The Gospel in Philemon — Anton Bosch

Reading and Setting of Philemon

Turn with me, please, to the gospel according to Philemon, or as some people say, Philemon. Philemon, and we're going to read the whole of the book, all 25 verses. As we've been going through the Bible, book by book, week by week, we've come to Philemon, which is the shortest of the books up to the book of Hebrews.

The New Testament is grouped, or the books are ordered by the length of the books. So you have the four gospels, you have Acts, and then you begin with Romans, which is the longest one of the epistles, and then you end up with Philemon, which is the shortest one, and then you go over to Hebrews, and then the other books at the back, the general epistles.

And so this is the shortest of Paul's epistles, and it is written to an individual, to a man who's called Philemon, who is the leader, or one of the leaders in the church in Colossae. And let's read from verse 1 of Philippians.

Philippians, verse 1, so just before Hebrews. Hmm? Philemon, what did I say? Philippians, sorry, I'm not with it. Philemon, we'll read from Philemon, and we'll read from verse 1 through to 25. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus and Timothy, our brother.

To Philemon, our beloved friend and fellow laborer, to the beloved Epiphia, Archippus, our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints, that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgement of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.

For we have great joy and consolation in your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by you, brother. Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet for love's sake, I rather appeal to you, being such a one as Paul the Aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.

I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains, who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and to me. I am sending him back. You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, whom I wish to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel.

But without your consent I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary. For perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.

If then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me. But if he has wronged you or owes you anything, put that on my account. I, Paul, am writing with my own hand. I will repay, not to mention to you, that you owe me even your own life besides.

Yes, brother, let me have joy from you in the Lord, refresh my heart in the Lord. Having confidence in your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. But meanwhile, also prepare a guest room for me, for I trust that through your prayers I shall be granted to you.

Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you, as do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, and my fellow laborers. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. Now, Philemon is probably one of the most neglected books in the New Testament, simply because it is so short, because it doesn't seem to contain any big, serious doctrine.

It doesn't contain any very much practical advice as to how we should live our lives and how we should order our society. And so it is one of those books which is just pushed to the back and somehow we never really get to it.

I've never heard preachers preach on this book ever before. It's just one of those books that just doesn't seem to be that important. And yet we know that every word of God is important. Man shall not live by bread alone, Jesus said, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

So everything that God speaks, everything that God says, especially that which is recorded in the Scriptures, is important. Nothing is recorded in the Bible that is not important, that is not relevant to us.

And so it is important for us to read this book and to try to understand what is it that the book is saying. What is the message to us? And in fact, as we went through it in the Sunday school this morning, we found that there were many very, very important lessons.

It has somewhat to speak about social reform. It has something to say about love and about forgiveness. It gives us a picture of Paul's relationship with these other people that he was working with. But this morning I want to focus on one aspect of the book, and that is that it portrays and shows us the gospel.

Very, very simple. And there's going to be nothing complicated or complex this morning. But I want for us just to be reminded of the gospel, but also to understand and see how that every book is important, and that every book has a message.

The only problem is that sometimes you have to dig a little bit deeper, and sometimes you have to think a little bit and say, well, what is this all about? What is the book saying to me? Now, let me remind you of the story, because sometimes, especially if you haven't read the book many times before, you may have missed the essential elements of the story.

Slavery and the Historical Setting of Onesimus

The story is a simple one. Philemon was a leader in the church of Colossae. He was a Roman citizen, and as a Roman citizen, he had slaves. And they tell me that any Roman, that the average Roman citizen, had anything between 20 and 1 ,000 slaves.

This was part of the way that they did things. These slaves were not treated the way that Hebrew slaves were treated under the law in the Old Testament. Hebrew slaves, you remember, had rights. Hebrew slaves were to be slaves for six years.

They would be set free at the end of the sixth year. Hebrew slaves were not to be mistreated, and so on. And so there's a lot in the Old Testament that defines how that a Hebrew slave was to be treated.

