Philemon 1:9

Suppose he had sent back Onesimus with an apostolic order. No doubt it would have been obeyed, and the runaway pardoned and reinstated. But would this have satisfied his heart? Where then would be the precious display of the grace of Christ? That grace rises above everything, even the deepest evil. It does not only forgive the wrongdoer; it welcomes him to its heart for ever. ... He would not command, but pleaded; he names his authority, only to set it aside in a case like this.

You can never demand or claim grace. In writing the letter to Philemon, the apostle brings motives of grace to bear on the case. He does not dictate what Philemon was to do. He reminds him of his heavenly relationship, and leaves it to Philemon's grace. The law could justly have put the runaway slave to death, for Roman masters, and indeed any others, had the right to punish slaves that way. Yet Paul would have Philemon receive him back no longer as a slave, but as a brother.

Paul therefore could not waive his apostleship. But he was free to act in grace, and to take his stand on what he had in common with Philemon and the whole church — brotherhood in Christ Jesus. And here, instead of an authoritative command, he could "beseech."

So he says, "For love's sake I beseech you, being such a one as Paul" — not merely "the prisoner." He had already pleaded that as his actual situation, and would soon repeat it with emphasis. Now he takes another ground: Paul — "the aged." Would Paul, "the prisoner" and "the aged," have a weak and ineffective claim on the heart of Philemon? ... And indeed he proves how well he knew the distinctive value of his apostleship — he had not forgotten it. He proves it by keeping it hidden wherever asserting it might have spoiled the free exercise of grace.

In this he showed Philemon two things. First, that he was a sufferer, and not someone who had kept his place in the world by his confession of Christ. Second, that all the misery of his prison was gone, because he could see that men were only the hand of the Lord. So he was content to be there, for he was the Lord's prisoner.

And what had Paul the aged been learning through his long course? The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. His claim on Philemon is not the authority he might have used. It is his own experience of the blessedness of the ways of grace, and his present suffering for preaching the gospel of that grace to Philemon and other Gentiles.

Here the apostle appeals to one of the special and mightiest features of the gospel: the assertion of a title that is true, just, and beyond dispute — a title he still gives up, to leave free and full scope for grace in the one he is appealing to. So Christ lived, moved, and had His being here below.

Paul would then consider the mind of Philemon, his thoughts and exercises. He would leave to him the full responsibility of acting rightly towards Onesimus. This is the true grace of God. Philemon would not be forced, but left free to act as before God.