Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him.   Deuteronomy 23:15-16

When any slave left his master, contrary to Roman law or any other law of slavery, and he fled to another, God’s law made provision that the one with whom the slave sought refuge was not to return him again to his master.  The slave was to be allowed to stay with his new protector and refuge. This law gives, sinners who are slaves to the law, grounds for seeking refuge in Christ.  This law is illustrated in Paul's letter to Philemon regarding Philemon's slave Onesimus, who had run away from his master and on whose behalf Paul wrote to Philemon.

Christ is our dwelling place in all generations (Psalm 90:1).  He is our refuge from eternity from the awful slavery of our sins, our flesh, the devil, death, the world and the curse of God’s own law.  These all held us as slaves. We sold ourselves.  But in Deuteronomy 23:15-16, we are given warrant by Christ Himself, the Surety to His Father for His people, that in Christ Jesus our Lord we have a refuge from our former slave master.  Listen to this promise reiterated and confirmed in the words of our Lord:  

“All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” John 6:37

O, the blessedness of this promise!  In ourselves, we are slaves to the guilt of our own sins and slaves to our sin nature; we are slaves to God’s just law and under the sentence of death; we are slaves to Satan’s deception and we are slaves to this world's philosophy and religion.  But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us in Christ, even loved us from before the foundation of the world with an everlasting and unchanging love, and loved us when we were slaves to these, has made us alive in Christ and has raised us up together with Him!  He has set us free.  We are no longer under the law, but are free-born sons of God in Christ!  See Ephesians 1:3-7; 2:1-10; Jeremiah 31:3; Galatians 3:13; 4:3-5.

In our rebellion and in our revolt, we were under the sentence of death.  We were as runaway slaves.  By law, we must be held to account for our revolt.  But we are exhorted and warranted to trust all that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has said and done.  We are warranted by His Suretyship engagements with God the Father in the everlasting covenant, to take His words to our hearts in simple faith, to take His word in prayer, to flee to Him for refuge from our oppressive slave master, and to never fear that we will be cast out to face our former slave master who sought our death, and who sought our death according to the law of the land.

We are given warrant to trust Christ's Suretyship obligations to His Father for us: "If you count me a partner, receive him as myself.  If he hath wronged thee or oweth thee ought, put that on my account; ...I will repay." Philemon 17-19. We are given warrant to trust Christ's intercession, “Receive him as Myself," Philemon 1:17, and to rely on the certainty that His intercession is heard.  We are given warrant to trust Christ's intercession because He lawfully freed us by Himself coming under the curse of the law for us (Galatians 3:13), and now it is just and right that God receive us according to His law because He has received full payment from Him for every debt of every sin we ever committed.  (Philemon 1:18-19). Because Christ promised to pay and actually did pay all that His people owed, God now forgives us for Christ's sake. (Ephesians 4:32).  He does not forgive without regard to the justice of the law, but forgives us out of His faithfulness and according to His justice (Psalm 85:10;Daniel 9:16;1 John 1:9).  He intercedes for us as our Advocate to the Father (1John 2:1-2).

We are not only forgiven, but we are received even as God receives the Lord Jesus Christ, His own dear Son.  In receiving us, God does not consider our experience, our sincerity, or anything about us at any time.  In Christ we are loved with everlasting love, even as God loves His only begotten Son (John 17:23-24).  Our blessed Lord prays that His Father would receive us as Himself:  receive us as those loved from the foundation of the world; receive us as those loved without beginning and without end; receive us as His own dear Son who has done His Father's will from the heart; receive us as the Lord Jesus Christ who always does those things that please the Father (John 8:29).  In Christ we are given access and we are heard entirely and only because our Surety made payment, and because His payment was accepted in full compensation for our sins, and because He now pleads His own merit and blood to His Father, "Receive him, that is, mine own bowels." And again, "Receive him as Me!" Philemon 1:12,17.  See also Romans 8:31-39.

Let our souls go in confidence to God with the promises of Christ in our hand, as Onesimus returned to Philemon with Paul's letter in his hand.  And let us be refreshed by this portrait of Christ's substitution and intercession as the church in Philemon's home was refreshed by his obedience to Paul's pleadings for Christ's sake.  Let our souls take our ease and rest in our Surety for His prayers based on His covenant obligations that made Him God's debtor on our behalf.  And finally, let us be refreshed for the echo from heaven in response to all that Jesus did and prayed for His own: “God has received us for Christ’s sake.”  Ephesians 4:32

-- Rick Warta

A seal attests to the genuineness or authenticity of the thing sealed. It is a proof or evidence of authenticity. "If I be not an apostle unto others, yet doubtless I am to you: for the seal of mine apostleship are ye in the Lord." 1 Corinthians 9:2. The Corinthians’ conversion validated and gave evidence to the fact that Christ had commissioned Paul as His own apostle. Paul was sent by Jesus Christ, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, which He had promised afore by His prophets in the holy scriptures, concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord…” Romans 1:1-ff

Essentially Paul was saying to the Corinthians, “You have believed on Jesus Christ through my ministry. The gospel came to you in power through the Spirit of God, and this attests to the authenticity of my apostleship and the genuineness of the gospel I preached.” (It therefore follows that men are only saved by the preaching of the true gospel by true ministers of Jesus Christ; Men are not saved by listening to false prophets who preach a false gospel.)

