Freedom in Christ

February 19, 2017 Background Scripture: Galatians 5:1 – 17 Lesson Passage: Galatians 5:1 – 17 Someone once said that the essence of Christianity is the freedom to choose your own Master. Of course the premise of the thought is that no person is ever totally free—or as another philosopher quipped, no man is an island to himself. Something or someone either enslaves us or we choose to submit ourselves as servants to another. This is just as true for patriotism as it is for religion. We are either enslaved or we are submitted servants. Salvation only comes after an individual realizes they are enslaved to sin and sin is carrying them down a road to eternal destruction. Sometimes we identify more readily with addictive disorders than sin. They both have easily identified side effects once we know what to look for. As social creatures, we too often occupy ourselves with the issues of others more so than our own issues. This attitude tends to lead to counterproductive behavior in a religious context. It can cause us to want to stipulate what constitute proper actions on the part of other adherents to the religion we embrace. This was one of the problems faced by the members of the Galatian congregation during the Apostle Paul’s ministry. The Gentile members of the congregation who had accepted salvation through Christ were being told by some Jewish congregation members that their salvation was incomplete unless they followed some of the stipulations in the Mosaic Law. Paul saw this as an attempt by the Jews to burden the Christian church with the works of the Law that were ineffective in bringing the Jews into eternal salvation. Paul was adamant that salvation in Christ is complete and final and it comes through faith alone and no works of the Law can add to it. In Christ, we are free from the stipulations of the Law that govern diet, holidays, and rituals. Christianity does not enslave us to the Law but it frees us from it. Christians are free to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ without following the precepts of the Law. The Jewish Christians were not comfortable with this because they knew the importance of male circumcision to the old covenant. They were not prepared to accept that Jesus had fulfilled the righteousness required by the Law for all who put their trust in him. In Christ they were made free. Perhaps it is easier to understand this for some of us who experienced the “mourners’ bench” as children. We know as adults that we were not saved because of the “mourners’ bench” but rather because of the prayers we were taught to pray as sinners seeking God’s grace. It would be tragic and misguided for us to require all new converts to Christianity who confess Jesus as their Lord to spend a week or two on a “mourners’ bench”. If sitting on the “mourner’s bench” did not cause us to be saved, then it would be ill-advised for us to insist that new converts sit on the “mourners’ bench” to confirm their salvation. This is similar to the Jewish Christians’ insistence that the Gentile Christians be circumcised to confirm their salvation. When a person has been freed from a yoke of bondage, we should not insist they be burdened again once Christ has set them free. Robert C. Hudson January 20, 2017