What is true freedom?

What the Bible says

In Scripture freedom first appears as a rescue. Israel was enslaved in Egypt, and God saw their affliction and heard their cry (Exod 3:7-8). He sent Moses to Pharaoh with a command and a purpose.

Let My people go, so that they may worship Me.

Exod 8:1

Release was the beginning, not the goal: Israel was called out of serving Pharaoh to serve God. The Ten Commandments follow the same order: rescue first, then command.

I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

Exod 20:2

The commandments were given not to take freedom away but as the way of life for a people already freed. Isaiah promised one who would "proclaim liberty to the captives," and in the synagogue at Nazareth Jesus read these words as fulfilled in him (Isa 61:1, Luke 4:18).

The clearest New Testament teaching is in John 8. To Jews who had believed him, Jesus says that if they continue in his word they will know the truth, and "the truth will set you free" (John 8:32). They protest that, as Abraham's descendants, they have never been slaves to anyone; they are thinking of political freedom. Jesus points to a deeper slavery.

Truly, truly, I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.

John 8:34

Then he says who can release us.

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

John 8:36

Paul spells this out in Romans. Everyone offers themselves to someone: "you are slaves to the one you obey" (Rom 6:16). A life without a master is not on offer; the choice is whom to serve. When sin is master, the fruit is shame and the end is death. But those set free from sin and made slaves to God reap "holiness, and the outcome is eternal life" (Rom 6:22).

So freedom has two directions: freedom from something and freedom for something. Galatians puts them side by side.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be encumbered once more by a yoke of slavery.

Gal 5:1

For you, brothers, were called to freedom; but do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. Rather, serve one another in love.

Gal 5:13

Freedom is not a licence to do anything. The power of this freedom is the Holy Spirit: "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Cor 3:17). And it is not yet complete, for creation itself waits to be "brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God" (Rom 8:21).

The church's witness

The church has understood freedom not as "being able to do what I like" but as being able to love and do what is truly good. Commenting on John 8, Augustine urges:

Do not then abuse your freedom, for the purpose of sinning freely; but use it in order not to sin at all.

Augustine

He also says that this freedom is for now only a beginning. The first stage is abstaining from sin, but the flesh still lusts against the spirit, so full freedom comes only when the last enemy, death, is destroyed Augustine. Gregory sees the paradox of slavery: "And the more freely men follow their perverse desires, the more closely are they in bondage to them" Gregory.

Matthew Henry observes: "But often we see persons disputing about liberty of every kind, while they are slaves to some sinful lust" Matthew Henry.

One point should be named. Christians have long disagreed about how free a sinner's will is, and how grace and human choice fit together. The Augustinian tradition, taken up by the Lutheran and Reformed churches, teaches that the sinner's will is bound and cannot turn to God unaided until grace frees it. The Arminian and Wesleyan tradition teaches that a prevenient grace is given to all, so that people can accept or refuse it. Catholic teaching holds that the fall weakened free will without destroying it, and that the will, moved first by grace, freely cooperates with it. These questions are taken up in What is predestination? and Is God in control? All agree that sinners cannot save themselves, that grace comes first, and that the Son sets free.

In the original languages

The New Testament word for freedom is eleutheria (ἐλευθερία). In the Greek world it first described the status of a free person, as opposed to a slave. Its counterpart is the slave, doulos (δοῦλος), someone who belongs to another. Paul calls himself a doulos of Christ and is also the loudest voice for freedom. That is not a contradiction: for him both words are about whom one belongs to.

The Hebrew behind "liberty" in the Jubilee law is deror (דְּרוֹר). In the Jubilee slaves went free and land returned to its family: freedom meant a return to one's place, not only the removal of chains. The verb avad (עָבַד) is used both for slaving for Pharaoh and for serving God, so the question becomes not whether we serve but whom.

Common objections

"Religion takes freedom away. Freedom means deciding my own life, and obeying God means being bound to someone else's will." This is a weighty objection. For many modern people, freedom is autonomy: writing one's own law. And religion has in fact been used to control people; Christians themselves have sometimes coerced consciences, which betrays the gospel Paul defended in Galatians. But the Bible replies that no one is bound to nothing; the question is what leads us. Money, approval, pleasure and fear can all become masters. A musician plays freely only after long discipline. The analogy has limits, of course: God is not a drill sergeant but the one who made us and loves us, and whether obeying him really frees us depends on who he is. Scripture answers that he is the one who first rescued a people from slavery.

"It is arrogant to tell others what counts as slavery. If I am doing what I want, I am free." This too is strong. Calling another person's desires "slavery" can be arrogant. Yet Scripture says this about everyone, Paul included, not as a verdict on others. Paul confesses, "I do not do the good I want to do. Instead, I keep on doing the evil I do not want to do" (Rom 7:19). Most of us know what it is to think we act as we wish while doing what a habit, an addiction or an old anger demands. Even if we do what we want, we may ask where the wanting came from.

"Christians still sin. Where is the freedom?" Israel, freed from Pharaoh, soon complained in the wilderness that it would have been better to serve the Egyptians than to die there (Exod 14:12). Old habits outlast liberation, and the Bible does not hide it. In Romans 7 Paul cries, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" and at once adds, "Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Rom 7:24-25). The church understands Christian freedom as begun but not finished, Augustine's "first stage."

Going further

True freedom does not begin where no one interferes with me, but in the love of the one who bought me. It lifts the fear and the need to prove ourselves that made rules feel like chains. And it is not enjoyed alone: as Galatians 5 says, it is freedom to serve one another in love.

You might ask yourself: What am I obeying most at the moment? Which of the things I call "freedom" are really being dragged along? When Jesus says, "if the Son sets you free," which part of that do I find hardest to believe?

To read further, see What is sin? and What is grace? Reading John 8:31-36 and Galatians 5 together is a good place to start.