Christ is the True Witness (Rev 3:14). He has the Father’s seal. The Father's seal is the Spirit of God. (See Acts 10:38; Luke 3:21-22; Isaiah 61:1-3; John 1:32.)  It was the Spirit of God that raised Christ from the dead. "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." Romans 8:11.  Christ's seal attests to Him being sent by God and approved by God in this: He was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father; His people are saved from their sins; their eyes are opened; they are turned from darkness to light; they are turned from the power of Satan unto God (Romans 1:4; Isaiah 42:1-7; Acts 26:18)

The scripture says that, “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself (2 Cor 5:19).” Reconciliation is ascribed to God in Christ. It is God who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ. This inseparable work of God the Father, the Holy Spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ is included in what is meant by the phrase, “Him hath God the Father sealed.”  God the Father was in Christ, God the Spirit was in Christ, the Lord Jesus is the Son of God, and therefore God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their sins to them.

We see the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Christ's seal throughout scripture. It was the Father's will expressed in the volume of the book that Christ would redeem His people from their sins. The Father's will was breathed out by God the Holy Spirit and is recorded in scripture. That will of the Father regarded God's Son who would fulfill all shadowy sacrifices and give pleasure to God for His once for all satisfaction for the sins of His people. Thus, it was the Father's will, the anointing of the Spirit, and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in our salvation where the seal of Christ is seen in its full breadth and scope. The triune God was in Christ.  The Lord Jesus Christ died to pay the debt that His people's sins incurred to God's justice according to the will of God.  His death paid their debt, setting them free from the curse of the law, and reconciling them to God by appeasing God's wrath, all according to His eternal will recorded in scripture breathed out by His own Holy Spirit.  And now, the Lord Jesus reigns in glory and intercedes according to the Father's will and sends forth His Spirit to bring about to His own elect people the benefits of that salvation.  See Hebrews 9:15; Psalm 40; Hebrews 10:7; Galatians 3:13; Romans 3:25; Acts 2:22-33ff.

If it is Christ that died (Romans 8:34), if God the Father sealed Him for this purpose (John 6:27), if He through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God (Hebrews 9:14), if it was God in Christ reconciling the world of His elect to Himself, then for Him to fail would be for God's seal to fail, for God Himself to fail.  Christ fails if anyone for whom He died perishes.  Everyone for whom Christ died must and shall be saved, must and shall be presented faultless and blameless before the throne of His glory with exceeding joy, or God's seal is made null and void, and that cannot happen.

-- Rick Warta

A seal signifies the irreversible nature of the written word, command, oath, or covenant. (Esther 8:8; Daniel 6:17; Acts 2:23; Acts 4:17-28). King Ahasuerus commanded Mordecai to write as it pleased him, in the name of the king and to seal it with the king’s ring so that it could not be reversed or altered. Scripture speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ saving His people from all of His and their enemies. Heaven and earth shall pass away but the word of the Lord Jesus Christ – scripture – cannot be broken; all will come to pass; not one thing spoken by Christ will fail, because He bears the seal of His Father, who is above all and reigns indisputably.

In Daniel’s case, even though the word of king Darius could not be altered or reversed, and even though the mouth of the lion’s den was sealed, yet Daniel was delivered by God from the lions. The word of the king could not be altered. The king labored all night while Daniel was in the lion’s den, that he might be delivered. In the morning, after the king’s decree was carried out unaltered, and even though the punishment called for by the king’s word was not withheld from Daniel, yet Daniel was not hurt by the lions because before God innocency was found in him (Daniel 6:22). He fully endured the decreed punishment and curse, and he was also delivered from the lions.

In Daniel we see the Lord Jesus Christ. Because God would deliver those upon whom He set His love and chose before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3-ff), He did not spare His Son, but delivered Him up for us all. The law required our punishment because we sinned.  Our blessed Lord Jesus Christ faced that law undiminished and unaltered. Both the salvation of His people and the suffering and death of His only Son was the decree, the will and the purpose of God the Father. It was an eternal decree, and so from eternity, God made it His chief business to glorify His truth and grace in Christ by saving His people by Him. “Him, being delivered by the determinate council and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain (Acts 2:23).” Yet, for His innocency, Christ, as prefigured by Daniel, was delivered from hell: “…neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption (Acts 2:27). That Christ was unalterably delivered to the lion’s according to the wicked intent of the presidents, was signified in history by the king’s seal on the lion’s den. “For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, for to do whatsoever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done (Acts 4:27-28)”.

The Lord Jesus was made a Surety for His people. God looked to Him for everything required of them. Before His Father, in eternity and to eternity, He took their responsibility. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. God spared not His own Son.  When my blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was charged with my sin, when in consequence sin was found on Him, God did not spare Him. Yet, the great work – labor – of God, is seen in this night of Christ’s suffering, for in it we are reconciled to God and God is glorified in His wisdom, righteousness, and grace. Christ is glorified for His love for His Father in willingly taking this so great case, and enduring this curse in love to my soul. Christ was not alone in His labor. God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.  Reconciliation was for Christ's people.  It was their sins that were not imputed to them, and it was Christ’s righteousness that is imputed to them. It was a long labor in this sense: It is an eternal covenant (Heb 13:20), it was an eternal transaction between the eternal God and His eternal Son on behalf of those who were ordained to eternal life in that covenant that was ratified by the blood of Christ and which obtained for them eternal redemption (Heb 9:12).

The seal is unalterable and irreversible.  It cannot be changed because God's purpose and will are unalterable and unchangeable.  Not only is God's counsel immutable, but God has added this for our strong consolation:  He confirmed it by an oath.  God bound Himself with an oath to fulfill the salvation of His people through the death of His own Son, and staked Himself to the oath for the comfort and confidence of His people who walk by faith in this world.  I can think of nothing more unspeakably imponderable than what God has done for us in Christ's suffering in obedience unto death, and the condescending grace of God our Father in binding Himself with an oath to fulfill this covenant of grace to His people by Him.