True Freedom in Christ
True Freedom in Christ
No chains remain when Christ sets a man free. One of the most amazing statements ever spoken by our Lord is that sentence to the Pharisees, "If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). Elsewhere He has told us that the one who claims freedom but is yet bound in chains is lying, and is not in the truth (1 John 1:6).
A short story, "How Does It Feel to Be Free?" by the Russian author Manuel Komroff, gives us a vivid illustration of false freedom. We can contrast this story with the reality of freedom that is in Christ. Komroff tells of a convict released after many years in prison. As he walked down the street outside the prison wall, the guard on the tower waved at him and called, "How does it feel to be free?"
Upon returning to the home of his children he was given a room to himself, but found its spaciousness oppressive. He curtained off half of it, replaced the bedsprings with boards, and took the pictures from the walls of the room so that his surroundings would be more like those to which he had become accustomed.
The climax of the story lies in one incident of the "free" man's life. "He amused himself by collecting old bits of wire that he found on old picture frames and in the basement of the apartment house. It gave him great pleasure to send the wire down the neck of a bottle and watch the odd twists and coils it would make in the bottle - as though it were life itself going through its many painful convulsions. He kept the bottle on the open fireplace in front of his window. . . By this time the bottle on the window was packed tight with bits of wire. He carried it down to the basement and broke it over the ash can. The heavy wad of iron wire was freed from its container. It was nothing but a rusty, solid mass, the same shape as the bottle that now was scattered in fragments. He turned it in his hand and examined it closely. Was it an experiment that had failed? Did he imagine that the tough springy wires would jump back to their former state once freed? No. It was a rusty solid mass, brown as a cough mixture, and shaped like a bottle. If he had a label, he could paste it on and mark it - 'Freer "
This is precisely what Jesus Christ does not do in a life. The entrance of new life is not the breaking of a glass which leaves the old life in its imprisoned form. It is rather the implanting of a new Life that is more powerful than the old. The figures used in the Scripture are those of growing childhood, a spring of flowing water, a living and powerful idea.
On the life which Christ Jesus sets free, it is possible to put the label "Free indeed."
1. If Christ has set us free, what are we free from and what is the significance of that freedom?
2. What is the evidence of this new life or freedom we have in Christ?
3. Since we have freedom in Christ does this mean that the Christian does not struggle?
