Leviticus 25:55
A transaction has taken place, not simply from slavery to freedom but from the kingdom of darkness into light. If we want to be right in the sight of God then we are to be willing to serve. God's revelation of Himself to His people is being given to us. The finished release in the seventh year of bondage. Six years of bondage and then release at the beginning of the seventh. What does this seventh year actually detail.
Exodus 23 says there is what is known as the Sabbath year –
A day for a year...a day for a thousand years – God’s revelation for reality. Slavery was the consequence of sin. Remember, all things for the good and God’s word gives us lessons to remember and learn from. By grace, by faith, the people of God have been redeemed from the slavery of sin, and so we are to interact with others as redeemed sinners rather than righteous saints. We might have been born under the masterly cause of sin, yet in the purpose of God we serve a new master. This follows in picture from the six days of work followed by the seventh day of Sabbath rest. And secondly, it is a picture of the six thousand years of man, living in the world of sin from the time of the fall. This is followed by the final thousand years in heaven and we return to a new earth with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
Let’s read Exodus 21:5 as revealed in reality - if Christ plainly says, ‘I love my God, my church, and my faithful ones; I will not go out free. By a voluntary act of the will, the servant is given a choice about his status as a slave. Note that the love of the master is mentioned first. The giving of the wife came from the gracious hand of the master. The children who only temporarily belonged to the slave could only have come through the kindness of the master as well. Therefore, it is a devotion to the master, first and foremost, to which the rest logically follows. The servant loves his wife, given to him by his master, he loves his children who came from the wife given to him by his master, and therefore he desires to not be freed from his master. If this is the case, then there are provisions to allow this…
Verse 6 - then God shall bring the servant to the judgment for the affirmation. God, the master, shall also bring him, the servant, to the door, or to the doorpost, the cross. To repeat and enlarge biblical truth - the door is the access point of the home. It signifies the way in. The doorpost is what holds the door. The doorposts were first mentioned at the time of the Passover when the blood of the lamb was sprinkled on them. That signified an open profession was made in the sufficiency of the death of the lamb to save. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl. God, the master is the one to pierce the servant, Christ, thus laying claim on the ownership of him and everything that he would possess from that point on.
Deuteronomy 15:17
“…then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his ear to the door, and he shall be your servant forever.” In that verse, the words “ear” and “door” are parallels. The two are tied together, as if they have become one. Christ nailed to the cross. And he shall serve him forever. Rather than a long time, it is to never be undone. So, what is this account picturing? It pictures the work of Christ for each of us. It is we who are being pictured here. We, the bondservants of God in Christ.
Psalms and Hebrews show the ears being used in parallel with the entire body. The piercing of the ear to the door is a picture of Christ’s crucifixion and thus our being crucified with Christ, who is the Door of salvation.
John 10:7-9
The slave willingly gave up his freedom and his rights in one economy and transferred them to another. When he was a free man of Israel, he was bound to the law of Moses. As Paul shows in Galatians, the law is bondage. It is what shows us our sin and it is what condemns us. The law is not freedom; it is bondage.
Galatians 4:21-26
The very thing that we think is freedom is in fact only another type of bondage. But for the slave of his master, it is his master who was bound to the law and the slave is bound to his master under the law. Christ was made sin for us. It is a picture of Christ fulfilling the law on our behalf.
Galatians 2:19-21
But there was always the chance that the master might have forced his slave to remain in bondage against his will. Not my will, but thine...Who could tell if no public affirmation of his intent was made known? This is why he had to be taken to the judgment of “the God.” The affirmation is one which is voluntarily made and openly witnessed. Jesus says, “as the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
The slavery is not forced, but willingly accepted. This is an obvious picture of the free-will of man in his voluntary surrender to His Lord in the presence of “the God.” Nothing could be clearer. We who are in Christ are free from the law because He fulfilled it on our behalf. “For he who is called in the Lord while a slave is the Lord’s freedman. Likewise he who is called while free is Christ’s slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.” This freedom we possess as the Lord’s bondservants. This one word is an explanation of our eternal salvation. We actually need go no further to defend how long we are saved for, or if we could ever lose our salvation, once achieved. The picture given to us from the years before the coming of Christ tells us all we need to know. We are His servants forever.
God’s sevens are perfect for our learning in correspondence with the judgment of God pertaining to Christ and his servanthood toward his people.
Consider Genesis chapters twenty-nine and thirty with the birth of the children of Leah. In Genesis 29:32-35, she gives birth to four sons. Then in Genesis 30:17-20 she gives birth to two more sons, making six sons in all. Finally, in perfect correspondence to God’s seven principle, she gives birth to a daughter. But God isn’t finished yet. Notice the meaning of the names of these children – first the seven:
Reuben – behold a son
Simeon – hearing
Levi – joined
Judah – praise
Issachar – recompense
Zebulun – exalted
Dinah – Justice
So, we behold God’s Son, and we hear the gospel. Then we are joined to Christ by being born again. Then we live a life of praise unto the Lord in our giving forth the messages of the three angels. We are then recompensed at the Judgment Seat of Christ, after which we are exalted with Christ. We will rule with Christ as priests and kings in the kingdom, which is eternal justice in the earth – the end of the reality of slavery. Scripture does not engage in speculation. We see in the last of the seven the woman representing the church. With the other six sons we see a revelation.
Nepthalim - wrestling
Gad - troop
Asher – happy
Joseph – Jehovah has added
Benjamin – right side of God
Manasses – forgetting
Dan and Ephraim were idol worshippers. Some don’t want to go. Joseph was sold into slavery. We, the final generation, by way of ancestral blood were brought again into slavery, into an Egypt destined to receive again devastation by plagues. Joseph means “Jehovah has added”. Added what? The last of the sons of Jacob for the forming of the tribes of the Israel to enter into the kingdom as God’s covenantal people.
God tells us of our journey of affliction as experienced then and as we undergo now. He knew that we would be unloved in the world. But because of this we would be joined to our husband, Jesus. And we would praise him. We were purposed not to wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. In the good providences of God, we would be as a troop of overcomers. We would be blessed in our happiness as God’s elect. Recompensed in our service for the souls brought to the Father. As being God’s purposed election that stands that this great truth may be established - that God chooses some and refuses others as a free agent, by his own absolute and sovereign will, dispensing his favors or withholding them as he pleases, He has exalted us. And it is in His calling wherein we are willing to lose our lives that we may bring to Christ his betroths and his children. We, with them, in all our ways have repented reverently and in godly sorrow for all done against God.
And now we wait on the revelation of the impending judgment of the mystery of God’s will, as spoken in the seven thunders.
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