Roman slaves, on the other hand, were different. Roman slaves had no rights. Roman slaves were possessions. They were bought and sold in the marketplace. They were killed at the desire of the master. If a master gave the slave a wife and she brought children to him, if for any reason that slave was to go free, and there were certain conditions under which that would happen, the wife and the children would remain behind.

They were the possession of the master. So they were no better than animals, possessions of the owner, that the owner could treat and use as they chose. And, of course, slaves run away. Here in America we have many stories of slaves from the South running away.

And so slaves would run away. What would happen when a slave would run away? Well, he would be killed if he was caught. And so the punishment was very, very severe. If the master was particularly benevolent and particularly gracious, he would spare the life of the slave, but he would beat him up and he would brand him.

He would put a double F branded into his forehead, which stood for the Roman or the Latin equivalent of the word fugitive. And so for the rest of this man's life he would live with this brand on the front of his forehead saying that he was a slave who had run away.

And so Philemon had slaves. Philemon was a Christian, but he still had slaves. And one of these slaves' name was Onesimus. And Onesimus ran away. Onesimus seemed to be quite a useless slave. He didn't look like he did a good job.

And he stole from his master and he ran to the big city. He ran to Rome, which was a common thing to do those days, even as children sometimes run away from their parents and they always gravitate to the big city because you can hide in the city.

You can't easily be found and they hope to find a new life in the city. So Onesimus ran away and he ran to the city. And in the city somehow he came into contact with Paul. Now I'm not sure how that happened.

Remember that Paul had a relationship with Philemon. Paul had led Philemon to the Lord. So maybe this slave had seen Paul when he was in Philemon's house because remember the church also in Colossae were meeting in Philemon's house.

So Philemon was the host of the church. The church were meeting in his house. So it is possible that this man may have seen Paul when Paul came by there on his journey. I don't know. But somehow when Onesimus came to Rome, he was brought into contact with Paul who was in prison at that time.

And you'll see that twice Paul makes reference to that. He reminds him that he was in prison, that he is in chains. And Paul leads this young man to the Lord. So this slave now becomes a Christian. And of course this is a big question now.

What do we do with this man? He is a runaway slave. He is under the sentence of death. And yet he is now a Christian. And of course this is one of the issues that this book teaches us about. How do we relate to social justice and the requirements of society?

And of course Paul had two choices. Paul could have said, well, just stay here with me. Don't go back because that would cause a lot of trouble. So just stay here in Rome. Be my slave or my servant. Not my slave but my servant.

And you see there that Onesimus was actually ministering to Paul. So he was helping Paul cook his food or do whatever he did to help Paul around his jail cell. Remember Paul was, although he was a prisoner, he was privileged because he was a Roman citizen.

And so he was entitled to receive visitors and so on. And so that was one of the choices Paul had, was just to keep the man and not to send him back. The other choice was to send him back. And of course Paul recognizes that it would not be right for him to keep Onesimus because even though this man was now a Christian, under the law of the land he was the possession of another man.

He belonged to somebody else. And so Paul says, no, I have to send him back. And so he sends Onesimus back to Philemon but he sends a letter with him. And in the letter he appeals for the life of Onesimus.

This is what this letter is. And so he is reminding Philemon that Philemon owed Paul his life because Paul had led him to Christ and that this man was now no longer a slave but he was a brother. And so as we said this morning in the Sunday school that we now have a higher law which comes into play, the law of God.

And that even though the one man was a slave master and the other was a slave, they were now brought to the same level as being brothers in Christ. And that is what the gospel does. It transcends social lines.

It transcends ethnic barriers. And it makes both Greek and Jew, both black and white, makes us one in Christ. And that's part of the message of this book. And of course the question that people always ask is, well, what happened in the end?

Did Philemon spare Onesimus' life or did he take his life? Well, we don't really know because there is nothing in the scripture, there is nothing in history that tells us what happened. But I believe and I assume that Onesimus was spared and he was received back.

