How Free are You?
“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
John 8:31-36
As Americans, we are headed into Independence Day celebrations all weekend. We exist in a nation that was born out of a desire and fighting for freedom and for liberty. We have continued in many ways fighting for this freedom, even across the globe, even at the cost of many thousands of lives. We claim and define this freedom in certain avenues: freedom of expression, freedom to assemble, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, etc. More recently, the idea of freedom, and its counterpart, equality, has led to a seemingly new dimension of the search for liberty. Humans now seek openly for the freedom to live and express themselves, their persona, their love, their emotions, in any way imaginable. Tolerance becomes the beckoning counterpart to this search for personal freedom.
But this kind of freedom is truly the most limited in a sense. For if you are free to do only as you please, and you always do as you please, how free are you? Not every free action is a genuinely free action. What do I mean by that? I mean by that what Jesus described in John 8. “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin…” In that sense, there is a way that we can be free and in bondage at the same time. We may be politically, or socially, or volitionally free to do as we please, but we are at the same time in bondage to our desires, and more importantly, in bondage to sin. We are free to do what we want, but how free are we if we are only free to do what we want, but not free to do what we are made to do? How free are we if we always seek after our whims, but never pursue what it means to be a creature of the God of the universe?
In that passage in John 8, Jesus is describing what it means to be his disciple. We are Jesus’ disciples if we abide in His word. When we abide by Jesus’ words, we abide in and know the truth. And the truth, following Jesus’ progression of teaching, is what makes us truly free. There was pushback to this, as His audience said to Him, “we have never been slaves to anyone! We are already free!” I could imagine a similar response from the modern citizen of the USA. “We have been born in freedom. We experience freedom of expression and love and personality in our age like never before. How can you say that we need freedom?” This is when Jesus gives the ultimate clincher. True freedom is only experienced as you are set free by the Son of God.
So you may be free to live your way, to live your truth, to love your way, to express yourself, to be you; but according to Jesus, in much of that behavior we are only exhibiting our true bondage. Bondage in sin, bondage in our sinful desires, bondage to the world system, to the spirit of the age, to the whim of emotion. Only in the truth are we set free; for the truth says there is an exclusive and unique way to that freedom – and that is through Christ. Christ, who teaches us that the blessed person often lives and appears to be counter-cultural. Christ, who teaches us that He alone is the way, the truth, the life. Christ, who teaches us that His commandments (which extend to all of scripture) are good and blessed. Christ, who bore the wrath of God in his crucifixion because our perceived freedom to do what we want is actually the bondage that makes salvation necessary. That is how the Gospel sets us free - by granting us forgiveness and liberty from our bondage to sin, changing our nature from enemies of God to His sons and daughters, and setting us free to know, love, and live for Him.
So, based on Jesus’ words, how free are you? Are you free to do as you please? If that is the extent of your freedom, then may you come to realize that your liberty is incredibly hindered. Only in Christ is there freedom to do not simply as we please, but as we are intended to do. Only in Christ is there freedom to break through the bondage of what we want to do, and realize the wonder of what we are created to be. Only in Christ do we find the truth, and only in the truth are we truly set free, free indeed.
