Introduction:
I invite you to open your Bibles to Paul’s short letter to Philemon. Tonight is our the third message of four on this small letter, and by now I hope you have seen that this letter contains a crystal-clear picture of what the gospel is and how the gospel changes us.
I want to begin tonight with the concept of rejection. Anyone here ever been rejected? Maybe it was by an authority figure, a parent, a coach, a boss. Maybe it was a family member or close friend. Maybe someone else. I think at one point or another in life we’ve all been there. My experience has taught me that rejection feels worst when it comes as a surprise, or from someone we’d never expect it from. There’s a good reason people describe rejection as being ‘stabbed in the back.’ It feels like betrayal. You can almost see the faces of others disregarding you, counting you as useless, casting you out as worthless and no longer welcome.
Rejection is something felt too often not only outside the church but inside it. When I first became a Christian in college, I felt this the first time I walked into a church. God had just saved me, I didn’t know what the ‘rules’ were, and plenty of people who’d been believers for years made me feel like an outsider by the simple fact that I didn’t dress like them. Rejection comes in many shapes and sizes.
Let the reality of rejection stay in your mind, because Onesimus is about to face it.
Think about where we’ve been in Philemon these past two weeks. A runaway slave, out on the loose, somehow meets up with Paul while Paul is in prison for preaching the gospel. He’s converted under Paul’s ministry, and now he’s heading back home to be reconciled with his master Philemon — because Paul asks for it. Onesimus doesn’t know what’s waiting for him. Under Roman law, a returning runaway slave could legally be imprisoned or worse, entirely at his master’s discretion. He’s walking home into the very real possibility of total rejection. I tell you that because I want you to feel that weight before we see how Paul answers it. In this light, v17–20 would have been soothing to Onesimus, and they're soothing today for any sinner who reads them.
Follow along as I read verses 17–20…
Held within each verse of this passage are two statements. The first is a truth statement, a certainty Paul is conveying. The second is an effect statement, the result that truth leads to. Four verses, four pairs of statements, forms Paul’s appeal to Philemon on behalf of his slave Onesimus.
v17
The truth statement: "So if you consider me your partner…" The word for "partner" here is the same Greek word, koinōnos, translated “sharing your faith” back in v6. That this word can mean “partner” in one place and “sharing” in another tells us Paul has more in view than a business arrangement. He means a unified, co-laboring partnership in the gospel. Two men who have linked arms to bear the weight of the gospel whatever the cost. Paul saw Philemon as a partner in the faith, and you can count on it that Philemon saw Paul the same way. Both men had been chased down by Christ and redeemed, and through them Christ was building His church. They were truly partners; not only sharing their faith with others, but sharing the same faith with each other.
Because of that truth, see the effect at the end of v17, “…receive him as you would receive me.” Paul has alluded to this request throughout the letter, but here he finally makes it plain. The partnership between Paul and Philemon naturally produces a result. Philemon is to extend to Onesimus the same grace he’d extend to Paul.
Paul isn’t asking Philemon merely to tolerate Onesimus, he’s asking for Philemon to receive him, the way he'd receive Paul if he walked through his front door. Church, hear it.
Notice what Paul is doing here. He’s not leaning on his apostolic authority. He’s appealing to Philemon as a friend, not commanding him as an apostle. And more than that, he’s lowering himself further still, putting a runaway slave on the very same level as himself. That’s what “receive him as you would receive me” means.
Was this just Paul being generous? It would be easy to read it that way. But Paul isn’t just being generous here, he’s showing us the cross. Though Paul is an apostle and Onesimus a slave, both were once slaves of sin who became slaves of Christ through the same gospel. How would Philemon receive Paul if Paul showed up at his door? With honor, dignity, respect, submission…because Paul is his father in the faith. Paul tells him: receive Onesimus exactly the same way. In this, Paul risked his relationship with Philemon for the sake of Onesimus. Church, the gospel demands we go just as far for one another.
v18
The truth statement: “If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything…” The effect afterwards: “…charge that to my account.”
It’s likely implied here that Onesimus stole from Philemon on his way out the door, which was common enough in this time, where slaves were often seen as unreliable and prone to theft. You might think Paul is simply being generous here, showing us an implication of the gospel. That's true. But Paul’s doing more than illustrating the gospel, he is living out the language of the gospel itself. “Charge that to my account” is the language of substitution and satisfaction: a debt paid on behalf of someone who cannot pay it himself.
This should stop us in our tracks. The Greek word behind “charge it to my account” is ellogeo, the very same word Paul uses in Romans 5:13, where he says sin is not “counted” against someone apart from the law. Paul isn’t reaching for a loose metaphor. He is using precise language, the language of imputation, and applying it to a runaway slave’s unpaid debt. What Paul says to Philemon on Onesimus’s behalf is, in the exact same category, as what Jesus Christ says to the Father on behalf of sinners: ‘put it on My account.’
