Independence Day

If a fellow Hebrew sells himself or herself to be your servant and serves you for six years, in the seventh year you must set that servant free.   Deuteronomy 15:12

If God’s people were unable to pay back their loans, one way they could fulfill their responsibility was by working for the lender. The problem was that those who were forced to sell themselves to others could set their families up for generational poverty, in which the children of one family could end up serving the children of another. So God gave additional laws to protect the poor.

As a result, the lender was not to become a slave master: “If one of your fellow Israelites falls into poverty and is forced to sell himself to you, do not treat him as a slave. Treat him instead as a hired worker or as a temporary resident who lives with you” (Leviticus 25:39-40).

The obligation of the employer went beyond kind treatment of the worker. The law protected freedom by requiring that a servant be released after seven years. If a man was working to repay a debt, he could always look forward to the day when his freedom and independence would be restored.

This law was great for the debtor but costly for the creditor. Of course, this reminds us of our debt to God: the cost to God of canceling all our sin was incalculable. It cost the death of his Son, Jesus Christ. And the benefit to us is also incalculable.

The only way to write off a debt is to incur the loss of the debt amount personally. And if God is to write off all our debts to him, it means that he has to incur the total cost of that debt himself. That is why Christ went to the cross. He bore the loss and in this way canceled our debts.

This is good news for the spiritually poor. You can look forward to the day when Christ returns and your freedom will be completely restored.

For further reading, see Luke 7