- Well that simple little statement causes my
brain to kick into gear. I immediately have some questions that I want
answered.
- Who has been bought? Paul is instructing the people he is writing
to and in his instruction he tells them. You have been bought at a price.
- So I decided to set off and answer this
question and in order to do that we need to know who Paul is writing to.
- Who does the personal pronoun “You” refer?
- Well if we look back a few pages in our
Bibles to chapter 1 and verse 2 we see the writer identifying his
audience.
- To the church of God which is at Corinth, to
those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all
who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs
and ours:
- So we know that “you” refers to the church at
Corinth but what do we know about Corinth and the church there?
- Well we know Corinth was probably the most
important Greek city of its day.
- Corinth also had two harbors on two different
bodies of water plus several major roadways so it was a major hub for
commerce in its day.
- Now if you think about it this created an
enormous number of varied cultures and backgrounds into Corinth. You
would have people from Egypt, Italy, Spain, Phoenicia, and all over Asia
Minor.
- Similarly the church was comprised of many,
many different ethnic groups as we can see from Paul’s instruction on
orderly church conduct later 1 Corinthians 14.
- So we know that the “you” refers to the
church but within the church their were many different groups so you
cannot argue that this 1 Corinthians 6:20 was given to only one people
group.
- Also we know that this was a circular letter,
it is known that Corinth had about 250,000 freemen living there plus
another 400,000 slaves plus a constant stream of travelers coming
through.
- In a community with close to a million people
there certainly would have been more than one physical church building so
this letter would have been circulated between all the churches of
Corinth.
- And in truth it is still being circulated
today as we read and take instruction from it know. The problems
experienced in the Corinthian church are very relevant for our church and
therefore the solution is also relevant.
- So let us understand this text to include
those saints sitting here today not just the saints of the first century
AD.
- Now we have answered the who it was directed
to question, now let us ask another question of the text…
- Bought by whom? This is the next question.
- The last clause of the previous verse tells
us we are not our own. So it should be obvious we are someone’s
property if we are not our own and we are bought at a price we don’t
belong to ourselves.
- But the question is who bought us?
- 2 Peter 2:1 answers that for us: But
there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be
false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive
heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves
swift destruction.
- So the clear teaching here is that our Lord
bought us so now we have answered the to whom is it written questions and
by whom we were purchased question.
- The first two questions were simple…they were
a piece of cake weren’t they? Lets look at another question we can ask of
the passage.
- Bought at what price? How much was paid by the Lord to purchase us?
- Acts 20:28 clears this right up for us: Therefore
take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit
has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased
with His own blood.
- Paul encouraging and exhorting the Pastors in
Ephesus before he leaves for Jerusalem. In his remarks he says take good
care of them under-shepherds they aren’t yours they are God’s property he
bought them with something very dear, his own blood.
- Ill. In our culture if we want to buy something we hand them some
cash don’t we? Or maybe we hand them a check with our signature promising
them that they can go to the bank and get the cash themselves, sometimes
we hand them a Visa or MC and thereby promise that our bank will place
money in their bank account, right?
- That is how we conduct business today, in
other cultures and in previous generation it was not uncommon to trade or
barter and a grain farmer by trade with a sheep farmer so many heads of
sheep for so many bushels of grain right?
- In the Lord Jesus Christ’s case the currency
was Christ’s own blood, and we know that Christ died on that cross, so
the purchase price, the amount, was nothing short of all of His blood.
- Christ shed not just some of his blood but
all of it for sinners by dying in our place.
- Well that question was maybe a little tougher
for you but still not too tough was it?
- Ok that was the easy questions, lets look now
at a harder question. We have answered who was purchased, whom we were
purchased by, and what the price was now lets ask the next logical
question…
- Purchased from whom? Christ did the purchasing with his blood but
whom did he make that payment to?
- That question just got a bit harder didn’t
it?
