Married Slaves

Every Wednesday I go to a small group from my church where everyone who shows up is a part of a couple, I'm the only single guy there. My singleness made itself very clear one night when we were talking about Christians being slaves to Christ. We got on this topic by reading Titus 2:9 and then moved to Romans 6. We talked about all the usual things like how "slave" didn't have the connotation then as it does now and that this term applied to believers in Christ shows our submission to him as our master. In this discussion I thought about something that I found interesting. The bible talks about us being slaves to Christ, but it also talks about us being married to Christ. So, I spoke up in the discussion and said, "Being a slave and being married are kind of the same thing." People looked at me funny and laughed saying, "of course the single guy thought of that." In Christ the application these two ideas grapple with trying to explain our relationship with God.

One taken without the other tends to leave something out of the picture. When we think of ourselves as slaves of Christ we tend to view this relationship as something businesslike. We realize we have a large debt that we can not pay off ourselves so we go to Christ, who is like an owner of a large farm or ranch, and ask him to cover our debt if we sign over our lives to work for him. Like ranch hands, we get a place to sleep and food to eat so our needs are met by our boss. This is a wonderful picture of salvation and union with Christ, but I think it leaves one wanting of something more. With this picture we look to our sin and see how great the debt is that was removed. We marvel at Christ for removing this debt and allowing us to be free from it, but our focus is on the debt that was paid. This description realizes the work of Christ, but it stops a bit short of realizing the person of Christ. When a husband looks at his wife he is entranced by who she is. Her beauty and charm are what capture him. What man looks at his own faults and chooses a wife based upon how she can counteract those faults? Such thinking is all well and good, but a man chooses his wife based upon worth he sees within her. Couples love each other based upon worth and beauty they see in their partner that can not be found in anyone else.

These two pictures should be taken together. We are married to Christ and we are slaves to Christ. Our contract with him to remove our sin is more than a promise to work for him, it is also a covenant which promises to love and be loved by him.