In accepting Christ as Lord, we acknowledge that our belonging to Him is true and good. But unlike ancient slave masters, Christ’s ownership over us does not entail the defacement of our humanity.8 And this is a unique property of Christ’s use of power in contrast to any human’s. The power dynamics of human slavery require that the owner dehumanize the slave in order to achieve dominance. In that sense, people cannot enslave people they view as fully human. They can only enslave people they view as former or conditional or marginal people. God’s ownership of His children is categorically
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