The Scripture reading for this Sunday is Galatians 5:1, 13-25.
What does freedom look like?
In verse 1 Paul writes, “It is for freedom Christ has set us free,” but I think freedom is often misunderstood. Freedom, for many of us, is what we got when we moved out of the house and had the ability to do what we wanted, whenever we wanted, free from our parent’s rules and restrictions. “Freedom!” is what William Wallace cried out as he led the Scottish army against the English in the movie Braveheart. Freedom is something we earn, or fight, or long for.
However, as Paul wrote to the Galatian churches, there were people who were trying to influence these new Christians to believe that Christ had set them free so that they could better observe the law and be righteous for God. But, Paul tells them, that isn’t what freedom looks like at all. In fact, the law that these people were subjecting themselves to was a “yoke of slavery.”
Paul angrily asks them, “Who has bewitched you?” and reminds them that they received the Holy Spirit by believing in what they heard, not works of the law (Galatians 3:1-3). However, in what seems like a strange move, Paul then calls upon them to live lives according to the Spirit, avoiding things like sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, envy, drunkenness, and selfish ambition. It seems as though Paul is saying, “You are free. Don’t live under the law as your access to salvation. Instead, do this, this, this, and this,” … thus putting them under a different law.
But it all comes back to the question, “What does freedom look like?”
If we think of freedom as the ability to do as we please, we miss the point. Dr. Stan Mast writes, “in verses 13-15, [Paul] makes it very clear that liberty does not equal license. Freedom from the law as a way of salvation does not mean absolute freedom from the law of God. ‘Do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather serve one another in love.’ Freedom in Christ is not merely freedom from, though it is that (freedom from sin and death and the inability to keep the law). It is also freedom for, for service in love.” (Taken from the “Preach This Week” article on the Center for Excellence in Preaching website.)
Freedom, it turns out, looks like loving our neighbour and living together in love rather than getting what we want when we want it. Freedom is a life of faith led by the Spirit – a life in step with the Spirit – that produces fruit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control) because the Spirit is at work. Freedom is a life ruled by Christ through his Holy Spirit rather than a life ruled by the flesh.
Since we have freedom it means nothing less than we have been set free. We know better than to think our salvation is up to us, and we also know better than to think that since Jesus died for us we have a license to do whatever we want. Rather, the Spirit sets us free to confess our sins, live in a way that is pleasing to God, hunger for God’s Word, and grow in faith. We have been set free, by faith, to live by the Spirit. And, “since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit,” for it is through the Holy Spirit that Christ rules in us – our Saviour, who died for us – and frees and guides and enables us to live lives as God had intended all along. That is true freedom indeed.