Philemon 1:16

16. Not now Literally, no longer as a slave, but above a slave; words obviously signifying, both negatively and positively, an end of the serfdom. To be no longer as a slave, is to cease to be a slave; and to be above a slave, is to be out of a servile rank. This view is slightly diminished by the as, but that word is used to soften the boldness of his asking the abdication, by Philemon, of a legal right. We cannot believe that Paul uses so much solicitude to secure a mere receiving and exempting from torture of a penitent slave by a deeply Christian man. A short time previously to this, Paul’s attention was called to the atrocity of Roman slavery by a notorious public event. The prefect, or “mayor,” of Rome was murdered by one of his slaves, and the whole body of his slaves, embracing a large multitude, including women and children, were publicly slaughtered, in obedience to Roman law.

It may not be the duty of a Christian living in the centre of a slave-holding country, to manumit his slaves; but it is a public sin, in a Christian republic, to maintain a system of slavery, and it is a personal sin in every individual citizen not to use his voice, vote, and influence to do away the system.

Brother… to me Although humanly there had been but a transient relation, yet divinely there was a divine tie between the apostle and his convert.

Specially As my bondage-begotten son.

In the flesh… Lord The human and the divine tie. The human tie is not perpetuated slavery, as commentators pervert the words in the flesh. Onesimus forgiven, emancipated, a bishop, would be humanly most dear to his former master and benefactor; divinely dear as a fellow-labourer in the Gospel. That commentators should cut off, by a series of exegetic violences, a view so obvious and so infinitely more worthy of Paul, of Philemon, and of the Gospel, looks like one-sidedness.