We come here to the immediate object of the Epistle, for which the introduction so admirably prepares the way. Would Philemon now swerve through pre-occupation with his rights or the influence of worldly feeling and practice, from that practical grace, which had filled the apostle with so, much the more joy because the hearts of the saints had been refreshed by him? Was the relationship of “brother” henceforth to lose its value in his eyes? This certainly the apostle did not anticipate, but counted on the triumph of divine love.
“Wherefore, having much boldness to enjoin thee what is befitting, for love’s sake I rather entreat, being such a one as Paul aged and now also prisoner of Christ Jesus. I entreat thee for my child whom I begot in bonds, Onesimus, the once unprofitable to thee but now profitable both to thee and to me; whom I send back to thee, in person, that is, my bowels; whom I could wish to have kept with myself, that for thee he might minister to me in the bonds of the gospel. But without thy mind I would do nothing, that thy good might not be as of necessity but of willingness. For perhaps he was therefore parted for a time that thou mightest have him forever, no longer as a bondman, but above a bondman, a brother beloved, specially to me but how much rather to thee, both in [the] flesh and in [the] Lord” (ver. 8-16).
It is one of the peculiar and mightiest characteristics of the gospel with which the apostle here makes the appeal: the assertion of a title, true, just, and indisputable, which he none the less foregoes in order to have full and free scope for grace in the one appealed to. So Christ lived, moved, and had His being here below; so did He most impressively lead His own into that mind which they are called evermore by faith to possess and represent every day. Hear Him (Matt. 17) anticipating Peter, who had been quick to assure the half-shekel collectors of his Master’s readiness to pay like a staunch Jew. “What thinkest thou, Simon? The kings of the earth, from whom do they receive custom or tribute? from their sons or from strangers? And when he said, From strangers, Jesus said, Therefore are the sons free. But lest we cause them to stumble, go thou to the sea, and cast a hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a stater ( == a shekel): that take and give to them for Me and for thee.”
Undoubtedly the law had a direct claim on every son of Israel. But had not Simon only a little before confessed Jesus to be Son of the living God? and later still, when he would hastily have put Moses and Elijah on a level with Him, dazzled by the glory of the kingdom, had he not been corrected, by the Father owning Him as His beloved Son, the One now to be heard? All this was from the time when in view of His sufferings and the glories that should follow He forbade the disciples tell any man that He was the Messiah. The mighty change was at hand the larger and heavenly glory founded on His death; entailing on His own similar rejection meanwhile till God vindicate His glory publicly at His return.
How blessedly the practical fruit appears in our Lord! He leads on Peter from Jewish thoughts into His mind ere long to stamp him in word and deed. By his confession “the sons” of the king “are free;” and Son He confessedly was in His own right, as we become by grace through His redemption brought to His Father and our Father, His God and our God. This lifts the Christian therefore above all thoughts Jewish or Gentile. “But lest we cause them to stumble, go” &c. And thereon follows a most strikingly suitable miracle attesting His divine power, as His anticipation of Peter did His divine knowledge: a fish obeys its Creator and furnishes in its mouth the precise sum required of those under the law, which Peter was to pay for the Master as well as for himself It is grace in every way flowing from infinite glory, but this in the humiliation and obedience of a man, for the present insisting on none of His rights, but associating believers in His own relationship as far as this could be, as well as in His lowly ways here below.
It was in this spirit the apostle wrote, “Wherefore, having much boldness in Christ to enjoin on thee what is befitting, for love’s sake I rather entreat (or exhort).” To command what is right is certainly not wrong in one possessed of due authority. But grace, while it respects law in its own sphere, acts incomparably above law in a sphere of its own, of which Christ is the center and the fullness, the object, pattern, and motive. The apostle therefore, whatever the rights of his position and this even “in Christ,” puts love forward, and thus only beseeches one who like himself realized his incalculable debt to the love of God in Christ our Lord. Nor this only; he brings in connection with his entreaty the affecting circumstances of himself, Paul, an old man and bondman or slave of Christ Jesus. He entreats for his child, for such was the runaway no less than Timothy. He adds whom he begot in his bonds; and this, which could not be said of Timothy, was not written without purpose for Philemon’s heart who could not say as much of himself either.
But if he speaks thus touchingly on behalf of Onesimus, he does not refrain from allowing his altogether unsatisfactory past conduct,: “Onesimus, that was once to thee unprofitable, but now to thee and to me profitable.” He had found the Lord; he was brought to God, and was His child, not merely Paul’s. What more could Philemon ask as a guarantee of serviceableness? If he thought of himself as an injured master, on the one hand, and on the other of the ingratitude and every other wrong of Onesimus, irritation might be natural, as well as justice and a warning pleaded; but if the grace that is in Christ Jesus could not but be recalled by the apostle’s words to Philemon, was he to be in unison with Christ or discordant? This question, though not formally asked, could not really be evaded. The Christian is here to reflect Christ. This is to be his daily walk, his greatest business.