- Ill. I am reminded of Paul Harvey’s bird cage story he tells every
year at Easter. It goes something like this:
- A pastor walks into his pulpit and places an
empty old bird cage on the podium with him. He begins…
- I was walking through town and I saw a boy
with some birds in a cage.
- I ask the boy what is he going to do with
them. The boy responds have fun, pull out their feathers, etc.
- Then feed them to my cat.
- The pastor asks how much to buy them. The
boy says what for? Again the pastor asks how much and the boy responds
$10 so the pastor buys them then he sets them free.
- The congregation now understands where the
cage came from but the pastor continues.
- The devil and Jesus Christ were talking one
day after the devil had just come from the garden of Eden.
- The devil was boasting about how he had
trapped all of mankind in a trap.
- Jesus asks the devil what was he going to do
with all those trapped people.
- The devil responds Have fun teach them to
divorce, drink, take drugs, kill each other. Then when I get done with
them I’ll kill them.
- Jesus asked how much to buy them. Satan said
you don’t want these ol’ people why they’ll just curse you and spit on
you.
- So Jesus asked again how much to buy them.
Satan responded with a sneer all your tears and all your blood.
- Done Jesus said and then he paid that price.
- The pastor in the story then opens the door
of the cage and leaves the pulpit.
- That is a beautiful story isn’t it? It sounds
touching, it even sounds biblical doesn’t it?
- I grew up for many years having heard from
teachers that we belonged to God but when Adam sinned we became slaves of
Satan and that Jesus bought us back.
- Ill. My kids have a Christian video tape for children where the
lesson being taught is from Matthew 13:45 where Christ compares us to a
pearl of great price. The adult in this series says to the children in
the video and the television audience “The Bible says we used to belong
to the devil but Jesus bought us with his own money”
- Well I am sorry but the Bible doesn’t say we
used to belong to the devil.
- I have looked, it simply is not anywhere in
there folks.
- So that takes us back to our question Bought
by Whom?
- I want you to turn with me in your Bibles to
the book of Exodus chapter 21 and let us look at the law because I think
by doing this we will get a glimpse of the character of God.
- Exodus 21:2-9
- Now you are saying to yourselves why again
did we just read this? Here is why I will tell you.
- We know that God’s nature is immutable or in
other words in can not change, what God declared as law back then is
still consistent with his nature today, right?
- So this is the rules that God laid down for
the people of Israel concerning slavery. This is part of the holiness
code that God required of his people for them to be a holy people.
- Now first off I need to clarify something, I
am not here to condone the slavery that took place in this country in the
1700 and 1800s. What that was nothing short of man grabbing i.e.
kidnapping and then forced labor.
- That was essentially ended in this country by
Abraham Lincoln with the Emancipation Proclamation but still continues
today in place like Sudan and other places in Africa.
- Ex 21:16 just a few verses down condemns
kidnapping and specifies the punishment for this to be death. Kidnapping
is serious business with God.
- However that is not the type of slavery we
are talking about here, what is being talked about here is people that
can’t afford to pay their debts so they voluntarily place themselves in
submission to their creditor.
- In our culture today when a person cannot pay
their debt they go appear before a judge and declare that they cannot pay
their debts and we call this bankruptcy.
- The court then drafts a document informing
their creditors that they are no longer permitted to try and extract
payment from this individual because they have been placed in under the
protection of the court in this matter and they will never have to repay
this debt.
- However in the time of Moses there were no
bankruptcy courts. There wasn’t a method such as bankruptcy whereby a
person could discharge their debts.
- What a person would do that owed more than he
could pay was he would go to the one he owed and he would tell that
person I cannot pay my debt; take me as your servant.
- The creditor and the debtor would then work
out a term of service to repay the amount owed and not to exceed 6 years
of service.
- That is the background of this passage now
let us see what the text says.
- Exodus 21:3-4. Comes in with a wife, goes out with a wife /
master gives a wife he goes out without his wife and children.
- Doesn’t this sound cruel? He must leave his
wife and children behind?