And the reason why I believe that is because we have this letter. If Philemon didn't like Paul's appeal, what would he have done with the letter? He would have torn it up. He would have thrown it away and said, rubbish, I don't care what Paul says, this man is my position, I can do with him what I choose.

The fact that he kept the letter and that the letter was preserved for us up to today indicates to me that Philemon would have spared Onesimus' life and would have accepted Paul's plea and appeal for this man.

Onesimus as a Picture of the Sinner

Now, that's the story. But it is a picture also then of the gospel. It's a picture of the gospel. Onesimus, of course, is a picture of the sinner. The picture of you and me. And as we've been going through the book of Romans on Sunday evenings, the first few chapters of Romans teaches this principle that all have sinned.

Every one of us is like Onesimus. First of all, Onesimus was a slave. And the scripture is very clear that those who are sinners are slaves of sin. We are bound by sin, just like this man was bound to his master.

He had no rights. He had no liberty. He could not do what he chose to do. He had to do what his master told him to do. And so, in a sense, we are sinners. We are enslaved by sin. We do not have free choice.

We tend to be bound by doing those things that are ungodly and which are not righteous. And I write a little bit about that in the article this morning. But he was a sinner because he had sinned against his master.

Now, obviously, you need to use your imagination a little bit. Philemon is not only a slave master. And obviously, when we see these pictures in the scriptures, some of the details don't always work out.

But the broad strokes are important. And so Philemon is a picture of God. He's a picture of God. And this man had sinned against his master. Onesimus had sinned against his master the same way as we sinned against God.

Yes, we sin against people. But our prime sin is against God. You remember the prodigal son who ran away and he came back home. And he says, Father, I have sinned against heaven, or against God, and against you.

And so whenever we sin, it's against individuals, but it is always against God. Remember David in Psalm 51 as he prays that great prayer of repentance. Remember he killed another man and took his wife.

And yet he says, I have sinned against you. And so whenever we sin, we sin against you, against God. So Onesimus, the sinner, had sinned against his master, against God. And he ran away. And the running away was a result, obviously, of him stealing whatever he did, or breaking, damaging whatever he broke.

Because Paul says, if he owes you, I'll repay whatever damage or whatever is missing. And this is what we do. When we sin and we realize that we have broken God's law, our first reaction is to run. And unfortunately, most people, many people in the world today are running.

They are running from God. Because they know they've broken God's law. They don't want to face the consequences. And praise God, we don't have to face the consequences. But they don't understand that.

And so the best thing we can do is to run away. And so many people are running away from God. They run in different ways. Some people run physically, literally. This city is filled with people who are running away.

Running away from small towns and from other parts of the United States. Running away from their past and coming to this city to hide. Some people run physically. But those who don't run physically run spiritually and emotionally.

Trying to hide in the crowd. Trying to hide in entertainment. Trying to hide in busyness. Trying to get away from God in shutting out the voice of God and the voice of their conscience. Some people never have a moment of silence because they can't bear to be quiet.

Because they're running, all the time running. And here's this man running, a fugitive. From the justice that was required. And maybe you're running. I don't know everybody who was here this morning. But what I do know is that there are so many people who are just running.

Just trying to escape. Trying to avoid confronting the issues. And you know, one of the other lessons from this book, just by the way, is that we have to confront difficult situations. Paul could have ignored the situation.

He could have said, well, you know, I don't want to make this decision. It's a hard decision. What do I do with this man? But Paul faces his responsibility. Paul makes the decision. He does the hard thing.

Onesimus could have said, well, I'm not going to go back. How do we know that Onesimus actually made it all the way back? Because we have the letter. And so Onesimus could have said, well, I'm not going to go back.

This is too hard. What is this man going to do? He can kill me. At best he can beat me up. And yet he does the hard thing. And the reality is that we have to do the hard things sometimes. And sometimes the hard thing is just to stop running.

And say, where am I? Why am I where I am right now? Why am I avoiding God? Why am I not confronting the issue that I have with God? And so Onesimus stopped running. And he came to Paul. Paul is a picture of Jesus.

