Galatians 5:1. For freedom Christ has set us free;
Freedom is the verb and the object. The cause and the effect. The goal and the method. Our freedom is not a peripheral truth; it is a central truth. God wants you to be free! So much so, that he became a slave in order to obtain your freedom. Jesus took on the limitations of human flesh and the death that comes with it, all so that we could be free from sin, the flesh, and death, and all the limitations of fallen humanity. Why? So that we could freely choose to love and worship God—the very thing we were created for in the first place.
Being in Christ gains us access to all the freedom that is his. Jesus is completely free from sin. He sits in Heaven free from your sin, and so you are free from your sin. He reigns unaccused and uncondemned, and so we too reign unaccused and uncondemned. He lives free from temptation to sin, and one day we will live fully free from the temptation to sin. He now lives in glory without any desire other than to love and serve God and us.
Christ is free! Free to live and free to love. And in Christ, so are we. Because Jesus is our representative head, we receive the freedom of Christ through our co-crucifixion and co-resurrection with him. Christ also dwells in us, living out his freedom through us. Christ is free, therefore we are free. Free from sin’s condemnation and control. Free from the curse of the law and free from death.
This freedom in Christ returns us to what we were created to be—free worshipers of God. Free lovers of his goodness and grace. Like Adam in the garden, bounded by time, place, purpose, and even prohibition (you shall not eat of the Tree of Knowledge), we too live in a freedom that is bounded by love. We were not set free to live independently, but to live dependent upon God and his grace. We were set free to be slaves of God and servants of one another.
“To live is Christ” brings the security and peace of true freedom. Freedom to truly love God with your whole heart, mind, and strength. Freedom to choose worship of God over idolatry. But true freedom also comes with boundaries. The boundaries of a God worth worshiping.
You: Do you consider yourself to be living in freedom? Why or why not?
You in Christ: How does our union with Christ secure our freedom—not freedom to live independently, but fully dependent on God?
Christ in you: What will living in your freedom look like today? What bondage to self and sin needs to be replaced by bondage to God and his grace?
Pray: Father, show me how to live in my freedom by the Spirit of love and grace. Amen.
