Bible Commentaries
Leviticus 25

Verse 55

"Handfuls of Purpose"

"For unto me the children of Israel are servants." Lev 25:55

This is a remarkable expression as connected with the fact of which God is always reminding the children of Israel, namely, that he brought them out of the house of bondage and out of the land of Egypt. He appears to acquire his hold upon their confidence by continually reminding them that at one period of their history they were bondmen. Now he insists that the men whom he has brought into liberty, have been brought only into another kind of service. This is the necessity of finite life. Every liberty is in some sense a bondage. Christians are the slaves of Christ; they are burden-bearers and yoke-carriers, specially under the supervision and sovereignty of the Son of God. All depends upon the nature of the service which is rendered. Where the service is arbitrary and compulsory, it is of necessity reluctant, and by so much vicious and worthless. The glory of Christian service is that such bondage is considered sweeter than any other freedom: those, indeed, who have known most about it have not hesitated to describe it as the glorious liberty of the children of God. Where our love is, there is our service. In the best sense of the term, we are the slaves of those whom we love. Christians are called into the sweet bondage which gives them liberty. They have seen that the mastery of Jesus Christ is a sovereignty which reason can accept, and love can joyfully obey. It is not because of the grandeur of the mastery or the superlativeness of celestial dignity, it is because the sovereignty of Christ is in harmony with all that is best and purest in human nature itself; filling up every void in the life, and giving full development and scope to every faculty of the being. The earth is glad to be the slave of the sun. The folly of rebelling against the Christian religion because it requires the subjugation of the will ought to be obvious to every unprejudiced mind. The subjugation of the will is a phrase, the meaning of which wholly depends on circumstances which have to be explained. To subjugate the will to an inferior is to disennoble human nature; to subjugate the will to an equal because of some temporary advantage is the deepest injustice to one's self. But to subjugate the will to the eternal God is really to acquire a still higher will, and to enter into the mystery of the peace of the God whose will we have accepted. No analogy can be drawn as between the subjugation of the will of man to man, and the subjugation of the will to God. This is the foundation principle of the true theocracy. We are taught to say, "Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven"; and again, "Not my will, but thine, be done." If Christ could say this in his human relation, we need have no difficulty in repeating it in our condition. When did the will of God ever interfere with the broadest and deepest human progress? When did it turn aside noble aspiration? When did it enclose the soul in selfish narrowness, and forbid the outgoing of sympathy towards the outcast and the weary? By these signs and tokens should the divine will be examined and judged. Christianity does not shrink from such examination, but rather challenges it, knowing that they who know most of God will be most ready to accept his gracious dominion.