Paul as a Picture of Christ and the Believer's New Status

Because Paul saved his life. Paul saved his life. And what we need to do is we need to run to Jesus. And I don't know, as I said, what brought Onesimus to Paul. I don't know whether he sought Paul out or whether somebody brought him to Paul or how he came.

But somehow he came to Paul. And Paul leads him to salvation. And folks, when we stop running and we find ourselves weak, just come to Jesus. He can change everything. And you know, this man's whole life suddenly changed.

Everything about him changed. He was suddenly forgiven as far as God was concerned. Yet there was still an issue between him and Philemon. His past was wiped away. But his status changed. And Paul writes about this and he says he's no longer a slave.

Verse 16. He says, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother. A beloved brother. So instantly his status changed. From a slave to a brother. And it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter what your status is.

It doesn't matter whether you're rich or whether you're poor. None of these things matter. Because the moment you come to Christ, your status changes. You're no longer a doctor, or a plumber, or a man, or a woman, or Greek, or Hebrew.

You become a brother. And that's a wonderful privilege. To be brothers of Jesus. To be brothers with the saints. And of course sisters. Sorry, I need to be politically correct. Brothers and sisters. That's a tremendous, and can you see the tremendous leveling that happens?

From a slave master who has absolute right and authority over his slaves. And then there's this man who is a slave, who is a nothing, who is a possession. And suddenly they're just brought on the same level.

They're just both brothers. And we spoke yesterday about inferiority complexes a little bit in a different context. And the fact that so many of us need affirmation. Feel inferior. Feel that we don't make the grade.

But you know what, when we come to Jesus, all of that is wiped away. And suddenly we're all brought to the same level. We're all brought on to the same plane. That we're brought to the level of being brothers and being sisters of one another.

Being brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. What a privilege. And so this man is brought on, his status is suddenly changed. He is forgiven. He becomes, his debt is paid. That's amazing. Look at verse 17.

If then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me. Verse 18. But if he has wronged you or owes you anything, put that on my account. I, Paul, am writing with my own hand. Now what's happening here is, Paul is writing obviously through a scribe.

One of the brothers, Epaphras probably, is writing the letter physically as Paul dictates it to him. And then Paul at this point stops. And he grabs the pen or the quill. And he writes in his own hand.

And he says, I, Paul, am writing with my own hand. I will repay. That's your guarantee. I will repay. Not to mention to you that you owe even your own life besides. And you know, that's the wonderful thing.

Christ Pays the Debt of Sin

Jesus says, I will pay the debt. We have a song which I don't think I've ever heard sung here. But we sang it back home. I owed a debt I could not pay. I owed a debt I could not pay. He paid a debt he did not owe.

I needed someone. And Jesus washed my sins away. You know, the debt against us is one that we could never repay. We could never repay what we owed God. The only way we could repay is if we had a life to give.

But we'd already forfeited our life. So we didn't even have a life to give to pay the debt. But Jesus comes and he says, I will pay the debt. And remember that on the cross he cries, it is finished. And he writes across the ledger, across the book, it is paid in full.

Jesus paid the debt. I will pay. And folks, sometimes I know that there are many people who find themselves literally in debt, financially in debt to the credit card companies and to the banks. And they get to a point where the debt is so much that they begin to run.

They say, I don't know how I'm going to deal with this. There's no way I can pay. And Anesimus found himself in that kind of situation. He's back to the wall. How am I going to repay? I have nothing. My life is forfeit because he's going to kill me anyway.

How do I pay the debt? And Paul steps in and he says, I will pay. I will pay. And you know, the debt we owe God is enormous. But Jesus says, I will pay. And as Paul writes with his own hand in that letter, as he writes in his own handwriting, Jesus writes, but with his own blood.

Not with ink, but with his own blood. It is paid. The price is paid. And I think that that's made it a lot easier for Anesimus now to go back to his master, knowing that at least the debt has been taken care of.

