forms of power that have held people in bondage” and “this means that the ministry of the Church, like that of its Lord, must always focus on the whole person.”157 The Jubilee’s emphasis on concrete social change cannot be diminished by its spiritual overtones and application. Although the implementation of the specific reforms of the Jubilee is not intended by Luke’s Gospel, David Pao stresses that “the Jubilee connection does highlight the social, economic, and political impact of the arrival of the eschatological era” and observes that, as in Isaiah 61, “this Jubilee theme is one among many that contribute to the wider prophetic paradigm of the second exodus.”158
Like Fairbairn, his contemporary, and these more recent studies, Caruthers insists that the antitype of Jubilee remains characterized by its literal type. The fullest extent of meaning is achieved only when spiritual redemption is coupled to the Jubilee’s literal and universal application for the poor and oppressed of the earth. In his era there was no more obvious example of Jubilee’s application than American slavery. The Messiah had brought redemption, now it was the responsibility of a Christianized humanity to bring freedom to the slaves.
In Caruthers’s view not only does Luke’s use of the Isaiah passage confirm his own use of the Exodus text but the “whole tenor of the Bible is a demand on all who are holding others in bondage and oppression to give them up and leave all free to serve God.” He singles out specific “passages which may be cited as corroborative.”159 Throughout the range of biblical literature Caruthers hears the echoes of God’s initial demand for the release of Israel from Egypt and argues for its continuing moral implications.
Within the parameters of existing biblical interpretation practiced by American Evangelicals, proslavery advocates argued that slaveholding could not be identified as a sin because it was not expressly forbidden in the Bible. Donald Mathews has observed that “the Evangelical emphasis upon the necessity of a conviction of sin, . . . led a person into psychic confusion, from which he was saved by conversion and reintegrated into society through the church.”160 Because slavery was not expressly forbidden in the Bible, there could be no experience of specific conviction with regard to it. The institution of American slavery was not identifiable as a specific sin so it should not be expressed or experienced as such. Here, in the words of one historian, “was southern evangelicalism’s first, essential, and constant proslavery position.”161
Antislavery writers responded by moving away from the description or regulation of slavery found in the Bible to texts they believed more clearly reflected the divine will. In his explanation of the demand of Exod 10:3, Caruthers briefly discusses eight other texts that corroborate his understanding, specifically that “every one must be left free to act on his own responsibility.”162 In the order they appear in the manuscript the texts are Ezek 18:4, Rom 12:1, Rom 6:1, Jer 34:8–22, Neh 5:1–12, Isa 58:6, Ps 72:4–14, and Ps 68:31.
The first text touched on by Caruthers is Ezek 18:4: “All souls that is all persons, all men and women, are mine” and “the soul the man or the woman, that sinneth shall die.” In Caruthers’s view, slavery confuses the accountability envisioned. If a master commands a slave do things which are “palpably wrong and injurious to the interests of vital piety” and especially in the case of an ongoing repeated violation ordered by “impenitent masters and mistresses” such as “desecrations of the Sabbath” that become “inseparable from the institution as it now exists” then their accountability to God no longer makes complete sense. The passage can only make ethical sense if “all men and all women, all human beings are his and woe to those who infringe upon his rights or dare to interpose, in whole or in part, between any of them and his authority.”163
Similarly slavery does not allow compliance with the consecration of Rom 12:1 and 6:13. The passages urge readers to “present your bodies a living sacrifice” and “neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness.” If a slave is a Christian and “their masters claim the whole of their time and strength it is impossible” for them to be consecrated and devoted in the manner “and to the full extent of the . . . requirements” prescribed by the Apostle Paul. What about the plain New Testament teaching that servants are to serve their masters? According to Caruthers those passages were addressed to servants “who were rendering a voluntary service and therefore had the disposal of their time” or to slaves “who belonged to . . . unchristian masters.” He does not allow for the possibility of a Christian owning a slave. A slave who is a Christian in the south, and of “any intelligence” cannot comply with the teaching of Romans “as he wishes to do” because “his time and his physical powers are all at the disposal of another.”164
Jeremiah 34:8–22 is singled out by Caruthers as providing “the clearest proof that there could be no such thing as slavery among the Jews” like that of America. Jeremiah condemns the failure of “the king, the nobles, and all who were able to employ servants” for not keeping their covenant to set them free as they had said they would do. Instead they “forced them back into service” and this was “an act of cruelty and a violation of their solemn engagements.” Soon after they broke their word, Caruthers points out, “the city was taken and burned, the king, the nobility and all the better classes of people were seized and carried captives to Babylon.” In these events, Caruthers sees “God’s abhorrence” of slavery.165
Nehemiah 5:1–12 demonstrates that “in the mind of all pious Jews” there was “an invincible opposition to slavery as we understand the term.”166 Nehemiah is “indignant” upon learning about the bondage imposed on some of the Israelites and requires a “solemn oath of the nobles that they would no more oppress their brethren.”167 All of the teaching of the major and post-exilic prophets “was in constant and direct hostility to anything like an entailed or perpetual enslavement of each other or strangers.”168 The “explicit and comprehensive” language of the Isaiah 58:6—“undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free”—exemplifies their attitude.169
Psalm 72:4–14 is “a most animated and glowing description of the Messiah’s universal reign.” Surely, Caruthers figures, “the slaves of our country must certainly be included among the poor, the needy and the oppressed” whose rescue by the Messiah is announced therein. And if Psalm 68:31, “Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands to God,” does mean that the “African race will believe in Jesus Christ,” then a slave’s rightful claim upon such a deliverance is undeniable. Caruthers specifically identifies American slaves as included in the psalm’s messianic vision of the future. Strictly understood, this is a Messianic interpretation of Israel’s earthly king and empire presented by the psalmist. However, Caruthers’s identification of the psalmist’s local vision for the needy and oppressed of Israel with universal freedom for all in bondage further demonstrates the role of typology which underlies Caruthers’s application of the Exodus passage to American slavery.
Summary
For Caruthers there are no limits to the application of the Exodus text: “God is demanding the surrender of them to his service. All men and all women, all human beings are his, and woe to those who infringe upon his rights or dare to interpose, in whole or in part, between any of them and his authority.” It cannot be restricted to the realm of history. “The passage which we have placed at the head of this discussion . . . ” he writes in reference to the Exodus text, “ has no condition or limitation and makes no allowance for the interest or convenience of those on whom the demand is made.” There can be “no time . . . to sell them off or to make the best arrangements” since “all nations, the Africans included, were given to Jesus Christ in the covenant of redemption and they belong to him.” Slaveholders are “to give them up and leave all free to serve God with whatever powers he has given them.”170 “You,” he says to slaveholders, “have no valid claim to them and must let them go.”171
Although Caruthers probably would have appreciated Goppelt’s understanding of typology and its emphasis on “the church’s place in redemptive history,” he does not allow the political liberation of the Exodus event to be diminished, as Goppelt’s understanding