Not that the apostle had forgotten the title of the master over his slave: “Whom I send back to thee” (ver. 11). Our idiom can hardly bear “I sent”; so in ver. 19 we must say, “I write.” It is the epistolary aorist, as they call it, the writer going on to the time of reading. Philemon was thus reinstated; Onesimus returned to his master; the apostle sent him back. He did not write a letter to secure terms for the slave beforehand, nor to make a bargain with the master. If this could scarce be according to the law, still less would it answer to the grace and truth that came by Jesus Christ. He sends Onesimus back “in person, that is, mine own bowels,” or my very heart! Is not this the mind of heaven? Yea, rather it is to live Christ. Wondrous to say, heaven looked down to Christ on earth to find such a display of love for the worthless as heaven itself could not furnish. And now it was for Philemon to prove the ground of his heart and the simplicity of his faith. Love me, love my dog, say men. The apostle says of Onesimus, He is my very heart. I Could such an one be a light object to Philemon? Assuredly Christ, the unchanging One, changes all things; and the ignoble things of the world, and the despised did God choose, and the things that are not, that He might bring to naught the things that are; so that no flesh should boast before God. “But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus Who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” If the gospel be true, as there was no difference in that all sinned, so there is none in the great salvation. Onesimus, Philemon, Paul are alike blessed perfectly. Was Philemon insensible to grace so unspeakable, so unthinkable, yet most real and sure?
Nor does the apostle’s advocacy stop even here. “Whom I could wish to have kept with myself, that for thee (or, in thy behalf) he might minister to me in the bonds of the gospel; but without thy mind I would do nothing that the good might not be as of necessity but of willingness” (ver. 13, 14). Love is of God, but it is always holy and always free; and therefore was the advocate sensitively careful that all should flow through Philemon’s heart under the action of the Spirit to Christ’s honor. His grace had been magnified in the slave: could he look for aught else in the master? Whatever might be his need as a prisoner for Christ, whatever his appreciation of the service of love; he looks for it from Philemon no less than in Onesimus.
And what can be finer than the simple yet deep and true suggestion that follows? “For perhaps he therefore was parted for a time, that thou mightest have him forever, no more as a bondman but above a bondman, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much rather to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord” (ver. 15, 16). Words these are, weighty words of love that will never die, not sentimental, nor the play of a lively mind, still less the expression of dignified self-complacency in condescension, but the outpouring of a heart constrained by the love of Christ; the privilege of which it is in a world of sin and selfishness and death, not only to view things on the side of God, but to share that love which, by virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, enables those that live of His life to live no longer to themselves but to Him Who for them died and rose again.
Thus could the apostle interpret the otherwise unworthy escapade of Onesimus; and yet he adds a delicate “perhaps” if he might, as he trusted, carry along Philemon with himself. Some of us know the brutality of Roman or Greek masters in such cases; and it has not been at all peculiar to those places and times. But the Christian may and ought to see things in the light and love and interests of Christ. Thus he does not even say that Onesimus departed, but “perhaps for this reason he was parted for a time, that thou mightest have him fully (ἀπέχῃς) forever.” And truly the Christian tie is not temporary but everlasting. Had Onesimus served ever so faithfully and without the least interval of desertion, after all a heathen could have no link with a Christian beyond the things that perish. But in the admirable grace of God, the poor heathen slave had, in his separation from the household to which he belonged, heard the voice of Christ and returned, that Philemon might have him as never before, no longer as a bondman (though bondman he was and he would be the last to dispute the fact), but above a bondman through the Son of God Who became a bondman to make him His freedman, yea a brother beloved, as Paul assured and Philemon would rejoice to learn: a brother beloved, specially to me, says the apostle, whom God employed in that work of His love for eternity, yet now and here to be testified, that others may heed the same call, and, if believing, enter into the same blessing. For there are open arms on Christ’s part, and God is glorified thereby, and heaven rejoices therein, whatever be the scorn and enmity of a lost race rushing away from God heedlessly, under the guidance of a rebel mightier than themselves, whose power and wiles are the deadlier the more they are ignored.
A brother beloved, says the apostle, “specially to me,” of all outside Philemon; for the tie was intimate and most dear to him who begot him, and in bonds too. Yet he adds “but how much rather to thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord.” For Philemon had known him habitually and stood in a relationship of nearness, which the apostle still recognizes (“in the flesh”), whilst he asserts a new one (“in the Lord”) which can never grow old.
How blessed is that grace of God, which in the cross condemned sin far more deeply than law ever did or could, yet has reached to us in our lowest state to seat us far above princes, yea, or principalities and powers; for by the Spirit we are one with Christ Himself on the throne of God. Yet is it the only principle that has power to keep everything in its place, after having put them there. The grace that conciliates a runaway slave with his master is the same, which, only in a deeper form and way, conciliates a sinner with God through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. It is grace too which maintains love amidst and above all provocations and injuries. It is grace which hinders salvation from turning to pride of heart and licentiousness of walk. Without it man would pervert the gospel into a cloak of maliciousness and make the church of God a scene of democratic leveling and socialistic robbery.
By grace all Christians are brethren; but by the same grace God set some in the church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, &c.: every one we may say in his own order, but as it pleased Him. And as the Christian slave is Christ’s freedman, so the Christian master is glad to awn himself Christ’s bondman. To ground Christian privilege on the rights of man is to deny the grace of God, and can end only in the worst lawlessness. It is our blessedness to be ever dependent on God, as Christ was; to receive all from His hand, and have the bitterest things thus made sweet. Thus is our lot best maintained, when most forlorn; and the lines are fallen to us in pleasant places, a goodly heritage; whereas all otherwise must fill the heart with dreariness and disappointment.