The Truth About Freedom

By Carol Wollaston

Freedom is a much coveted ideal that nations down through the ages have aspired to achieve.  Wars have been fought, countless people have died, and ransoms have been paid, all for the sake of ‘freedom’.  People in nations under tyrannical leadership desire it with all their hearts while those born in nations where freedom is part of their constitutions swear they will always value it.

The free world (so called) is actually not as free as it claims.  People in all democracies suffer to varying degrees under the oppression of anxiety, self-centredness, health issues, drug and cigarette addiction, alcoholism, guilt, work and financial pressures, low self-esteem, uncertainty, and much more.

So what is real and personal freedom? Surely each person will have a different view, depending on their circumstances of life.

To many, ‘freedom’ is simply the right to do and say exactly what they please whenever they want to.  It is the absence of restriction or constraint.  Such freedom is actually an unreality for it springs from a bondage to self-centredness.  Such people are bound by the fear of restriction.  They are deceived into thinking that obedience to another person takes away our dignity and identity.  What a lie this is! Imagine a child insisting on running on the highway or playing with venomous snakes.  To preserve the child for the freedom of staying alive someone must restrict his liberty.

So what is true freedom? It is the power to be exactly who we were each made to be by God.  It is the power to be a son or daughter of God.

Jesus said, ‘You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free’.  Jn 8:32.  Clearly, to become genuinely free, we must seek the truth.  Where is it to be found? Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth and the Life’.  Jn 14:6.  In finding Him we find the truth of all that it means to be a son of God.  He brings us into real freedom, into relationship with God the Father who designed us.  He has promised that when we seek Him with all our hearts we will find Him.  Matt.  7:7.

Even though He was the Son of God, Jesus did nothing for His own personal gain.  All He did was for the sake of the Father and for you and me.  Before going to the cross to die on our behalf, He said, ‘No one takes my life from me.  I lay it down of Myself.  I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.’ It was of His own freewill that He gave His life for us.

In the same vein, the apostle Paul said that Christ ‘made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men … He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross’.  Phil 2:5.  This was an act of true freedom of love and identity.  He was free to give Himself to the uttermost, and was not restrained by fear or self-interest.  We are called to join Christ in this self-giving love, becoming bond-slaves of His, and thus enter the true freedom of the life of God.  This is living in ‘the glorious liberty of the children of God’.  Rom.  8:21.

The Bible provides an amazing paradox on freedom, turning our common views upside down! Being truly free means we can:-

• humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God.  1 Pet 5:6
• submit ourselves one to another.  1 Pet 5:5. 
• become slaves of Christ.  1 Cor 7:22.
• wash one another’s feet.  Rev 1:6; Jn 13:14. 
• die to self, so that it is no longer ‘I that lives, but Christ that lives in me’.  Rom 6:7; Gal 2:20.

To many people these statements sound like anything but freedom, but to those whom Christ has made free, such activity is the expression of the freedom of love to give oneself for another.

The prophet Isaiah proclaimed that the Messiah would come bringing freedom to captives and to those who are oppressed.  Isa 61:1,2.  After reading these words in the synagogue Jesus said, ‘today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing’.  Lk 4:21.  He had come into the world to bring to us the life and power of God so that the tyranny of fear and self-preservation could be broken and we could be delivered into the liberty of being a son or daughter of God.