What does it mean to be a bondservant of Christ (Galatians 1:10)?

In verse 10 we have Paul's answer to such words: "For am I now conciliating men, or God? or am I now seeking to please men?" The word translated "conciliate" really is "persuade." These false teachers had said, Paul is trying to persuade men to follow him by being all things to all men. (See 1 Cor. 9:22.) Paul answers, You may judge for yourselves. What am I doing now? Am I seeking to please you in this letter? Am I now seeking to please men, or God? They knew very well that Paul was not trying to please them, or to please any man. It is well for us to remember that if we seek to please men, then we are not Christ's slaves. (Gal. 1:10.) The slave of Christ must have his eye fixed on his Master, and seek only to please Him. This is a word we all need to remember.

In his testimony and service he was not a man-pleaser, "for if I were pleasing men, I should not be the servant of Christ." He did not seek the applause of men and of the world. If he accommodated himself to men, seeking to please them, he would not be Christ's servant. Characteristic of the preachers of a perverted gospel is that they are catering to the wishes of men. When sound doctrine is no longer endured, then after their own lusts do they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears (2 Timothy 4: 3). And Jude describes these "men-pleasers" as follows: "Their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage" (Jude 16).

Paul didn't seek to satisfy people, but God. If pleasing people is made my object in anything, I am certainly not the servant of Christ in that thing. People want the flesh (our sinful nature inherited from Adam) pampered, but nothing less than the judgment of the flesh can satisfy God. Paul would not intentionally attempt to displease anyone, for that would be equally wrong. But the eternal glory of God, the exaltation of Christ as infinitely above all others, must be paramount to one called as a servant of God.

If Paul had sought to please men, for whatever reason, political, religious or some other reason, he would not have been “Christ’s bondman.”Paul was a bondman of Jesus Christ, he was an apostle but at the same time he was a bondservant, he did not hide that. Paul is in many ways an example for us, he said, “Be my followers as I am of Christ Jesus”(1 Cor.11:1). Christ is the prime example, the true bondman and we follow Him; Paul also was a bondman and we try to follow him as well. Christ is our model in perfection and Paul is the model Christian, the model follower.

The servant of Christ, who realizes that the Lord is his sole Master and Head, will then ever seek to "please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier" and a servant of the crucified Savior (II Tim. 2:4), and to do his Lord's will. If one is called to be the Lord's servant, how then can he hire out to be the servant of a denomination or a congregation and do what man tells him to do? When a man is hired, he becomes a servant to those who hire him and must please them. Does it not become him to keep himself free as the servant of Christ alone to serve Him wherever and however his Master directs day by day? Surely so. Again the apostle Paul is our noble example. To the Galatians he wrote: "do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ" (Gal. 1:10). The apostles referred to themselves as "servants of Jesus Christ" (Rom. 1:1; II Peter 1:1; Jude 1). Being bought with the price of His precious blood, we are exhorted, "be not ye the servants of men" (I Cor. 7:23). We are to minister to man in loving service, but Christ is our Master.

Verse 10. "For do I now persuade men, or God?" etc. It is the voice of a self-conscious steward of God's mysteries that is heard in these remarkable words, and we may compare them, with a view to a better apprehension of their meaning, with his language upon other occasions when speaking of his ministry (1 Thess. 2:4-5; 2 Cor. 5:9). The end and study of his life was to approve himself to God a workman that needed not to be ashamed; but to persuade God of his fidelity, as His messenger and witness, Paul must keep close in his testimony to the words of God. There had been a time when he persuaded men, and served with an unflagging zeal the traditions of his fathers after the flesh; but that time had passed, and was, with the fruitless and unblessed labour which it witnessed, among the things behind. He lives now for another end. With him the preaching of the gospel was not a voluntary choice, but an imposed responsibility. It was undertaken by him, not on the spur of a self-seeking ambition, but in the constraining power of the love of Christ. Men were indeed his aim, but not their suffrages as men. He sought them as a fisher for their souls, and the net with which he plied his craft was not worldly wisdom, but the grace of God. As of sincerity, as of God and in the sight of God, he spake in Christ as an anointed minister of grace (2 Cor. 2:17). How well or ill he sped in his vocation, and what measure of success attended his efforts to please God, will be known completely only in the day of God; but of the true character of his ministry, as it respected men, both they who heard him, and ourselves who meditate his written words, are equally competent to judge.

