Grace Liberates then Obligates: The Only Freedom We Have Is To Serve In Love

Freedom From Sin and Law

The Slavery motif is predominate in the New Testament, both Jesus and Paul uses the term slave consistently.  Paul uses the term 10 times in Romans alone and 9 of those are found in Romans 6 which is explaining our former enslavement to sin and unrighteousness to our current enslavement to Christ and righteousness.  Jesus says in John 8 “anyone who sins is a slave to sin”. Most people believe they are free and many say that “religious enslaves” however, sin enslaves and Christ sets free.

Not only that Paul says we are free from the law. Not that we are “without law” we are now under “the law of Christ” (that law being love) 1 Corinthians 9:21.  And we are free the curse of death that came with the law (Romans 7:1-6 and Galatians 3:13). So the freedom/slavery motif dominates the epistles as Paul is drawing a parellel between physical slavery and spiritual slavery.

Liberation Causes Problems

If you have ever read any history about a nation that has been liberated, you know the story to be bitter/sweet. I remember reading about the nations in Africa who became free from British colonization and how they would use that new freedom to do whatever they now please. Many times prisoners get out and “sow their royal oats” when they are set free. I remember friends who were released and the first thing they wanted to do was to get back into the same environment and do the same things that got them locked up in the first place. But to be more direct it seems that the liberty that Paul proclaims under the New Covenant seemed to have come with some apparent dangers. One of those dangers were licentiousness. Because I am free many began to ask “shall I continue in sin that grace may abound” (Romans 6:1). I have currently began to understand the dilemma the Jews and Paul must have been going through. In one sense this liberation from the law seems to produce and even encourage licentious living so the Jews who had the law had a right to be concerned, but Paul on the other hand had to unveil the mystery (Ephesians 2-3) that grace does fully liberate us and removes, the guilt, condemnation, curse and sting of the Law which may very well in a technical sense produce the licentiousness that so concerned the Jews. However………

The Law of Love and its Obligation

Paul says something profound. He preaches liberty in an obligatory tone to love. Here is what he says in Galatians 5:

13 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. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another

So now the question should be, why exactly did Christ “set us free”? He set us free from condemnation, curse, death and guilt with the intention of obligating us to serve one another in love. He did not set us free to enjoy freedom, He didn’t set us free to live our own lives, He set us free that we may now walk in obedience in love. Paul spends the first 4 chapters fighting for the Galatians freedom only to enslave them to servanthood through love. So now instead of serving sin we serve others in the power of the Holy Spirit. That love looks like Philippians 2:1-5, it looks like Colossians 3:12-17, it looks like Ephesians 4:11-5:13 and it looks like John 13:1-20). This my friends is what freedom accomplishes and what freedom obligates and this is what true Christian liberty looks like. It looks like us imitating Christ in love, not us boasting in our freedom and liberty but us utilizing freedom in liberty to make us a “servant of all” (Mark 9:35).

This isn’t easy and just like others it much easier and comfortable to use our freedom in Christ to “bite and devour”, it is much easier for me to use my freedom to serve my own sinful desires. To worry about myself and my passions, but Paul says “think of others more highly than yourself” and “don’t look out for your own interests but also for the interests of others”. Our mind has been “renewed”  (Romans 12:1-2) for us to adopt “the mind of Christ” (Philippians 2:5). If we use our freedom for ourselves, we don’t understand freedom and Jesus’ disposition “to humble Himself, taking on the form of a servant” which we are likewise called to imitate.