Free for Service to Christ

Immediately following the narration of the exodus from Egypt, we read in Exodus 13 that God has a claim on the firstborn of man and beast. Later on, at the end of the song by the sea (Exod 15:16), the imagery of a commercial transaction will be used to describe what God has done for his people as a whole. He has purchased them from their bondage in Egypt. Tying this back to the imagery for the atonement from last week’s reflection, the image of Christ being the ransom price for our sin finds its roots in the exodus. Importantly, Paul draws out the implication of this language of ransom, of purchase, of God’s rightful claim on his people: “for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor 6:20 ESV).

While the language of slavery is fraught, Paul’s use of it in 1 Corinthians helps to draw out the symbolic significance of the provision in Exodus 13 that God has a claim on the firstborn of man and beast among his covenant people. In the first place, Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians reflect the Greco-Roman custom that “the transaction which involves a price here enacts not freedom but a change of ownership.”[1] When Paul says to the church, “you were bought with a price,” he does not mean that you have been freed to be whoever you want to be or to do whatever you want to do. Rather, your ownership has been transferred to God. According to Hebrew and Jewish traditions, “the character, status, and influence of the one to whom one belonged as slave” makes a huge difference, such that “the slave (i.e. Christian believer) no longer belongs either to himself/herself or to powers into whose bondage he/she may have entered. The believer belongs to One to whom it is an honor to belong.”[2] This transferal of ownership affords the right kind of freedom to the one who was bought with a price. Like a well-fenced schoolyard gives the right kind of freedom to children at recess, so transferal of service to the true and living God gives the right kind of freedom to us, even as both situations impose obligations for the good of those who are bounded in their relationships. As Paul concludes in 1 Cor 6:20, one obligation is that believers who have been bought with a price will glorify God in their bodies.

Having said that, the freedom of the believer, in order to glorify God in his or her body, consists in a tremendous wealth of “freedom froms.” The Westminster Confession says, “The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the Gospel, consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law; and, in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan and dominion of sin; from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation; as also, in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto Him, not out of slavish fear, but a child-like love and willing mind” (WCF 20.1). With the exception of “free access to God” and “yielding obedience unto Him,” the freedom Christ purchased is “from” something, and that “freedom from” undergirds the believer’s ability to appreciate “free access to God” and put into action “obedience unto” God.

Returning to Exodus 13, God’s regulation that the firstborn of man and beast must be consecrated to him, i.e. wholly set apart as that which is possessed by God, reflects the freedom from idea as well. Now that the people are free from the crushing labor and spiritual oppression of Pharaoh, they are able to appreciate God’s claim on their lives and to put into action the kind of obedience that will yield more life rather than death. That the consecration of the firstborn is meant to be enacted when the people enter the promised land (cf. Exod 13:11), which flows with milk and honey, points to the generosity of God toward his people. So long as they are obedient to God, their lives will be enriched, and it will be no great matter to offer up the redemption price for the firstborn of man and beast.

In the end, the point for us is that God’s claim on our lives is not burdensome. May God fill us with the grace and strength to firm up our faith in him that his claim on our lives and our service to him are together the best thing that we could hope for.

[1] Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 476. Emphasis original.

[2] Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 477.