our evil master and our sin controlled us, but now that we are free we still hear the call of our former master and flee to Him forgetting that we have been ransomed.

So then, if we wish to live as one who has been ransomed we must not forget that we have been bought and are no longer bound to our evil master. Therefore, we must remember Him who laid down His life on our behalf. We must recall His character and contemplate what was accomplished by Him who bought us. We must see and understand who we are in our Lord, for we are a new creation. So then, let us strive to hold fast to these truths by telling ourselves of these things from the time we wake til we fall to sleep. And let us remind our dear friends, who have also been ransomed, of their freedom in their good Master. Lastly, let us strive to remember Paul’s word’s to us as he said, “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:22-23).


Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.”

1 Peter 2:16


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