TUESDAY
As we’ve been doing in this campaign, today we are going to look at some alternatives to the gospel’s concept of freedom. To see how the gospel is truly irresistible, we must look at some of the possible alternatives. In all of these areas the gospel reigns supreme. The answers that it gives to life’s biggest questions not only appeal to reality but are also desirable.
The first alternative to the idea of freedom in the gospel is simply a conflation of categories. This sets the stage for the whole conversation. When we think of freedom, we most often think of it through the lens of sociopolitical freedom. Freedom from slavery, bondage and oppression is an unequivocal good and necessary for human flourishing. History is full of liberation stories that we rightly celebrate. We celebrate these along with the mourning that it took so long and we still wrestle with the effects of delayed freedom and justice. Americans most notably have experienced this in our freedom from English rule in the American Revolution, women’s suffrage and the freedom of African Americans from the abominable American slave trade.
This good, healthy value of freedom, however, has in large part grown to unhealthy extremes in our society. Our hyper-realized value of freedom leads us to view freedom from all boundaries, obligations and laws as a profoundly good in and of itself. We pursue unrestrained freedom without definitions of good and justice that guide (confine) our pursuit of freedom. The underlying belief is that humans are at their core good and if the shackles of trauma, law and power structures (institutions like the church and government) are removed, humanity will thrive and choose the good. This has led us to pursue freedom from all forms of moral, legal and relational restraints. If more freedom is good then any restraints are bad. These restraints keep us from expressing our true selves and, in the end, do trauma to our true selves. Ironically, those who believe this ideology have no problem restricting the freedoms of those who disagree with them, which reveals the incoherence of this unhindered pursuit of freedom—freedom from all restraint as a good. I digress, yet again.
Both sides of the political aisle show freedom to be a primary value. I include this because you are most likely thinking of the other side of the aisle as you read the above 😉. The right is seeking freedom from government control, overly burdensome taxation, environmental regulations, corporate regulations, etc. The left seeks freedom from traditional family values, moral codes that are not self-determined, systems and institutions, etc.
This hyper-realized value of freedom has bled into our Christianity. This is where my primary concern lies. Does this pursuit of freedom from laws and regulations include God’s laws and regulations? What happens when our self-expression is a violation of Jesus’ commands? Can we who serve no political sovereign really serve king Jesus as Lord?
In his book After Doubt, A.J. Swoboda recounts the story of British evangelist John Guest who came to the US in the 1960s to deliver a series of sermons. Outside of Philadelphia he came across a number of signs in a shop commemorating the revolution. One of which read, "We serve no sovereign here." Upon seeing that sign he thought, “How can I possibly preach the kingdom of God to people who have a profound aversion to sovereignty?”
This is a real problem, in that it has proved difficult for Christians in America to surrender to the lordship of Christ and follow his way of living and thinking. In the biblical framework there is no concept of freedom as freedom from all restraints. That simply doesn’t exist. The biblical authors knew that to be true. Instead of taking our cues from Jesus and Scripture, we have adopted our culture’s view of sociopolitical freedom and applied that to our spiritual life with disastrous consequences. The rest of the week we will see how we tend to misread biblical passages about freedom and how we truly become free when we live under the lordship of Jesus.
The second alternative to the freedom in the gospel is simply bondage and slavery to sin. Anyone who is not in Christ is still in slavery to their sin. This one is a tricky concept because at first glance it may appear as if non-Christians can live as freely as they choose—that is free from moral boundaries and obligations. However, in the biblical framework this is simply more bondage to sin and if we think deeply enough we see this to be true. Take sexual sin for example. A cursory glance reveals that marriage greatly restricts one’s freedom to choose a sexual partner—it restricts it to one! We even call a spouse “the ol’ ball and chain.” And it certainly does. Without marriage one is free to sleep with countless partners. Consent becomes the only restriction on freedom (which merely pushes the restriction on freedom down the line a ways…but again, I digress). It seems as if one is more “free” to express oneself sexually. Yet, as we see in the case studies of those living this lifestyle, what seems like freedom is in the end, bondage. A lifestyle of sexual licentiousness becomes a sex addiction or porn addiction. Whether it is the pursuit of pleasure or the affirmation of a partner or some skewed scorecard of success, pursuing the sexual experience becomes a cage as it becomes the primary object of one’s affection. Like a drug, the person is addicted and feels enslaved to it.
A few years ago I heard an interview with John Mark Comer where he expressed that we are so preoccupied with what we ought to be free from that we fail to think of what we are free to. This is a very important distinction in the biblical concept of freedom. On the difference of the American concept of freedom and the Christian concept of freedom Swoboda writes:
"God’s concept of freedom always occurs within obedience to God’s covenant ways. Our Western, progressive, American concept of freedom has become freedom from any external established order. True obedience is possible only when we have the freedom to obey. And true freedom is possible only when we live within God’s boundaries."
Tim Keller puts it well, "Freedom is not the absence of limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us."
Reflection
When you read freedom in the Bible, what comes to mind? Do you view it as a freedom from any external established order or boundary? Have you blended our concept of sociopolitical freedom with spiritual freedom? Do you view the Christian faith as more freeing or as more restraining? It is vitally important that we untangle these ideas to grasp the true freedom in the gospel.