21. Liberty - 5:1

Liberty - 5:1

“Christ has set us free in freedom; stand fast therefore, and be not held again in a yoke of bondage.” (5:1) The summary statement in verse 1 is “Christ has set us free in freedom.”This is the Christian liberty that Paul maintains in this epistle and for which he was ready to pay a high price. He defended his liberty at all cost. The Lord Jesus said in John 8:1-59, “When the Son has set you free, you shall be free indeed.”This is the kind of liberty that the Lord wants His people to enjoy. In Romans 8:1-39, for example, we find details about this Christian liberty but here the emphasis is a little bit different.

I connect this with what Paul says in verse 1, “Stand fast,”or, “Stand firm.”This liberty is something to enjoy in the Christian experience, but it is also something that is hard to understand. Christian liberty is not legalism. This is the way that the enemy wants people to go; legalism is the opposite of Christian liberty. Further, Christian liberty does not mean license, we will see in chapter 6 that we are under the law of Christ. This is a new law, a new order of things, the law of Christ relates to the new nature. God does not force us to obey His commands; rather, he has given us a nature that desires to do exactly what He wants us to do. James speaks about the royal law (James 2:8) and the law of liberty (James 2:12) so there is obligation but not in the sense of a bondage. In one sense we are bondmen of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is not in the sense of bondage that we have seen in connection with Hagar at the end of chapter 4, a system that is in bondage with her children (v.25) which is characteristic of Judaism, and which Paul calls “a yoke of bondage”(5:2). No, that is something that is entirely different from God’s thoughts. If we are under such bondage, we will not be able to serve God effectively, nor will we be able to worship Him well. A yoke of bondage will stop the believer from going on. There will be all kinds of hindrances and that is what Paul wants to prevent. We are set free from such bondage, we are set free from paganism, set free from this religious side of bondage and set at liberty. This liberty is a precious thing, and it is constantly under attack. Many are the forces seeking to move away the saints either towards legalism or towards license. Therefore, we have to have our focus right in connection with this liberty and that is why he says, “Stand firm.”When it comes to the enjoyment of these precious Christian truths there is always this challenge to stand firm, so we will not lose them, but that we will enjoy this position of liberty in true fellowship with God. In every epistle Paul gives encouragement in this sense, to hold fast.