Philemon 1:9-19, “Yet for love's sake I rather beseech thee, being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ. I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me: Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels: Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel: But without thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly. For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever; Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord? If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself. If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account; I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it: albeit I do not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self besides.”
I love this story. Onesimus was the slave property of Philemon. Before he got saved, Onesimus ran away to Rome to hide as a fugitive. It appears that the Apostle Paul met Onesimus in prison, where he led the young man to the Lord. The apostle Paul writes a letter to Philemon, his brother in Christ, pleading with him to take Onesimus back, not as a slave, but also as a new brother in Christ. This is a precious story. Paul goes as far as to tell Philemon that if Onesimus has stolen or owes him any money, the apostle vows to pay it all back himself. Paul said that whereas beforehand Onesimus had been of no worth to either his owner or Paul, he is now a valuable asset in Christ to both men.
The Apostle Paul exemplifies the blessed Savior here. We were all debtors to sin, guilty and deserving of God's wrath. But Jesus died for our sins on the cross, paying a debt that He did not owe, because we owed a massive debt that we could not pay. WHAT A PRECIOUS SAVIOR!!!
I marvel that so many pastors in these modern apostate times are getting the Gospel entirely wrong. This is because unsaved religious men fail to connect the dots between law and Christ, or respectively, law and grace. God authored ONE BOOK. And then God Himself made TWO great divisions to His inspired Word of Old and New Testaments, or respectively, LAW and CHRIST. The law shows humanity our sinnership, guilty condition and need for redemption. Romans 3:19-20, “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
The law then brings us to Christ to be saved by grace through faith. Galatians 3:24-26, “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” The Bible is so plain and clear to understand in this matter, It behooves me to say that 99% of pastors today have God's simple plan of salvation wrong! As long as we stay focused on LAW and CHRIST, God's plan of salvation remains simple, easy and free.
But when wicked, but well intended men, like Steve Pettit and John MacArthur and Ray Comfort and Marty Herron, ADD to God's plan of salvation, requiring people to give up their sinful ways, then it ceases to be God's simple plan, and has now become something different, man's plan of salvation.
I like to visit Baptist church websites to see what they believe, just to see where we're headed in fundamentalism in America. I read one church website the other day which requires a person to “commit your entire personality to Christ as Lord” to be saved. That is not the Gospel. All this nonsense about making Jesus “Lord” is unbiblical. You get saved by receiving Jesus as your Savior. John 1:12-13, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
You receive Jesus as your Savior by faith, by taking God at His Word as recorded in the Scriptures. God knows our thoughts. The Lord sees when we decide to trust Jesus alone as our Savior, and miraculously saves us. If you have never read Michael P. Bowen's wonderful book, 'I NEVER KNEW YOU,' it is a tremendous defense of the simplicity of the Gospel. I wish every preacher in America would read it. Michael simply teaches the plain Holy Bible.
The story of Onesimus is a beautiful picture of the Gospel. The Apostle Paul assured Philemon that He would gladly pay whatever debt was owed by Onesimus. JESUS PAID IT ALL!!!
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