“Liberty” and “freedom” have been the rallying cries of millions throughout history.From teenagers rebelling from parental authority, to ethnic tribes rebelling against unjust government, liberty has been the ultimate dream of mankind since Eden. Any insurrection against existing authority can be seen, depending on your perspective, as a bid for freedom. Even Lucifer’s rebellion in heaven can be understood as a bid for freedom from whatever rules and laws that he considered unjust or unfair. So not all rebellions are justified, even though ‘freedom’ may be the rallying cry for supporters. Therefore, not all freedom is necessarily good; I would question if total freedom is even desirable, even possible?
Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
What is this liberty wherewith Christ has set us free? And what is it that we are set free from?
Gen 2:15 -17 And Jehovah God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
Adam and Eve were created free to choose any of the trees of the garden to eat from, except one. An entire orchard of good trees straight from the creative genius of God Himself, uncorrupted by any disease, pest, or imperfection, every fruit, nut, and berry was perfect in flavor, looks, and nutritional value. Adam and Eve were free to choose, but independence was not an option. Freedom, or liberty, to many means complete independence. It means loosed from what they see as the shackles of society, freed from what they believe to be the bondage of laws and restrictions that govern human behavior. Libertarians believe man is better off devising his own moral and ethical boundaries, finding his own limitations, without having to be obliged to obey ethical restraints placed upon them by society.
What they do not realize however, is that there is no such thing as complete freedom. It simply does not exist, and cannot.
To be perfectly free, to be utterly independent is impossible. Take for example the natural laws that govern life here on earth. The only way to overcome e.g. gravity, is through living in an artificial environment. And although one may then be free to float about in the air, yet that same one is restricted to the environment he has placed himself in. He is not free. In fact, he is less free than when he was when under the law of gravity.
What of civil laws governing restrictions on driving for example. One needn’t have much of an imagination to see the consequences of anyone thinking they are free to disobey any of those laws. In fact, many do drive as if they are free and the results are seen daily on our news channels. Civil laws of many kinds are essential.
And the spiritual world? Many Christians today think as ‘libertarians’. They view the cross of Calvary as their passport to freedom from any obligation to obey the law. They see any obligation to obey the Ten Commandments as a burden. And they often use Gal. 5:1 as evidence to support their stand. The ‘bondage’ they say, is the moral law of Ten Commandments. Many even excuse their sin by claiming it is impossible to obey the Ten Commandments. Thus they seem to repeat the reasons for Lucifer’s rebellion in the beginning. “I don’t like God’s laws, they don’t suit me, I can’t keep them anyway, so I will rule my life, not God.”. Or failing that, they believe God Himself has done away with them. Thus they believe God has lowered His standard to meet our deficiency, rather than lifting us up to meet His standards.
The laws of God are reflections of His character. In doing away with the laws of God, or thinking one is free from the obligation to obey them, is akin to doing away with God Himself. In the natural world or the secular,we rid ourselves of law only by undermining the authority upon which they were first established. And in the spiritual world, any attempt to disobey, or seek to be free from moral laws, places us at enmity with the Authority of the one who first established them. So whatever freedom Christ offers, isn’t freedom from obligation to obedience. The freedom God offers us through Christ is the same freedom that Adam and Eve once enjoyed, but through disobedience, lost. You see, Adam and Eve had freedom, but only within a particular parameter.
They were free to choose between two alternatives.They could believe God and keep His commandments, or believe Lucifer, and become their own god. They chose the latter. And as a result, they lost freedom. They were forbidden to then partake of any of the trees of the garden, being exiled to the outer world, and the garden, particularly the tree of life, was placed under guard that they may not enter. The freedom they had was the liberty to choose between two masters. They could choose to obey God, or choose to obey the lust and the selfish desire of their own flesh. The master they chose bound them in far greater bondage. What freedom they lost! Adam and Eve had an entire garden, maybe what we might today call a forest, to choose from. A limitless variety of good things from which to freely partake, with the exception of just one!
Satan has since reversed the order. Whereas in the garden the choice was between much good and a little evil, today the choice is between much evil and little good. The way of evil, Jesus told us, is a wide way, well traveled, and much used. The way to life is narrow, hard, and lonely.
Rom 6:16-23: Know ye not, that to whom ye present yourselves as servants to obey, his servants ye are whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But thanks be to God, that, whereas ye were servants of sin, ye became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto ye were delivered; and being made free from sin, ye became servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification. For when ye were servants of sin, ye were free in regard of righteousness. What fruit then had ye at that time in the things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life. For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Through Christ we are restored to a state of liberty where we have restored to us the power to choose to obey God’s laws. Through faith in His sanctifying power, we can obey the Creator God, the Almighty Father, as our Master and Lord. And instead of the restriction of wickedness that plagued our lives and incurred not only the wrath of God but brought upon our miserable stultified existence pain, suffering, discontent, sickness and death, we now have available to us unlimited potential. An infinite existence beyond man’s wildest imagination. A God who offers us a life that by the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, can raise us up to heights of right living that were previously unimaginable.
An unbeliever would claim that becoming a Christian would limit his horizons, his potential, and ability to express his true self. But what he is doing is choosing his own restrictive confines of time, space, knowledge and experience. He is merely choosing himself as a god, one greatly limited to his own ignorance. And sadly, many Christians are experiencing the same limited existence through unbelief.
But through God’s promises, we can become partakers of His own divine nature. We are transformed into the same character of Christ. What glorious freedom there is in Christ. What unlimited potential there is for one who is willing to surrender their old sinful self on the altar of sacrifice and allow God to renew them in His Son’s image.
“Whom do ye serve?” One without Christ has no choice but to remain locked into a lifestyle of sin and rebelliousness that result in only one sure thing, eternal death. But praise God Who has redeemed us by His grace, has freed us from the tyranny of Satan, of sin, and of death, and has given us the glorious liberty to choose Him and reject the old ways, and the old masters.
But what of the law? Four hundred years of slavery found the family of Abraham ignorant of God’s ways, and in bondage to Egypt. They were slaves not just to sin, but to the consequences of sin. Sin had so corrupted mankind that the greatest then known nation on earth, Egypt, was utterly bound in a prison cell of idolatry and all the corrupt occultic abominations and superstitions that accompanied it. When God chose Moses and Aaron to approach Pharaoh to free the Hebrew slaves from their bondage, for what purpose was God offering Israel this freedom?
Exo 3:14-18 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel……thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, hath met with us: and now let us go, we pray thee, three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to Jehovah our God.
See also Exo 4:22,23. Exo 5:1 Exo 6:6-8 Exo 7:16 Exo 8: Exo 9:1,13.
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