And you know, sometimes we don't want to face God. Because we say, well, how am I going to deal with the debt? How am I going to deal with what I owe God? But Jesus says, I will pay. Just go back to God.

Jesus will pay. And you know, that's a wonderful blessing and a wonderful privilege. And so, put it on my account. Everything Paul says that he owes you, put it on my account. And you know, Jesus says, whatever you and I owe God, put it on Jesus' account.

And we say, but you know, I owe so much. My sin is so great. And I wrote about that in the article this morning. And I was amazed that we sang that hymn, which I actually quoted from. Grace, grace, God's grace.

It doesn't matter how great our sin. It doesn't matter how much our debt. It doesn't matter how many things you have done and how bad those things are. The grace of God is able to say, put it on Jesus' account.

And he will pay. And he will cover it. And he will wipe it away. So that we owe no more. And then, Onesimus has to go back to Philemon. He now has to face his master. And, you know, Paul could easily have said, well, you know, he's a Christian now.

Restitution and Reconciliation With Those We Have Wronged

Let's just forget about the past. Let's just forget about the fact that he owed Philemon any money. Let's forget about the fact that he is a slave and he's run away. Let's just wipe it all off. But here comes a little word which Christians often don't like to acknowledge.

We call this word restitution. Making right what is wrong. Yes, the debt has been paid. He has been forgiven. But he still had wronged Philemon. And Philemon was now not just a slave master. Philemon was now a brother.

Not only had the slave become a brother to the master. But the master had become a brother to the slave. And so his obligation to his brother now still stood. He had to do something about that. And sometimes, as Christians, and I'm not saying every time.

God needs to speak to your heart. But sometimes, as Christians, we do things that are wrong. We get forgiveness from God. And that's great. But sometimes we need to go and make right with a person that we have wronged.

We have taken something from them. We have said something against them. We've hurt them in some way or the other. And sometimes we need to go and make restitution. Make right with that person. And this is what Paul is saying to Onesimus.

It was not easy for Onesimus. It was hard. But Onesimus does it. And he faces the man that he had wronged. And folks, sometimes, yes, we may have been forgiven. God may have forgiven you, whatever it is that you did.

And there is no doubt about his ability to forgive. But the problem is that the issue still remains between you and that individual. You're forgiven. You're going to go to heaven. That's great. That's wonderful.

But what about your relationship with that person you have wronged? And there are times when we have to go back to that person and say, I'm sorry. I did wrong. I want to repay you. I want to make it right.

Or even if you can't make it right, you say, you know, I did this wrong. And there's no way I can go back and find all of those words that I spread about you and somehow retract them all. I can't do that.

Or whatever it is, I can't make it right. But I want you to know that I'm truly sorry. Please forgive me. You see, because forgiveness is not just forgiveness that we need to get from God. We need to get forgiveness from people also.

Freedom Through Doing What Is Right

And so he does the hard thing. And I have no doubt that the moment he did that, that brought tremendous release to his life. Because I have no doubt that when he came back to Philemon, he was now not just received as a slave, but he was received as a brother.

That's what Paul is asking for. He was not only forgiven his debt. He was not only forgiven the fact that he had run away. But suddenly his status had changed. And everything changed. And I have no doubt that Philemon would have set him free.

That's what Paul was really appealing for. And so this man suddenly from being a fugitive criminal becomes a free man. And folk, when we face those hard things in our lives that we don't want to face, the moment we face them, suddenly you'll be set free.

And sometimes we're just bound by the fear and the doubt and the uncertainty of what will happen when I face those things. And yet when you face them, suddenly it all changes. And I want to encourage you this morning that if you are a Christian and you know that God has forgiven you, but there are issues in your family that you have not dealt with, there are issues with your master, your boss, your employer, issues with other Christians, issues with another church that you have not dealt with, face it.

Because the moment you do, you will be set free. You will know the liberty of knowing I've done the right thing. Whether they receive you or don't receive you, whether they extend grace or forgiveness to you or don't, that's got nothing to do with it.

