Freedom

“You were called to be free—but not to gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” (Galatians 5:1, 13.)

Freedom captivates the American imagination and yearning. We enshrine the ideal within in our songs. Our national anthem extols our country as the home of the free and the brave. Martin Luther King Jr. concluded his most famous speech with the words: “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we’re free at last.” What exactly is the freedom we yearn for, sing of and fight for?

Freedom remains for many chiefly the hope for opportunity. Opportunity to act and be as one wishes. Freedom is viewed as the release from responsibility, or better from duty, from obligation, from servitude and slavery (in that descending order.) From slavery certainly, but notice how slowly by degrees responsibility is equated with slavery. Yet the differences are profound. Here freedom is seen as releasing us from something, but not yet for something. Freedom from oppression and tyranny; the exemption from control. So first, but not foremost, the freedom Christ calls us into or lifts us into is the freedom from the powers of sin and death, of servitude to our lusts and desires. Freedom and Salvation are synonymous. We are called out of darkness into light to be whole, saved, right, holy, and active and finally able to respond to other people’s needs. Second and foremost, you see, we are called out of servitude for or to responsibility: the ability to respond.

The purpose of freedom isn’t for ourselves to live unto ourselves. We are freed from other chains than just those of another’s making. We are supposed to be freed from the chains of our own making as well: narcissism, pride, self-aggrandizement, and egotism. God wants us to freely choose Him, not to have to choose Him as if it is an expectation based on law or force. Contemporary chains yet conspire to bind us: the false gods of food, stuff, sex, drink, inebriation, fast cars, fast music, fast internet download times, the tyranny of the immediacy of acquisition and possession. Perhaps this is what Paul meant when he warned: “Their end is destruction, their god is the belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds on earthly things.” (Phil. 3:19) I consume therefore I am. The new Cartesian lie. The modern slavery.

God wants us to want Him, for He is the foundation of our one true need.

Freedom from the slavery to ourselves and our earthly, sinful nature—whatever are our besetting sins and fatal flaws—will only be effected when we willingly seek to be freed for service, for praise and action on God’s behalf and our neighbor’s good. There exists no true freedom “from” without a freedom “for or to”. One only leaves Egypt in order to enter the Promised Land, not to just wander aimlessly in the desert. One must leave slavery in order to serve as God’s people. There is no leaving darkness without entering into light. Yet imagine how often people desire to leave the darkness of obligation without eagerly entering the light and clean air of service and responsibility. If we focus on what we are freed from we won’t ever leave those chains because we are looking in the wrong direction. We need to keep our eyes on what we are freed for: where we are going to. There God waits for us to embrace the truest freedom of all: where we will gladly proclaim that we are bondservants to Jesus Christ, whose yoke is easy, and burden light.