- Well of course it does until you think about
it. Realize this though, what does it say. If his master has given him
a wife.
- In Jewish culture and all cultures of that
time when a man wanted to marry a woman he had to pay the girls father
the bride price.
- But in our text we have a man with no money
he is bankrupt yet he is of age so his master gives him a wife.
- Now the man has paid his debt to the man and
he is free but his wife and children are not, why not?
- Because he hasn’t paid for them yet. He must
pay the bride price to his wife’s master to redeem her.
- Now with the children we get a glimpse at
something else. Watch carefully here.
- Had the children done anything of themselves
to deserve to be slaves? No but because their parents were slaves they
were born into slavery and hence became slaves themselves.
- Think about Romans 5 when Paul says through
one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death
spread to all men…
- Think about David in Psalm 51. In sin
my mother conceived me.
- Ever since Adam ever person is born a sinner,
before they ever commit one single sin they are sinful. Of course over
our lives we will commit more sin but the point is we are slaves to
sin before we ever commit sin!
- Do you see the consistency of God’s character
here as he gives the law to the children of Israel? Never is there two
standards with God his nature is perfect and consistent.
- Now lets look a little farther down in the
text of Exodus 21 now that we have a brief insight into Jewish marriages
and culture.
- Looking down in verse 7 we read: And if
a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, she shall not go out as
the male slaves do.
- So right off we see there isn’t a clause here
for a woman to be released after 6 years of service. Again why?
- Think back to the previous verses remember
the guy couldn’t take his wife or children with him.
- His wife was probably a female slave given to
him. It was her master’s job to take care of her.
- No father in his right mind would turn his
daughter over to a guy who just finished a term of indentured servitude
because he can’t manage his money, has no job, has no assets, and no job
prospects at the present?
- Remember this guy has no method to support a
wife and children he just got done working for another man. He owns no
property so he can neither grow crops nor tend animals.
- For all intents and purposes he is homeless,
by forcing the wife and children to stay with the master they are being
taken care of.
- A woman in that culture that wasn’t under the
protection of a man was in real trouble she had no way to sustain
herself.
- All of this abstract law was actually very
merciful on the part of God which made the Jewish culture far more
civilized than those around them.
- Verse 8 gives another reason why a man might
buy a female slave, in order to marry her. This is precisely what the prophet
Hosea did he married a woman who was for sale on the auction block when
he married Gomer.
- Verse 9 gives us a final reason why a master might buy a female slave.
- And this verse is what ties all of this
together. All the previous
verses here in Exodus and brings 1 Corinthians home to our hearts.
- And if he has betrothed her to his son, he
shall deal with her according to the custom of daughters.
- I love this! God gives the law to the
Israelites on how they are to conduct business so they can be a holy people
but what God is doing is showing us His righteous character.
- Here is the application folks. If you missed
everything else I said please pay attention and get this.
- What God did for you and for me was this. We
are the female slaves in this; we were born into slavery because of
Adam’s sin and the sin of every generation from Adam to us.
- Because we are female slaves the only chance
of getting out of slavery is for someone else to come along and pay our
debt that we owe the master.
- Someone that can look at us in our slavery
and still see beauty when there is really no beauty there at all.
- God the Heavenly Father is the master, he
chose us to be betrothed to His Son, Christ Jesus.
- We owe God a debt for our sin. God instead
chose us and elected us to be the bride of Christ.
- But there was still a matter of payment of
the bride price.
- Now we get to the answer we have been looking
for all along. – Who were we purchased from?
- God the Father made Jesus Christ pay the
bride price for us to set us free from our slavery and bondage.
- But look back at the verse again. He shall
deal with her according to the custom of daughters.
- Now do you know why you are called children
of God? Because you have been betrothed to the Son, and the Son was
willing to pay the Father the bride price that the father required.
- We
learned earlier that the price was his blood and his life. God was the
one that exacted that punishment on Christ and had to turn his back on
Christ while he hung on the cross because He had become the object of
God’s wrath.