How are Christians free in Christ Jesus?
If you asked someone who was not a Christian to describe what Christians are like to you, you would get a range of answers. On the negative side, some might say that we are hypocrites or bigots or judgemental. On the more positive side, others might say that Christians tend to nice or friendly or moral. One word I don’t think you will hear very often is the word “free”! Christians don’t often come across as people who are free; most would think that Christians follow all kinds of rules and don’t do lots of fun things. That sounds restrictive, not free.
Perhaps even some Christians feel this way! As we strive to follow Jesus well, we do try to do certain things and avoid other things. It can seem like hard work or a burden at times.
Look at what Paul says about freedom in Galatians:
4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in – who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery – 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
(Galatians 2:4-5 ESV)
Paul had just been describing a meeting between himself, Barnabas and Titus with the leaders of the church in Jerusalem. This meeting went well, with the two sides expressing their unity and shared understanding of the gospel. Yet there were “false brothers” in the background, people who were sure that Paul was teaching the wrong thing. They thought Paul was not instructing new Christians to keep the law. They were spying on the new churches to see how people behaved. Paul describes these people as spying “out the freedom that we have in Christ Jesus”.
This raises a question for us. How exactly are Christians free because of Christ Jesus? Tim Keller, in his very helpful little commentary on Galatians, breaks this into two different categories: emotional freedom and cultural freedom. I’ll use those categories to explain this concept.
The gospel brings us emotional freedom. If we understand that we are saved only by faith in Jesus, it takes a huge burden off our shoulders. We know that we are deeply loved through what Jesus has already done for us. God is our Father. This means we don’t need to strive to impress God or other people; we already belong. We are already secure. It also removes the anxiety we so easily feel about the future because our future is secure. Trusting in Jesus and not in our own efforts brings peace and freedom nothing else can.
But the gospel also brings us cultural freedom. Paul’s opponents in Galatia wanted all Christians to keep the law and the Jewish community markers. This would include circumcision and the food laws. Yet Paul angrily disagreed with this. All Christians are only saved by trusting in Jesus. That is true whether Jewish or not. You are not more saved if you keep the law. Being saved by Jesus alone means we have freedom to be united, not to judge people based on how good they are or what religious things they do. If everyone did what Paul’s opponents wanted, the church would end up a closed, restricted group like the orthodox Jewish community today, and it would be a struggle to engage with non-Christians or even Christians from different cultural backgrounds.
This freedom means that Christians with the same convictions about the gospel can express this in different ways. Nigerian Baptists will have different styles of service to Scottish Presbyterians. These differences need not be gospel belief differences; the different cultures mean people can express their joy in the gospel in different ways. Likewise, Christians in Buddhist families have different issues to navigate compared to Christians in atheist families. Each one should hold the same convictions about Jesus, but they might need to apply them to quite different issues and contexts.
If you are a Christian, you are free. Your salvation doesn’t depend on your work. You are united with Christians in other places so deeply, even if their culture is very different from yours. Celebrate that freedom! Thank God for Jesus, and see your life as full of thanks and response to Jesus rather than a burden we need to carry to get God to love us.