Christ, the Master Craftsman, turns evil, ugly, crooked, and shameful lives into righteous, beautiful, straight, and glorious ones. Let Him have your lousy life, and He will turn it into good. It is the same thing God does with anyone who comes to faith in Jesus. He puts His good nature in them, and they receive the capacity to do good. The Spirit of God subdues their old nature of sin. In Jesus, sinful lives are turned around and become good. No matter how sinful anyone’s life is and what evil they have perpetrated before, they are made good if they turn it over to Christ.
“I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains,who once was unprofitable to you, but now is profitable to you and me” (Pm 1:10-11). Onesimus, a servant of Philemon who might have fled from him as a useless person, became a helpful person after getting saved through the apostle Paul, who met him whilst in prison in Rome. He was sending him back to Philemon not just as an enslaved person but as a beloved brother, for Christ had turned his life from evil to good.
“So if you consider me a partner, welcome and accept him as you would me. But if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account;I, Paul, write this with my own hand, I will repay it in full —not to mention to you that you owe me even yourself as well” (Pm 1:18-19; AMP). Everybody is indebted to God for the life they have. It belongs to Him, and He freely gave it to them to possess. Therefore, they are a steward of it and ought to use it to serve His cause. Christians are indebted to Jesus for eternal life, which they have received from Him as a gift and are to use it to serve His cause as well. In effect, Christians are grateful to God in two ways; for their life and eternal life. Every Christian has received forgiveness from Christ for their enormous debt of sin and ought to forgive others for a lesser debt of an offence against them. The forgiven should forgive. God, Who owns every person’s life, had to mercifully forgive them of the unaffordable penalty for sin that they owed Him by making Jesus pay for it with His life. Therefore, every saved person forever owes their life to God through Jesus. God requires such a person to show mercy to others who come to owe them a debt of forgiveness for an offence committed against them and forgive each other as the Lord has forgiven them (Col 3: 13). God’s forgiveness of sinners in Jesus for the irredeemable penalty for sin and death was meant to cause every saved sinner to forgive others who need forgiveness from them. This they cannot hold back from them if they have experienced God’s mercy in paying for their higher debt with the life of Christ.
It was this fact Paul was calling Philemon’s attention to that he came to be forgiven of his debt of sin through his proclamation of Jesus to him. Therefore, Philemon owed his life to Paul, so he should forgive Onesimus as part of the payment for his outstanding debt to Paul.