The moment you do the right thing, and you knock on that door, you pick up that telephone, you pick up that pen and you write that letter, the moment you do that, you're free. Because you have done what is right.

And so I want to challenge you and encourage you this morning, if there is something in your history, there is something in the background that is plaguing you and that is bugging you, go and do the right thing.

It's not easy. It's not easy. When I was in South Africa a few months ago, I had to pick up the phone call and phone a man that I had not spoken to for 30 years, who had wronged me very, very deeply. But I picked up the phone and I made right with him.

It was hard. But it was a wonderful release to know that I had done what God was asking me to do. And so we need to do the right thing. And then, finally, this man comes to Philemon, and remember, let's go back to the original picture of Philemon being a picture of God.

Receiving Sinners in the Name of Christ

And what does Philemon do? He receives Him. He doesn't kill Him. He doesn't brand Him. He doesn't beat Him up. He just receives Him. Grace! And that's what happens when we come in Jesus' name. Because this is what Paul says.

He says, receive Him as you would me, verse 17. And then you count me as a partner. Receive Him as you would me. And so Philemon comes before... Sorry, Onesimus, the slave, comes before Philemon. But Paul says, when he stands in front of you, don't see him, see me.

Receive him as though it was me. And isn't that exactly what Jesus is doing before the Father today? If we have come before God and we say, God, here I am, you know, I'm such a great person. God says, I don't know who you are.

You're a sinner. But when I come and I say, Father, it's not me. I'm coming in Jesus' name. The Father receives me. Remember the picture in the Old Testament of the two brothers, of Esau and Jacob. And Jacob was second born.

He was not entitled to the blessing. But he comes in the name of his brother. He comes clothed with his brother's clothes. As we come clothed in the righteousness of Jesus. And he comes before his father and he says, I'm coming in my brother's name.

And his father gives him the blessing. As we come in the name of Jesus, God receives us. And he gives us grace. And he forgives us. And he welcomes us. Remember the prodigal son coming back to his father.

It must have been just as hard for that prodigal son to come back to his father as it was for Anesimus to go back to his master. But when that young man, the prodigal, was a long way off, it says, the father saw him because he was looking out for him.

And his father ran and embraced him. And he welcomed him home. Won't you stop running this morning? Won't you come to Jesus? And just receive the grace and the forgiveness that he extends to you today.

Prayer for Repentance, Restitution, and Reconciliation

Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Lord, for these practical illustrations of the gospel. And, Lord, we pray for two things this morning. Lord, we pray, first of all, for those in the service who may be running from you, who've never come to that place of receiving your grace and your forgiveness.

Lord, we pray that today they would stop running. And today they will face you and receive that grace and that forgiveness and that love that you so desperately want to extend to them if they'll just stop running.

And so, Lord, we pray for each one who may be in this meeting this morning or may even be listening to the tape who's running from you today. Help them, Lord, just to stop for one moment and just to turn to you.

Lord, for those who have received grace and received forgiveness, our prayer is, Lord, that those issues in their history and in our past, Lord, that need to be repaired. Help us, Lord, to do the difficult thing.

Help us to do the hard thing. Help us to pick up that telephone, to write that email, to knock on that door, and to make right what is wrong. And, Lord, we thank you that in that process we will be set free from the bondage of the past.

Lord, we know that you forgive freely. You don't require these things. You don't require of us to make restitution before you forgive. But, Lord, for our own peace and for our own deliverance, we need to do these things.

And so, Lord, each one who is challenged this morning, those who are running, those who need to make right, help us to do it today, Lord. Help us not to put it off till tomorrow because tomorrow never comes.

Help us, Lord, today to be obedient to your voice and to just receive that joy and that release and that grace and that joy and that peace of knowing that things are right with us, with you, and that things are right with our brother.

We ask this in Jesus' name. Father, we pray that you'd part us now with your blessing. Go with us. Keep us safe as we go into this desperate world. Bring us together again this evening to hear your word again.

We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.