"For do I now persuade men or God?" That is, was he wishing to gain them over or God? "Or do I seek to please men? for if I yet please men, I should not be the servant of Christ." He was perfectly aware that this kind of uncompromising testimony rendered him particularly obnoxious to men, and even produced ill-will among real saints of God. So now the same thing would be called want of charity. In fact, it is not want of charity to speak uncompromisingly; but it is to judge those who do. He says it is the way not to please men but to please God. It was in that very way that Christ had called him to be a servant. "I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." There was something, no doubt, extraordinary in the manner in which the Apostle Paul had had the gospel made known to him. He was not converted by the preaching of the gospel, as most are. Peter's case was a similar one. Flesh and blood had not revealed it to him, but the Father which was in heaven. Peter was the first person who was taught the glory of the Christ — taught that glory, not as connected merely with Jewish prophecies, but the deeper glory of Christ, as Christians ought to know Him now, as the Son of the living God; not connected with earth exclusively. Peter was the first to whom the Holy Ghost revealed the grand truth that Jesus was not only the Messiah, but the Son of God in a heavenly and divine sense. Peter, therefore, was honoured by God, and put by our Lord in a very special place. He was the one to whom our Lord first named His Church. In the case of St. Paul, the truth went farther. For if we have the Father revealing the Son to Peter, Paul goes yet beyond, and says that God revealed His Son in him. Peter could have said, It pleased the Father to have revealed the Son to him; Paul could say, in him. St. Paul was led of the Holy Ghost into a gradually increasing knowledge of the grand and most glorious truth of the oneness of the believer with Christ. But this is not brought out here. Yet the expression, "revealed his Son in me," is one that could hardly have been used by one who did not know this truth. As in Hebrews, the apostle speaks about believers having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, though the epistle to the Hebrews does not reveal that we are members of Christ's body; yet we could not be exhorted to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, unless we were members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones; so only Paul could have said, "It pleased God to reveal his Son in me." It is connected with the truth of which Paul was the chosen witness — the union of Christ and the Church, intimated at his very conversion. "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" He was persecuting the saints; and the Lord says, To persecute them is to persecute Me. They were one. The Church and the Lord are united. We are not members of Christ's divinity, but of His body. It is only as man that He has a body. But while He was a man upon earth, we were not members. The corn of wheat, unless it died, must abide alone; "but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit:" that is, it is founded upon the death and resurrection of Christ, that He is able to associate others with Himself as the members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. Christ in heaven and the saints on earth make one body. That is what Paul learnt at his conversion. Having the substance of this in view, the apostle says, "I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man."

But it was possible that those Judaisers might seek to persuade the Galatians that they had not received all the gospel and that what they taught was merely supplementary, and what the apostle would have set before them had he remained long enough. This would be plausible, but it is met, "As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel to you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." Paul had taught them all, and they had received all; all pretended developments were but error. In speaking so strongly, the apostle had Christ before him, not men. "For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ." Paul had not learned the unwholesome principle of our day, that for unity's sake all sorts of error should be tolerated. None could be more careful than he not to unnecessarily wound any, nor could any be more considerate to souls who were slow in their growth in the truth; but when the foundations of Christianity were undermined or attacked, the apostle forgot men, and acted for Christ. An important principle for our souls at the present crisis.

"If the fear of man brings a snare," the men-pleasing is akin to it, and is no less a snare to. many a servant of Christ, especially in the gospel. "Do I seek to please men?" wrote the great apostle. "For if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man." Solemnly instructive words these for every popular evangelist; above all in these "last days" where the religious atmosphere is filled with evil ways and doctrines of every kind. A popular preacher naturally loves and looks for a wide sphere and crowded audiences. One can easily understand this, and wish him every success in his ministry for God's glory. But let him beware lest this desire become his snare, by service and religious fame becoming his object instead of Christ. Alas! not a few once esteemed servants of Christ have gone to sleep on the laurels of their religious reputation, and even grown cool and indifferent to Christ's glory by permitting themselves to be drawn into association with Christ-dishonouring teachers and doctrines. They dread to see the sphere of their service and influence narrowed, and want to move with a large (I would rather call it broad) heart in a broad way. In our days of "religious latitudinarianism" (what a broad word for a broad way!), where temporal things are grasped very tightly and divine things held very loosely, where men sell the truth instead of buying it, faithfulness to divine truth must necessarily isolate.

And he justifies this strength of warning: "For do I now persuade men or God? Do I seek to please men? For if I yet pleased men, I should not be a servant of Christ." Impossible to serve two masters! Christ never mingles with flesh or law any more than with the world. Bondage is there; and He is a deliverer, but it is to God's glory, and for His own service in the liberty of grace.