THURSDAY
This week we have been exploring the irresistible freedom in the gospel, but not absolute freedom of self-determination and freedom from all restraints. This, the gospel declares and our experience reveals, leads only to more bondage. Again, to quote Tim Keller, "Freedom is not the absence of limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us." So we must find the right restraints. These restraints truly liberate us. A toddler playing in a backyard that isn’t fenced-in may seem to be more free from the restraints of a fence, but they are certainly not more free from danger. In the same way, we must find the restraints that define truth and morality. When we live within those restraints, we become truly more free to accomplish our purpose and live in our destiny.
On this topic of freedom, two other texts are important to bring up. First is 1 Peter 2:16. In the context Peter is writing to the Christians who have been dispersed throughout Asia Minor due to the persecution in Jerusalem. He tells them to "submit themselves, for the Lord's sake, to every human authority." This includes the emperor and the governors. Then he writes in verse 16:
1 Peter 2:16 (ESV) 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.
The question that comes to my mind in reading this text is what sort of freedom does Peter have in mind here—freedom from sin, freedom from the law or sociopolitical freedom? Freedom from sin and sociopolitical freedom are the likely options, eliminating freedom from the law. Freedom from sin is more likely given the next two phrases following the first—not using your freedom as a coverup for evil and living as servants of God. Even if he is talking of sociopolitical freedom, which again, I think is less likely, he has just told them to use their freedom to submit themselves to the human authorities. If he is speaking of freedom from sin, that doesn't give us the right to sin more because we are to use our freedom to become servants of God. This is the same idea Paul expresses in Romans 6. So again, there is no version of the Christian life where we are free to determine our own morality or truth. To be free from sin allows the Christian the freedom to then choose to be servants of God, which is to say, properly ordering of loves, living in our purpose, out of our identity, and towards our ultimate destiny.
Then he goes on to describe what it looks like to use our freedom in this way:
1 Peter 2:17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
The concept of freedom as freedom from all restraints doesn’t allow us to obey this teaching. Honoring everyone means to hold everyone in high esteem and respect. Loving fellow Christians means, at minimum, sacrificing one’s freedoms for the benefit of another. All acts of love do this, whether I’m helping someone move or reaching out to see how someone is doing or purchasing something they need, I could have done something else with my time, my resources or my attention to benefit me. To fear God is to restrain my freedom to choose my own morality and truth and surrender to his. To honor the emperor is to submit to his laws that don’t conflict with the will of God.
Paul brings up this concept of freedom in the book of Galatians as well. Here, the context determines that the freedom he is speaking of is freedom from the Law of Moses. The situation he is addressing with the church in Galatia is a group of Judaizers who have come into the church and are attempting to convince the new Christians that they need to follow more of the Law than they really do—of particular significance is circumcision.
Galatians 5:13 (ESV) For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
He then takes the application in a slightly different direction than Peter did. He encourages them to use their freedom from the burden of the Law to not indulge the flesh (that is sin) but to serve one another through love. He calls the Galatian church to submit themselves to one another. He expresses this same idea in Ephesians 5:21:
Ephesians 5:21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Therefore, from these texts we see the clear use of a Christian's freedom. We are free from sin and from the law of Moses. This freedom is to be enacted in our choice to submit ourselves to God and to one another. This is an essential component of love, which, according to Jesus, is the verb in the two greatest commands. We love God and our neighbors by submitting ourselves to them out of love for them.
This is the proper use of a Christian's freedom. So, returning to our main idea from Monday, let's stop thinking of our freedom as what we are free from and start thinking about it as what we are free to. There is to be no state in which we are free to do whatever we want and think whatever we want. It is in the giving of ourselves in love to God and others that we, again as Kellers says, come to the proper constraints that fit our nature and liberate us.
Reflection
Pray a prayer of surrender to God and others. Surrender to the truth that God declares is true. Surrender to the way that God says is good. Surrender to others in love. Commit to praying for others, serving others, giving of your time, talent and treasure for the benefit of others.