Liberty, Justice, Freedom… all things most Americans instinctively view as roles ascribed to and granted by the government.  But this mind set of government granted freedom has led us to reduce our view of freedom to being able to do what we want, when we want, wherever we want.

Paul’s letter to the Church in Galatia might be the best place for us to look for a New Testament view of freedom.  And we should start by understanding the two Greek words that, in english, we translate to “freedom.”

1. aphesis
deliverance :
1) release from bondage or imprisonment
2) forgiveness or pardon, of sins (letting them go as if they had never been committed), remission of the penalty

2. eleutheria
liberty :
1) liberty to do or to omit things having no relationship to salvation
2) fancied liberty
a) licence, the liberty to do as one pleases
3) true liberty is living as we should not as we please

The first of these words – deliverance – is the result of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross as the payment for sin.  It is a complete work that covers the sin of the past, present and future.  It is not granted by a government or another human.  It is only granted by God.  That’s why Paul can say in Galatians 3:28, that, in Christ, “there is no slave or free.”  This is how

A person enslaved by another human can also, simultaneously, have full freedom.

The second word – liberty – is more closely associated with our American understanding of freedom : what we want, when we want, wherever we want.  It’s the concept laid out in 1 Corinthians 6:12 that :

“Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial.

There are three responses to the liberty we have as the result of the liberty-freedom of Christ.

The Judaizers
In a land where we try to legislate EVERYTHING, it’s hard for us to understand the concept that everything is permissible.  It was just as difficult for the Jews of Paul’s day to understand this as well.  They had lived for thousands of years under the Law of Moses.  On top of that, the Pharisees had piled up thousands of additional laws by which the Jews lived.  For them, the law was everything.  It told them how to live their lives.  It was, in many ways, their God.

Paul, in Galatians 2:21 says

I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!

That means to depend on the law for our righteousness is to deny the complete power of the sacrificial work of Christ.  It is to say that, although Christ died, there are laws by which we must live in order to gain salvation.

The Judaizers spent their time creating laws and enforcing them rather than living as Christ lived.  They were more concerned with the outer appearance than the heart.  Perhaps the Judaizers of our day are those who would stand in a picket line at an abortion clinic but would never be willing to adopt an unwanted child.

The Freedom Fighters
“We gotta fight… for the right… to party.”
This is the mantra of so many in my generation who are in a constant state of rebelling against The Judaizers of Evangelicalism who have spent the last six decades fighting to legislate morality.  With the same violence used to lash out against the “sinners” of the world, the Freedom Fighters lash out against the Judaizers.  While Freedom Fighters think they are free from the law, they are actually slaves to it because of their hostility toward it.

There is a constant state of defensiveness from the attitude of, “You can’t tell me what to do.”  The idea that “everything is permissible” is used as an excuse to forfeit discipline and self-control.  And the effects that our actions have on others are rarely considered in our decision to do or not do something.

The Free
To the Judaizers – obsessed with circumcision – Paul says :

Galatians 5:12
As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!

To the Freedom Fighters, he says,

Galatians 5:13 and 15
You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature… If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

So, then, how should we live?

Galatians 5:13b-14
… rather, serve one another in love.  The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus called us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him.  That’s what true freedom is.

We are no longer slaves to sin because of the  deliverance-freedom of the cross.  We are no longer slaves to the law because of the liberty-freedom of Christ.  We are free people, but you and I must make the daily decision to utilize our freedom – not for the sake of indulgence – but for the sake of the Kingdom.  That is true life!  That is true freedom!