In Ephesians 6:9 Paul says, “The masters, do the same things toward them, giving up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in the heavens, and there is no respect of persons with Him.” In Colossians 4:1 Paul says, “The masters, grant to your slaves that which is just and equal, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.” The masters who had the right over the lives of their purchased slaves should give up threatening, because the Lord in the heavens is the real Master of both them and the slaves. In the flesh, some may be slaves, and others may be masters. But in the eyes of the Lord, there is no difference between slaves and masters. According to Colossians 3:11, in the new man there is no slave or freeman. In the church we all are brothers. However, in the flesh there still is the distinction between slaves and masters.
In his exhortation to wives, husbands, children, fathers, slaves, and masters Paul is making a crucial point. This point is that for the sake of the church life, we need a proper human living in this present age. This is an extremely important lesson for us all to learn. We have such a human living not by our self-effort but by being filled in our regenerated spirit with the processed Triune God and by letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly, permeating and saturating our inner being. When we are filled with the processed Triune God and allow the word of Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God, to dwell in us richly, we shall be permeated, saturated, and soaked with the Triune God. Spontaneously we shall speak to one another, teaching, admonishing, in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and psalming to the Lord and giving thanks at all times for all things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Spontaneously we shall be subject to one another in the fear of Christ to live a proper human life, with wives subject to their own husbands, husbands loving their own wives, children obeying their parents, fathers nurturing their children, slaves obeying their masters, and masters giving their slaves that which is just and equal. This is the issue of being filled in our spirit with the Spirit and of letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly.
The vital matter here is that when we are filled in our spirit with the Spirit and are saturated with the word of Christ, we enjoy the dispensing of the divine Trinity in the divine transformation for the divine conformation. Through this dispensing in the divine transformation we are conformed to the image of Christ, the firstborn Son of God, for the corporate expression of God in Christ.
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