Freedom. It just has a ring to it, doesn’t it? There is political freedom and personal freedom. The gospel tells us about spiritual freedom. There is so much in the New Testament about this that it will take several posts to cover it. I want to begin with Jesus – good starting point, right? Jesus has some amazing things to say about freedom.
Mat 6:13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
I know this is not “free”, but deliver means “to set free”. The word here (ρυομαι, “to draw to one's self, to rescue, to deliver”; same word in Luke 1:74; in Rom 11:26 Jesus is called the deliverer) means to deliver, to set free.
Some of the modern translations like to translate this “deliver us from the evil one” but this is new, unnecessary and not in keeping with the rest of the NT. I encourage you to go through these verses on deliverance to see how broad this is: Luke 1:74; Rom 15:31; 2 Cor 1:10; Col 1:13; 1 Thess 1:10; 2 Thess 3:2; 2 Tim 3:11; 2 Tim 4:17; 2 Pet 2:7 And also John 17:15
This is a very large request. "Deliver us from everything You consider evil." Amen.
Luke 1:70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began:
71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;
72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;
73 The oath which he sware to our father Abraham,
74 That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear,
75 In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.
This is part of Zacharias’ prophecy and is a wonderful summary of the Old Testament promises of salvation (I think this helps us as we read the prophets).
Verse 74 contains the phrase about freedom: delivered out of the hand of our enemies. We need to be able to define and identify our enemies. The general explanation seems to be: that we…might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life. Apparently an enemy would be anything that hinders that.
To serve the Lord does not mean to be a preacher, a missionary or a Sunday School teacher. It can include these things, but it is so much more. To serve the Lord means to live for Him, doing what He says, having His values and priorities.
So “free” does not mean unattached, no obligation, no responsibility, able to do whatever I want. It means freed from something (enemies) in order to do something else, namely serve the Lord. The person living for Jesus is free, while the one who is not is not free, but is in bondage, a servant of sin. Jesus came to deliver us from all our enemies so that we might live for Him in righteousness and holines!
Luke 4: 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Jesus is reading from Isaiah 61 and says this verse is fulfilled in Him.
deliverance to the captives and set at liberty are translations of the same word (αϕεσις - release from bondage or imprisonment; forgiveness or pardon, of sins [letting them go as if they had never been committed], remission of the penalty), and it is used mainly for forgiveness of sins. As in Luke 1, this is deliverance from captivity. The prophets promised it, Zacharias repeated it, and Jesus spoke of it. God must really want to set the captives free! The gospel is the year of Jubilee!
We used to sing a Scripture song (many of our songs were Scripture songs) about this:
This is the year of Jubilee 2x
When all the captives are set free
Come ye halt, ye blind, ye lame
Leap and shout for joy again
This is the year of Jubilee (feel free to take a moment to sing!)
John 8:30 As he spake these words, many believed on him.
31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
33 They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.
36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
This is spoken to those who believed on him. John includes many examples of people who believed in Jesus, but not unto salvation. Apparently it is possible to believe but not have saving faith. So Jesus offers a test, if ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed. And to his indeed disciples he says, ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
The Jews then claimed to never have been in bondage to anyone. It seems that sin makes you forgetful – they were then in bondage to Rome! And their history reveals several periods of bondage. Jesus ignores that and goes straight to his meaning, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. Jesus came to free us from sin. This is developed by the Apostles in the epistles.
Then he adds, And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
This leads Jesus to contrast a servant and a member of the family. This is relationship. Without Jesus the best we can be is servants, heirs of nothing. But Jesus says he can make us free men and actually members of the family! He takes us from servants to sons (see Heb 4), and heirs!
Jesus seems to be addressing two issues: slavery to sin that requires truth to free you, and this leads him to speak of slavery as a relationship - He will free us from this and make us sons of God. This is adoption and the apostles explain this in their epistles as well! The truth frees us from sin and the Son frees us from slave status.
Jesus came to deliver us and make us free. I have to ask myself, Am I walking in this freedom?
No comments:
Post a Comment