What does it mean that "you were bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23)?

What then is the scriptural connection of purchase? The apostle is here looking at Christians, slaves as well as those who had never been other than free. Of all he says, "Ye were bought with a price." They had become by purchase the property of God; such is the effect of being bought. Right of possession had been acquired by purchase. "Ye were bought with a price:" the effect is to make the one purchased His own. If He buys, those who are bought become His slaves.

Moreover we are not our own, but were bought with a price — the blood of Christ offered for us. Therefore we ought to glorify God in our bodies, which are His — powerful and universal motive, governing the whole conduct without exception. Our true liberty is to belong to God. All that is for oneself is stolen from the rights of Him who has bought us for His own. All that a slave was, or gained, was the property of his master; he was not the owner of himself. Thus it was with the Christian. Outside that, he is the wretched slave of sin and of Satan — selfishness his rule, and eternal banishment from the source of love his end. Horrible thought! In Christ we are the special objects and the vessels of that love. We have here two mighty motives for holiness: the value of Christ's blood, at which we are purchased; also the fact that we are the temples of the Holy Ghost.

Thus we see our place with reference to these two truths. Beyond doubt the Lord has, in His infinite goodness, interfered for us in our utter guilt and ruin. On the one hand, He has dealt with Satan, who had us enslaved, and brought us clean out of that bitter bondage; on the other hand, we are bought with a price, and have not a single right that is not swallowed up in that purchase by Christ's blood, not only what we have, but ourselves also. "Ye were bought with a price." The Corinthians were dull to see and own what it is to be thus bought. Therefore the Spirit takes up the truth again and again. In 1 Cor. 6 they were reminded that their body was the temple of the Holy Ghost, which was in them, which they had of God; but, moreover, that they were not their own, for they were bought with a price: therefore were they to glorify God in their body; they belonged to Christ the Lord. Thus there is not only a divine power that deigns to dwell and work in answer to Christ in the body: to take our own way, or do our own will, is denying God's title to us as His positive possession through Christ's blood. We are His for all the way, and not merely for the end in glory. We are His to please and glorify Him now in this world, yea, in these bodies of humiliation which the Holy Spirit deigns to make God's temple.

Here the exhortation takes a rather different direction, though grounded on the same truth. "Ye were bought with a price: be not ye slaves of men." There it was urged against pleasing ourselves, especially against corrupt licence and impure passions. Here it is a guard against pandering to others, it might be for ease or honour, or to avoid pain or reproach: a great snare to the Corinthians, not to slaves only, but as much, or more, to the free. Hence the force of this word which embraces both. The Lord's freedman should not become a slave of men; neither should Christ's slave. There is not such a thought as enfeebling the Christian slave in serving his earthly master: grace would rather strengthen him to serve with twofold zeal and honour, for he was now the Lord's freedman. How base again for one who, after the flesh free but now bound to Christ as His slave by the deepest and most durable of ties, should become man's slave by compromising his Master, Who had bought him with His blood!

As the slaves of sin we needed redemption, and God has redeemed us. His great love made Him desire to have us as His own, and that same great love moved Him to pay a great price for us, for we "ARE bought with a price." That price was the precious blood of Christ. Nothing less than this would do. The gold for which men crave and labour and the gems that fascinate the eyes of women could avail nothing in this matter, nor could any other price be found in heaven above or in earth beneath but this — the precious blood of Christ.

The apostle explains, "For the bondman that was called in [the] Lord is [the] Lord's freedman." Such is the correct force, "freedman" rather than freeman. ἀπελεύθερος means one who was made free, not who was free-born. It is the accurate term here, and it is the more emphatic, because freeman or free-born (ἐλεύθερος) follows immediately. "Likewise he that was called [being] free is Christ's bondman." Christ alone puts every one in his place and true light: emancipation by human means cannot effect or approach it. The christian slave is the Lord's freeman; the christian freeman is Christ's slave. The Lord's authority breaks the fetters of the one to his faith; the grace of Christ reduces the other to slavery for his heart. "Ye were bought with a price." Whether it be the freeman or the bondman, all were bought. The saints are the purchase of Christ's blood: so indeed is all the world; but believers alone acknowledge it, and they are called to act on it. "Be [or become] not slaves of men:" an exhortation as incumbent on the free as on the slave. A single eye alone secures true service, and yet is perfect liberty. They were already serving the Lord Christ: only so can the Christian serve aright in any case. Strange to say, none are so prone to slip into human bondage as those who profess the Lord's name: so the second Epistle to the Corinthians shows. But this was real forgetfulness of Christ and unfaithfulness to Him. Christianity in its true power brings into responsibility no less than into liberty, and as this is true in doctrine, so it is of all consequence to be remembered in practice. "Wherein each was called, brethren, in this let him abide with God." "The calling" appears to mean a man's providential condition when called of God, as here we see it applied to circumcision or uncircumcision, freedom or slavery, not earthly occupations, commonly supposed, some of which might involve not a little that would clash with God's word and offend a Christian's conscience. Here all pleas for continuance in evil, because one was converted by God's grace spite of them, is effectually cut off, for the believer is called to abide "with God." If one cannot continue with God, it is high time to ask His direction who assuredly never calls a saint to do evil but to cease from it at all cost.

