Freedom In Christ (John 8:32; 2 Peter 2:19)

 

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 and 1 Chronicles 12:32. The problem is no longer not enough laws but too many, and of the wrong kind.

  1. Sin has enslaved us.
    • Isa.61:1; John 8:32-36. We are born in sin, born in bondage. Rousseau’s Social Contract: ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’ That is the wrong diagnosis.
    • Augustine: ‘I loved my own way, not Yours, but it was a truant’s freedom that I loved.’
  2. Christ sets His people free.
    • Charles Wesley: Come, Thou long-expected Jesus,/ Born to set Thy people free. See Acts 13:38-39. Christians are not born free, but reborn free. In this sense, John Bunyan was free in prison.
    • 2 Cor.3:17; Gal.5:1. It is not only a being set free in conversion, but living free after conversion. J. I. Packer: ‘Man becomes free only in bondservice to Jesus Christ; otherwise, he is captive to sin.’
  3. Beware of false freedoms.
    • Dr Samuel Johnson: ‘Why is it that the loudest whelps for liberty come from the drivers of slaves?’ Pro-choice sounds liberating, but it is demeaning and violent, and never leads to anything good.
    • Karl Marx: ‘we can free ourselves, by ourselves’. Freedom fighters can be very coercive. Maxine Waters against Trump supporters: ‘They’re not going to be able to go to a restaurant ….’ See 2 Peter 2:19. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: ‘The liberation of man as an absolute ideal leads only to man’s self-destruction.’