Three Transformed Men

The apostle Paul’s letter to his friend Philemon offers a portrait of three transformed men. Paul, a man who once seized Christians, confining them to prison, was now a prisoner himself, and that because he had become a Christian. Onesimus, a runaway slave who was considered useless by his master, Philemon, had become useful to Paul and, Paul assures, to Philemon. Philemon was transformed from Onesimus’ master to Onesimus’ slave. 

Three men, very different backgrounds, social standing, and life experiences, all transformed from who they were to who they now are. And the transformations that had taken place were not minor tweaks to their behavior or outlook on the world. These were radical metamorphoses that put the men at odds with their former selves and the world they inhabited. Why and how had this taken place? Each one of them had become united to Christ. And having become united to Christ, he was at work in them to transform them more and more into who they were in him.

This is the inevitable result of a person becoming a Christian. When someone responds to the gospel call, the same grace that enabled that one to ‘hear’ is at work in that person to change him or her into who they were created to be: “little Christs.” C.S. Lewis asserts that each believer is being shaped “into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity.” And why shaped to be like Christ and not just a cleaned up version of our old selves?  Because Christ was the “one man who really was what all men were intended to be.” For Lewis, therefore, the transformation from unreal man into real man is the goal of Christian discipleship. Indeed, “it is the whole of Christianity.”

I believe there are  three components of this change evident in Paul’s letter to his friend: humility, love for Christ, and love for Christ’s church. All three men were humbled by the reality of the gospel, causing them to forsake whatever foolish notions stood in the way of walking with Christ. In all three, love for Christ is evident in their willingness to pick up their cross and follow him wherever he led them. And love for Christ’s church is demonstrated in Paul’s joy at hearing of Philemon’s love for the saints, Philemon’s ready engaging in koinonia, and Onesimus laboring along side of Paul in his imprisonment. The presumption behind all of these components is the presence of the Holy Spirit imparting new life, Jesus’ life.

We do not need to remain mired in our old selves. New life is ours in Christ. It may lead us into difficult places, challenging us to confront the fallenness in ourselves and the world, but I think Lewis is right when he says, “Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”

Using All the Clubs in the Bag

Golf is a difficult game. At its most basic, you're just trying to get a small, white ball into a 4-1/4 inch hole. What makes it difficult is that you start the process hundreds of yards away, sometimes up to 500+ yards from tee to green. And to get from point A to point B you have to decide which clubs to use so that you have the best shot at putting the small, white ball into the 4-1/4 inch hole in a prescribed number of strokes, what's called "par." If you look at the layout of a golf course, you'll see that the designer of the thing intended to make the task difficult. Numerous obstacles are put in the golfer's way so that getting the ball into the hole requires a bag full of different clubs, with different purposes, to make it happen. An accomplished golfer knows what each will do for him and choses the right one for the particular situation he finds himself in.

This full use of the bag by a skilled golfer is not unlike the life of the mature Christian. The apostle Peter teaches that all things that pertain to life and godliness are ours through our faith union with Christ (2 Peter 1:3-8). This is why he urges Christians to take full advantage of this reality by supplementing our faith with a list of characteristics that are ours because they are found in Christ. And, not dissimilar to a golf course designer, God will place us in situations that will force us to make use of all the clubs in our bag.

Such was the case for Philemon. Paul sent back Philemon's runaway slave, Onesimus, challenging Philemon to receive Onesimus as he would the apostle Paul. Why should Philemon do that? Because Onesimus was no longer just a slave in Philemon's household, he was a believer in Christ's church. Under the tutelage of the apostle, Onesimus had come to faith in Christ. And despite whatever he was before, he was now "a new creation," and the koinonia, the fellowship and sharing of life that Philemon readily extended to fellow church members, was now due Onesimus.

To our contemporary ears this might not seem like that big of a test. But for a 1st century man, living in a society that understood slavery to be an unquestioned, even necessary, institution, to not treat a runaway harshly would put him at odds with the culture, and, more personally, expose the yet unsanctified aspects of his character. The apostle was confident, however, that if Philemon would receive Onesimus back as a brother, with all rights and privileges, he would discover how pursuing koinonia would "become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ." (Philemon 6).

