By Not Known
Freedom has been a powerful cry fro the last few decades. It has been applied to causes including racial discrimination, women’s liberation, democratic rights, anti-colonialism, religious freedom, sexual preference and such like.
The range of these causes should make us stop and think. ‘Freedom‘ is a word that need definition and boundaries. In a sense, we need to say what freedom is from and what it is for.
Paul gives an apt statement in the following words:
You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature…(Gal 5: 13)
Christian freedom is freedom from the failed way of tyring to be saved by what we do (the path of the ‘law’). It is also freedom from the power of sin that keep us trapped in evil habits.
Put positively, it is the freedom of being saved by what God does for us in Jesus. This is freedom fro a life of holiness and godliness. In this, the indwelling Holy Spirit molds us after God’s nature from the inside out. But it is not freedom to sin, or to do as we please. As Paul’s context in Galatians makes clear, it is freedom to do what pleases God and freedom to serve others in love.
Liberines will find this a restrictive definition of freedom. On the contrary, we assert that this is freedom to be truly human and to be what we were meant to be.
Christian freedom is always under threat from two opposite dies. On the one hand, some would turn freedom into rules that are necessary for salvation. These are the legalists. And then there are the liberines who make freedom a pretext for licentiousness. Paul guards against both of these attacks in Galatians. And likewise, we too must be vigilant against them for ourselves and others.
Thank God for your freedom! Guard it! Use it well! Share it with others by telling them of the marvellous liberty that is the birthright of the sons and daughters of God.