Reading through first Corinthians, it's striking that in two very different contexts, Paul asserts that the Corinthians lives are forever changed because they "were bought with a price."
In the first instance (6:20), Paul is talking about sexual immorality: don't have sex with a prostitute, your body is God's temple--you were bought with a price! So glorify God with your body!
In the second (7:23), Paul is talking to slaves, encouraging them to consider what it means to live as free people in light of the fact that "you have been bought with a price." They're no longer slaves to human masters. Slaves are now free people belonging to Christ, just as free Chrstians are now slaves to Christ.
A couple of things strike me about these two uses of the idea of having been bought with a price.
First, Paul knows nothing of the American ideal of personal and civil liberties when it comes to our relationship to morality and to God.
He slams home a very different reality: we're all slaves. We're slaves to sin and death, slaves to the law, or slaves to Christ. There is no fourth "neutral" option from which we can make our own rational, cool-headed,un-encumbered decisions. We are all slaves to one of those four things.
The illusions that we often call our own "free choices" is really just slavery cloaked under the language of 21st century political/therapeutic culture.
The language of having been bought with a price fits right in with Paul's understanding of (to quote the great Michael W. Smith) our place in this world. We were slaves--to sin, death, or the law. We gave ourselves over the Prince of Darkness. To get us back, we had to be bought back from that un-rightful owner.
And so we come to Easter weekend. And the good news is that we are under new ownership. We are God's two-times over: he created each of us and he bought each one of us back at the cross. We have, indeed, been bought with a price.
This grants us a new kind of freedom, one that it takes practice to inhabit well. It's called the freedom of obedience. It's not exactly how this world defines 'freedom,' but then again, there are many things that this world defines improperly.
So I'm driving into Maundy Thursday Eve tonight with a keen sense of having been bought with a price.
My life is not my own. "My" days, "my" gifts, "my" relationships, "my" dreams and hopes, "my" will, "my" imagination, "my" choices, "my" wife and kids--none of these are mine any more. They are His. He has bought them back, along with all my life, at great cost to Himself.
This is good news. Because our original Landlord, he was wicked. And our new Lord, the one who bought us back, he is full of love, grace, and mercy.
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