Isn't this what growing into Christian maturity is all about? In times of testing, are we not being asked by God to discover and make use of all the clubs in the bag? We possess them because Jesus possesses them. And to the extent that we seek him and rely on him to manifest them in our lives we show ourselves to be mature in him. 

Marks of the True Church: Discipline

We've been considering the three “marks of the true church” as outlined in the Belgic Confession, and we've come to the last: “if church discipline is exercised in punishing sin.” There's at least two words in that statement that make modern church ears uncomfortable — discipline and punishing. They sound controlling, legalistic, unloving. Did the author of the confession get it wrong? Is it a product of a sterner time that has little relevance for today? To the contrary, the Confession reflects enduring biblical truth. 

We must be quick to note that the church is full of sinners. That’s who we were before coming to Christ and that’s who we are after coming to Christ. The issue of concern is not the presence of sinners, but the presence of impenitent sinners. When a person comes into the Church through faith in Christ they are entering into a new framework of living. They have a new standard of morality, a new paradigm for understanding the world. To shift one’s thinking (or to use a Biblical description, put on “the new self”) God has put in place a number of devices that facilitate the process. Local church membership and the mutual accountability it entails, biblical preaching and teaching, gathered worship, spiritual “disciplines” such as prayer and fasting, and, if need be, loving admonition and correction, all play an important role in making us who we have been created to be. We need these elements so that we can move on to the maturity that God envisions for us. 

As is evident from the list above, there’s a lot of “discipline” that goes on before a church ever has to “purge the evil person" from among them. (1 Corinthians 5:16), and that’s a good thing. Excommunication is something that should be extremely rare if the folks in a church are intent upon putting on the new self, "created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” (Ephesians 4:24) But if there is one in their midst that refuses to heed Christ, unrepentant about their sin, or intent on spreading false doctrine, that one must be treated “as a Gentile and a tax collector,” that is, one out of fellowship with God and his people. (Matthew 18:15-20)

That last point is important to emphasize. As John teaches, the purpose of proclaiming the gospel is to have fellowship with God and his people. (1 John 1:1-3) Sin intrudes on that fellowship, and when it does the necessary thing is to confess it, knowing that God forgives sin (1 John 1:8). If one refuses to acknowledge sin for what it is then that one makes God out to be a liar and demonstrates that the gospel has not been embraced (1 John 1:10). Such a one has no place within the church until he is ready to confess what all true churches confess, that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord.

Invitation to Grow

Koinonia, a Greek word that has rich meaning for the Christian. It stands for the reality that in Christ believers, bound together by our faith in Jesus, are called to mutual participation and identification with other believers. As N. T. Wright instructs: “The idea that we need to grasp . . . is that, in Christ, Christians not only belong to one another but actually become mutually identified, truly rejoicing with the happy and genuinely weeping with the sad . . . Koinonia is part of the truth about the body of Christ. All are bound together in a mutual bond that makes our much-prized individualism look shallow and petty.”

In theory, koinonia is noble. In practice, it is difficult. Followers of Jesus are brought into the body of Christ by the electing grace of God. As a result, we find ourselves in fellowship with people that we might not normally gravitate towards, and once in relationship we are called to maintain that relationship, sometimes at great cost. But if we are willing to pay the price, there is great reward.

This is what Paul was assuring Philemon when he asked him to receive back into his household Onesimus, his runaway slave, newly converted. Paul knew that this would be challenging for Philemon. But if his friend would fully embrace the implications of koinonia he would grow to understand in a deeper way what it means to be in fellowship with Christ and Christ’s people. Wright’s paraphrase of Philemon 6 is to the point, “I am praying that the mutual participation, which is proper to the Christian faith you hold, may have its full effect in your realization of every good thing that God wants to accomplish in us to lead us into the fullness of Christian fellowship, that is, of Christ.”

So, those folks with whom you worship each Sunday, you are bound to them in Christ. You are called, therefore, to koinonia, mutually identifying and participating in life with them for they, too, have been reconciled to God through the blood of the cross. In humility, work out your differences; in generosity, rejoice when they rejoice; with empathy, join them in their sorrow; in love for Christ, serve beside them in his kingdom. In this way we will all mature, until we “grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ” (Ephesians 4:15).