Now, we need to be careful about what that word ‘substitution’ actually means, because it’s easy to let it go in one ear and out the other as theological jargon. Substitution means one party stands in the place of another and receives what was due to that other party instead of them. Not a partial discount. Not a payment plan. A full transfer, so complete that the original debtor is no longer liable for anything. That’s exactly the shape of what Paul calls Philemon to. Not ‘let's work something out’ but ‘move the whole debt off his ledger and onto mine.’ Onesimus walks away with a clean account, not because the debt didn’t exist, but because Paul now legally owns it.
That’s precisely the pattern Scripture uses for the cross, over and over specific language. Isaiah saw it years before Calvary as he said, “The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6), sin transferred onto Christ. Peter says it plainly, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24), He carried what was ours, not His own. Paul names the exchange explicitly in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake God made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Notice, it moves both directions, there is a double transaction. Our sin is charged to His, His righteousness is credited to us. That double transfer is sometimes called ‘the great exchange.’ Galatians 3:13 puts it plainly, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” Somebody had to bear the curse our sin deserved. Christ did not adjust the curse, negotiate it, or absorb part of it. He took it all, in our place, as our substitute, and none of it falls on us.
This is why substitution is not the same thing as mere forgiveness. God did not overlook sin at the cross, or merely wipe it away. He punished it fully, in full justice, and then placed that punishment on His own Son instead of on us. This is what the old hymn means when it sings, “Guilty, vile, and helpless we, spotless Lamb of God was He, full atonement, can it be?” John Piper says it so well, “At the cross, the wisdom of God ordained a way for the love of God to deliver us from the wrath of God without compromising the justice of God.” Nothing was swept under the rug. Every last cent of the debt was paid, just not by the one who owed it.
That truth so gripped Paul’s own heart that it produced in him a desire to extend that same grace to a runaway slave who had become dear to him. Paul’s debt was paid at the cross, fully, legally, finally, and the moment he sees Onesimus carrying a debt he can do something about, the gospel moves him to make it his own. This is what happens every time the gospel actually reaches a human heart… people who have been so loved for start looking for people they can love in the same way.
v19
The truth statement: “I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it…” Paul typically dictated his letters to an amanuensis, a secretary. Not here. He picks up the pen himself, underlining just how personal this letter is. This is Paul’s follow-through on v18. The debt he sees standing between Philemon and Onesimus, he will pay, and Philemon can hold him to it.
But don’t rush by what Paul says next in the rest of v19: “…to say nothing of your owing me even your very own self.” Paul will repay Onesimus’s debt, yes, but in the same breath he reminds Philemon that Philemon is already in his debt, for leading him to Christ in the first place. Linger on that for a second. Paul is saying: ‘I'll cover what he owes you, but let’s not forget the debt between us. You owe me your soul. So who actually owes whom here?’ Philemon isn’t being asked to give up something that was ever fully his. He’s being invited to let go of a debt in light of a far greater debt already forgiven.
v20
The truth Paul means to convey: “Yes, brother, I want some benefit from you in the Lord…” The effect, really a gentle command: “…refresh my heart in Christ.”
Philemon was known for refreshing the saints in Colossae (v7). Now Paul wants that same refreshment turned toward him. The Greek word behind “benefit” is oninēmi, the very word Onesimus’s name comes from. Paul is punning, right up to the end of his appeal. He’s saying, ‘I want some benefit (some oninēmi) from you. And the benefit I want is Onesimus.”
Remember back in v11, Paul said Onesimus was once “useless” to Philemon but is now “useful” to them both. His very name meant “useful,” and for years it must have felt like a cruel joke, a useless man named Useful. Now Paul takes that name and hands it back to Philemon totally transformed…the useless slave has become, by grace, truly useful, and more, he’s become a brother, not merely property. Paul reaches for the word “heart” again here, as he did in v7 and v12. So if Philemon receives Onesimus, it will do good to the very core of Paul’s being.
Four verses. Four pairs of truth and effect. All of it loaded with gospel grace.
Conclusion
Some of you may hear all of this and think, ‘Fine for Onesimus, fine for Philemon, but that kind of grace isn’t for me. I know what I’ve done. I know what’s in my ledger.’ That’s a natural objection, and it’s worth stating, because most of us instinctively resist the idea that someone else’s debt could really be transferred to us, or that someone else’s record could really be credited to our account. It feels too easy. It feels like cheating. But that’s exactly the scandal of the gospel.
Recall how I began tonight, talking about rejection. Remember how Onesimus must have felt walking that road home? Scared of what would happen, of how Philemon would respond? Hoping for the best while expecting the worst?
Ask a question. What's the opposite of rejection?
Welcome!
Look again at v17. One of the most encouraging implications of this whole text is this. Just as Philemon was to welcome Onesimus the way he’d welcome Paul (because Paul had already removed the debt standing between them) so God welcomes sinners like us the way He would welcome His own Son, because His Son has already removed the debt standing between us and the Father.
If you have turned away from sin and turned toward Christ in faith, you’ve been saved. And if you’re saved, you have every reason to expect to be welcomed home by God in the end…not because your ledger is clean, but because it was charged to Another.
Just as Paul told Philemon about Onesimus, “Charge it to my account,” so too Jesus told His Father about us, ‘Charge it to My account.’
May we welcome one another, as God in Christ has welcomed us.
