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

New Birth Brings Freedom

February 12, 2017 Background Scripture: Galatians 4 Lesson Passage: Galatians 4:8 – 20 There are times when it seems impossible for some Christians to accept the extent to which grace abounds in working eternal salvation in us. We still want to do our part, i.e. work, in bringing about and sustaining our own salvation. Grace seems too easy from our perspective so we feel that we need to make up for the lack of a struggle or, in other words, we want to do something to earn our salvation or to at least show that we deserved it. In fact, to not have to do something is what causes some to label salvation by grace alone as a license to sin. We reason that if a person can be saved and not have to go to church or give a prescribed financial amount or openly live a certain way, then people will be tempted to accept salvation and then proceed to live their lives in any fashion they see fit. This kind of reasoning totally misses the point. Grace does not give us the license to sin but instead it gives us the license and desire to live holy. Because of grace we can drop all pretenses and live life as God calls us to. Within the Law, the Jews identified six hundred and thirteen statutes or rules to live by to exemplify holiness. They also discovered that it is impossible for a person to keep all of them because of sin in the flesh. So they further divided the statutes into those that were greater or lesser sins. The Law makes evident the sin that resides in our flesh but the Jews were attempting to minimize some sins and elevate others. Through the new birth, we have obtained the grace of God which frees us from trying to be holy by keeping the statutes in the Law. It is this freedom coupled with eternal salvation that causes angst in many. Some are so accustomed to the bondage of the Law that freedom is downright scary. Never mind that no one was keeping all of the statutes anyway. We were content to compare ourselves to each other—at least, what we know about each other. As long as we felt that we were as good as the next person, we lived as though God was going to grade us on a curve. Truthfully, we don’t really know what to do with religious freedom. Although we have received grace, we still have sin in our flesh. This sin is in constant rebellion against God and the Spirit of Christ in us. Grace has given us the desire to live holy and the Spirit gives us the power to do it. However, we are warned to not use our freedom such that it would cause a morally weaker Christian to stumble. We should exercise restraint for the benefit of others. On the other hand, we should not allow others to convince us of what they believe to be necessary for salvation aside from what God has shown us. The Law is a yoke of bondage but grace makes us free. This was the message Paul attempted to convey to the Galatians to refute the false teaching of the Jewish Christians. Their attempt to burden Christianity with the works of the Law was either unintentional error or a clear denial that the new birth brings freedom. Today, many Christians who have never been under the Law make the same error by not comprehending the unsearchable depths of grace. It is because of the grace of God that we are not constrained to obtain salvation by works and therefore, in Christ we have freedom. Robert C. Hudson January 5, 2017