The Slave Mentality

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     "So then, my brothers, we are not to look upon ourselves as the sons of the slave woman but of the free, not sons of slavery under the Law, but sons of freedom under grace" (Galatians 4:31).

     The Galatians had been set free by the Good News, free from "the authority of gods who had no real existence," and free from "dead and sterile principles," which had held them enslaved, the victims of superstition and terror of the unknown. But then there came those intruders who seduced them into believing that the God whom they now knew was a stern law-making, whip-cracking Deity, and under this delusion they forgot that they had been set free, adopted and made heirs as sons of the family. Immediately they began to think as slaves and act accordingly.

     The apostle turned their own weapon upon them. "Now tell me, you who want to be under the Law, have you heard what the Law says?" He then told them the interesting story of Abraham who fathered two sons, one by his wife according to promise, and the other by an Egyptian slave girl. He likened these women to God's two covenants, and pointed out that those who were under the Law must be ejected from the family, for the slaves cannot inherit with the sons. Our heading quotation in this article is the conclusion of the allegory.

     The way in which we look at ourselves is going to affect our whole attitude toward God and our demeanor toward one another. There is something about the slave mentality which makes it difficult for one to react as a wholesome social personality. This was demonstrated at the time of the American Emancipation Proclamation. Although the former slaves were legally free they could not think of themselves as so, and the previous feeling of inferiority bred into and forced upon them was only augmented in the presence of their one time owners who were now no more free than themselves.

     The law enslaved and made prisoners of men and thus filled them with unnatural fears and inhibitions. If God is regarded as a tyrannical slave-owner we will get the idea that the community of saints is a group of unreconciled individuals living in slave-quarters behind the big house, but if we recognize that we are sons, born of a free woman, we can sit down together at the table without latent hostility and inner trauma.

     The way in which we look at our parentage will determine the way in which we regard one another. We will not browbeat and seek to destroy those who are beloved as brothers and sisters. We will not set up false standards and demand conformity, for the freedom we inherit in spite of our shortcomings will prompt us to make allowances for others. As recipients of mercy and forgiveness we can be forgiving.

     For several years I have been aware of the insecurity which characterizes those who seek security in law-keeping. I know men who continually hold "revivals" to save others and who dare not testify that they know they themselves are saved. They purport to bring to others that which they are not even sure they possess. And they cannot really forgive for they are not sure they are really forgiven.

     These brethren are afraid to live and die. Their bravado and braggadocio is like a frightened lad whistling in the dark. They bank their hope of everlasting bliss on the chance that they will

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not be killed suddenly. They must have the last few minutes of rationality to breathe a prayer asking forgiveness for their last mistake. There must be time to utter the cliché, "And if we have done anything else contrary to thy will for which we have not requested forgiveness." Eternal life in the Father's home is contingent upon bookkeeping with exactitude, of getting credit on one side of the ledger to balance and offset "acts of omission and commission" on the other. One sin, one prayer, and the latter wide enough to cover the former. What a whittling down of grace this is!

     The result of all this is the development of a kind of smug hypocrisy which makes one bold in his claims to others who are regarded as "brothers in error," and outside the pale, while he is filled with inward doubt right down to the last gasp. I thank God for deliverance from this "off again, on again, gone again" philosophy. What a sense of freedom comes when grace stoops down and lifts the crushing burden off your back. I know I am saved! I know I am in Him!

     It is my prayer and heart's desire for my brethren that they be delivered from the slave mentality. I bear them record that they have a zeal for God but not according to knowledge. Being ignorant of God's method of justification, and going about to establish their own system of justification, they have not submitted themselves to that justification which is of God. For Christ is the climax and culmination of justification through law-keeping to every person who believes.

     We are not to look upon ourselves as sons of the slave woman--law! We are sons of the free woman--grace! Too many of us have mistaken our mother and nursed the paps producing the curdled milk of trust in our own righteousness. Like the sen of Abraham's slave, we have grown to be like a wild ass in the wilderness, dwelling in the presence of our brethren while inwardly despising them. Our hand is against every man, and every man's hand is against us. It is time to realize that we are sons of freedom, and can move out of our factional tents and into the Father's house.