This, then, as a matter of truth, is as sure as it is plain; but next we come to its consequences, for every truth has its answer in practice, and speaks to the affections. How, then, does this truth find its reflection in our hearts? and what answer does it look for in our practical path day by day? "The slave called in the Lord is the Lord's freedman" (ver. 22). What is it that sets the captive free? What is it that brings us into liberty? Is it purchase? So far from this is it that purchase, instead of giving me my liberty, rather makes me a bondman. I am His to serve, now and evermore, Who bought me with a price — His own blood. But people do not serve Christ when it is merely a question of being thus bought. There is another blessing necessary to make the claim of purchase felt, even redemption. For the adverse power of Satan has possession of me in my natural state, and he avails himself of my self-will and love of the world. This must be broken; but how can it be? It is by redemption, when the believer, finding life in Christ, is won to God. How blessed, then, to have redemption in Him through His blood! Unless I am thus brought to God through Him Who suffered once for sins, Just for unjust, what is there to set me free? A slave of sin — what is to liberate me? There is nothing in the nature of purchase to set one free; there may be, and is, a powerful motive in it when the spell of Satan is broken, and forgiveness is known in the incomparable grace of God, but not before or otherwise.

But there is more than this in the work of Christ which broke the power of Satan, "that by death he might destroy him that had the power of death." He has perfectly annulled his power, and met all on God's part needful for us; but there is another thought. It is of all consequence that we should feel that we are immediately responsible to God according to the new, intimate, and holy relationship which is ours in virtue of redemption. We are bought with a price. (And what a price!) Thus we belong to Him — we are not our own, but His. These two truths combine in the Christian; but there is this difference between them — that the world also is "bought," and every man in it; whereas it would be false to say that every man in the world is "redeemed." If we are subject to scripture, we must say that there is no such thing as universal redemption; but we must confess the truth of universal purchase.* Christ's blood has purchased the whole world with every soul and every other creature in it. Therefore in 2 Peter 2, for instance, we hear wicked heretics spoken of as denying the Lord (δεσπότην), not that redeemed, but "that bought them." The Sovereign Master made them His property: they are a part of that which He purchased to Himself by blood. They do not own it themselves; they treat the Master's claims and rights with indifference and contempt, as every unbeliever does. The believer is not only bought by the precious blood of Christ, but delivered from the power of the enemy, just as Israel was in type here. The two things are therefore as clear as they are also harmonious. The effect of the one is that the enemy has no longer the slightest claim to us, or power over us; the effect of the other is that the Lord has a perfect right to us in every particular. Let us own the grace and wisdom of our God in both.

We believe that we should. We might put it in this way — redemption involves purchase, but purchase very often has nothing to do with redemption. Believers are said to be "bought with a price" (1 Cor. 6:20). But false teachers will go so far as "denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction" (2 Peter 2:1). The buying of believers involves their redemption. The buying of the false teachers, who go to destruction, did not involve their redemption; had it done so destruction would not be their end. By His death the Lord Jesus has acquired purchase rights over all things, even where He has not redeemed them.

Human words are not found to express its greatness: so if it is called a "price," we cannot compute it. The Holy Ghost once says "precious blood"; and once we read, "God so loved the world." If we can measure the love of God as expressed in the word "so," then we may estimate the price; and, if we can estimate the price, we can measure the "so"; but both are infinite and immeasurable.

As to the first point, I must remind my Christian reader of what has been already said as to the difference between a slave and a hired servant, i.e., one who has bound himself to serve for a certain time for wages. The former (unless he was a slave by birth, or as a prisoner of war, or as punishment for a crime) had become so by purchase. His master had bought him, and therefore he was the property of his master, who could do with him as he pleased. This, beloved, constitutes exactly our relationship to Christ, Who has redeemed and purchased us with the highest price He could pay for us, that, is, with His own precious blood. The word in the original used for "servants" is "slaves," not only because there were no hired servants at those times, but only slaves, but because we are slaves. It is a hard word to the ears of men, and rightly so, if applied to earthly relationships. But as to our relationship to Christ, there is no sweeter word to a Christian. If Christ had only hired me, I should belong to Him only for a time, but He has bought me, and so I am His own for ever. And that inestimable price, which our Master has paid for us, beloved, even His own most precious Blood, we find in its practical bearing upon the Christian's walk, applied in a threefold way to our consciences.