Masters, treat your slaves with justice and fairness, because you know that you also have a master in heaven.

No one would be exempt from divine expectation, not even the master.

While there may not be a law that would demand that master treat their slaves fairly, while they may get away with treating them badly, though the slaves have no one to defend them against an abusive master, there is God.

James (5:4) wrote that the wages of the field mowers and the reapers are crying out to God. Similarly, the blood of Abel cried out (Genesis 4:10), which shows that God has a special affinity for the lowly.

The reason the master should treat the slaves with justice and fairness is that that is who God is. The master is supposed to act and live under the ultimate master, God. With that at the back of his mind, the earthly master does not see himself as the ultimate one, does not act like the ultimate one with respect to the slave.

The master should treat the slave with justice and fairness, which means seeing the slave with a new light and treating the other person the way you would want to be treated. Who said something like that? Hmmmn. Jesus said it in Matthew 7:12.

This gets to the core of how the gospel shapes how you see yourself and, therefore, how you see others.

The master treating the slave with fairness and justice is predicated on seeing Jesus as the master, seeing yourself, actually, as a slave of Christ, and that is a call for humility.

There is an accountability coming, which is what Paul is saying, and we should live in light of that.

John wrote that the anticipation of Jesus' coming back should drive us to purify ourselves, as he is pure, so that we would not be ashamed and shrink away from him when he appears (1 John 3:2-3, 2:28).

That shrinking back reflects what happened in the Garden of Eden, where Adam and Eve thought they could get away with actions they could not get away with.

Similarly, when David decided to take Bathsheba and kill her husband, he was carried away with a sense of invisibility (2 Samuel 11:2-5, 14-15).

God burst David’s self-deception bubble and Adam and Eve’s cover-up.

And God sent Nathan to burst the self-delusion of David, to show him that he cannot hide from God, though he can hide from everything else (maybe even from himself), and covered himself with the veneer of being a good king, while he orchestrated the death of one of his men.

Adam and Eve thought hiding from God was enough, and David thought using his power to hide his sin was enough.

Afterwards, David might have written, “Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee to escape your presence? (Psalm 139:7).

The bible says that the fool says in his heart, there is no God, and that because of that, their deeds are abominable. Psalm 19:13. They deny God so that they can do as they want.

There is a self-delusion that a Christian can be subjected to, including that because we have grace now, we can do anything we want, or there can be more demonic persuasion where you think, without any evidence from scriptures, that you are special and God would give you a pass for wrongdoing.

Jesus would remind us that none of us is getting a pass, but rather we must watch and pray so that we do not fall into temptation (Matthew 26:41).

There are also false prophets that create a culture where the conclusion is that sin is nothing more than what you ask for forgiveness for, and there is almost a rejoicing that we can sin as Christians without consequences, as the definition of grace. Nothing can be further from the truth.

Jude said it this way: "...ungodly men who have turned the grace of our God into a license for evil and who deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." Jude 1:4.

This strain of men is roundly condemned in scriptures; these are people who preach unfettered self-indulgence. And their message of some who “stray further and further into ungodliness” like gangrene (2 Timothy 2:16-17),” meaning there is nothing innocent about it.

Including “christian” books that mock purity, holiness, and weaken the avoidance of fleshly indulgence, and the need to run away from evil like Joseph. They sit in the assembly of scoffers (Psalm 1:1). Be careful where humility is mocked as foolishness; pursuing the will of God is labeled as counterproductive.

These are people who call evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20), where you become your own master, albeit serving fleshly self-indulgence, and closing their eyes to what the words of Jesus are about being slaves to sin (John 8:34-36).

Paul did not contradict Jesus as some would have us believe, who want to twist the words of Paul. Paul said some have twisted his words to mean: let us continue in sin so that grace may abound (Romans 3:8, 6:1-2). He said God forbid and that we have died to sin.

Jesus took the wrath for our sin, but we still have a master in heaven, and God has ways to deal with you beyond just hell and brimstone.

Read Revelation chapters 2 and 3 to understand more. But note that I am talking of the arrogant self-deceived sinner who justifies himself in his sin.