In all this, keep the right focus. Whatever your position in life, you are “Christ’s slave” (1 Corinthians 7:22-23). In a real sense you serve just “one Lord” as your Master (Ephesians 4:5).30 All other forms of correct submission, therefore, are ways of respecting Him (Ephesians 5:21) and serving Him (Colossians 3:24). This principle places all people on an equal level before God (1 Corinthians 7:22). In the slave-master context, Paul twice ends with this verbal exclamation point:
Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him (Ephesians 6:9).
For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality (Colossians 3:25). M
Also, God views all His children through exactly the same lens, namely, His beloved Son.
Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all (Colossians 3:11). M
Again we learn what submission is not. It is not a weakening of our true equality in Christ. Or, saying it another way, spiritual equality is real, yet it removes neither our roles in life nor our duties to submit. Look again at Colossians 3. After Paul has emphasized that there is no “slave or free” (in the new spiritual life), he then gives different instructions for “slaves” and “masters” and others (in their earthly roles).31 Paul could write Colossians 3:11 (“there is no… slave or free”), then write Colossians 3:22 (“Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters”) without any sense of contradiction. The two statements are not in conflict.
Jesus had earthly duties; yet even His most submissive roles never changed His true identity as God’s Son. In the same way, we have earthly duties; yet our humblest roles never threaten our identity in God’s eyes. When God looks at us “in Christ” He sees His perfect Son. He does not distinguish us according to race, sex, social status, intelligence, level of education, height, weight, employment, or anything else of an earthly nature. Such physical things make no difference to how God sees us “in Christ.”
30. One leader: Matthew 4:10; 6:24; 23:8; John 10:16; Ephesians 4:5; 1 Corinthians 8:6 cf. John 13:13; 1 Timothy 2:5