The Battle Field Contract

By David W Hall

A battle raged out in the field – two armies locked in deadly conflict to the death. As the tide of war surged in favour of one side, the other turned and fled. Many were left stranded as the conquerors surged forward slaying all in their paths.

As one of the victors stood with his foot on the neck of a fallen enemy, a desperate cry for mercy arose. The champion paused, and stayed his hand of death. Mercy came to the fallen soldier and his life was spared.

The conqueror now owned the life of the vanquished and he became his bondslave for life.

This scenario has been played out countless times throughout ancient history. They were brutal times back then, so different from our view of life today in modern democracies. But, actually, this very scene is still being played out in a different way.

Six thousand years ago a battle raged in the garden of Eden. It was not a battle with swords and spears, but it was nevertheless a battle for control, and the weapons were lies and temptation. So let us set the scene.

Adam and Eve had been created by God to live in a relationship with Himself that was based in love and fellowship together. Luke referred to Adam as a ‘son of God’. Luke 3:38. Adam, of course, was not deity like Jesus, the Son of God, but he was created with God as his Father. Nor was Adam the final model of a son of God, for he was just the starting point of the whole human race in whom the very life of God would eventually be sown.

Adam and Eve were provided with all that they needed. They were not required to labour, and feared nothing as long as they remained obedient to God. So were they free or not? That all depends on how we define freedom. Yes, Adam and Eve were free – free to be fully who they were created to be, as God’s sons. But they were not free to be something else.

Into this scene Satan intruded, bringing a lie about the nature of freedom. His message was that if Adam and Eve possessed the knowledge of good and evil, they could be like God, and be independent agents alongside God. Surely independence is freedom? Surprisingly, no! For instance, if I were to claim an idyllic tropical island as my own sovereign territory, I would immediately have to protect it from those who would seek to take it from me. As soon as we claim independence in anything we are immediately bound to maintain and protect that independence.

Adam and Eve reached out for independence from God, but were immediately taken captive by fear and shame. Apart from God, they were powerless to maintain their independence. Sin and death conquered them, and survival became their overriding preoccupation. Adam and Eve knew they had been totally deceived. Freedom had not materialized as promised. They had simply exchanged the freedom of willing obedience to a loving Father for the reluctant slavery to sin, self-centredness, and their own assessments of what was right and wrong.

Since then, every descendant of Adam and Eve has been born a slave to sin and Satan. None of us is free! no matter how good a life-style we seek to adopt. We are all slaves of something. We spend our lives in survival mode, seeking to insulate ourselves from anxieties, rejection, failure, sickness, and finally death. We are bound by habits and dependencies of various kinds. The poor are bound by physical needs and the rich by the fear of losing their wealth, or the need to feel useful.

So, if independent freedom is a myth, what should we seek? The answer is simple. The right master! The apostle Paul said, ‘do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?’ Rom 6:16.

We should seek to serve the One Who made us, for in obeying our designer we know the fulfilling freedom of becoming exactly who we really are. He did not create us because of a morbid, megalomaniacal desire to conquer us to be His craven slaves. No! He is a Father who has given us the very right to existence in a father/son relationship with Him. He has made each of us uniquely, with a perfect plan, place and function to fulfill. This is true freedom.

When God sends a messenger of the gospel to speak to us, He is providing us with an opportunity to choose our master. Instead of overcoming us with fear, lies, sin and death, as Satan did in the garden, God conquers us with His word of life and love. We bow at His feet as ones who deserve to die for the rebellion of our hearts and the corruption of our self-centredness. We are sinners. But He reaches out His hand of mercy and love and sets us on our feet to be both sons of God and love-slaves serving Christ. Paul rejoiced over the Christians at Rome and said, ‘God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness’. Rom 6:16

Notice that we are ‘love-slaves’ of Christ. We do not serve for fear of punishment or annihilation, but because of the sincere desire born in us by the implantation of the seed of His life. We simply want to behave as sons who serve. We want to please the Father. In this we are like Jesus, the Son of God Who said, ‘I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me’. John 5:30, 6:38. He also said, ‘No one takes 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 command I have received from My Father’. John 10:18 Long before time began He emptied Himself of His glory as God the Son and became Son of God the Father and the Father’s bond-servant. Phil 2:7. In so doing He ‘learned obedience by the things which He suffered’. Heb 5:8.

Despite the fact that God has a pre-planned destiny for each of us, He still gives us the dignity of choice. We can choose Him as Lord and master, or we can take our chances with the alternative and be conquered by sin and death. He will honour our choice. When Israel stood at the entry to the promised land Joshua, their leader, stood and said, ‘choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood … but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD’. Josh 24:15

Choose, we must, for the battle field contract leaves no alternative. The one conquered chooses either death or mercy. In choosing the mercy of God, we choose His life as a gift within us, and this life gives us the capacity to live as God’s sons, serving as slaves who love their master. On the other hand, refusing obedience to the life and love of God leaves us prey to the ravages of sin with all its guilt and powerlessness, failure and death. We cannot stand in the middle, not choosing either, for we are already under the power of sin until we are released by the power of the One who has conquered sin and death in His own death on the cross.

Now we can begin to see what true freedom really is. Jesus said, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free … whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.’ John 8:31-36.