It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5:1).

Certain ideas are more subject to becoming clichéd than others. Love, life, happiness – and our word for today, freedom – are all abstract, big-picture concepts that writers, singers, and casual conversationalists abuse every day. We constantly trivialize and banalize the fundamental questions of existence until we become either hopelessly lost in sweeping generalizations or mostly cynical and contemptuous about finding any real answers.

Let’s think about how this works with a word like freedom. To our post-Enlightenment minds, being free generally means, in the (very modern sounding, yet pre-modern) words of Epictetus, “Freedom is the right to live as we wish.” Or, as a child (or childish adult) might put it, “You aren’t the boss of me.” The representative slogans and applications would be humorous if they weren’t so deadly: I gotta be me. Our bodies, ourselves. I did it my way … Ideas old and new, but the philosophy predates even Epictetus. The whole unraveling of the human condition began with two people who opted for personal “liberty” over obedience to God and his word.

What is really fascinating to me in the story of Adam and Eve is that, despite the focus on one small commandment, they were incredibly free. They were emotionally and psychologically free, with no anxiety or fear. They never went out having to look over their shoulders, wondering when some beast or another might make lunch of them. They had no worries about provision, finances, shelter. They were spiritually free, enjoying the kind of fellowship with the Lord that included the friendship and intimacy of hearing his voice and being constantly in his presence. They were physically free, gifted with fruitful labor and an environment that makes the dullness of a Michigan winter’s day look even more dreary than it already is.

The point behind creation’s initial conditions of goodness, abundance, and providence is that freedom is God’s design for humanity. But we aren’t talking trite and self-absorbed declarations of “I did it my way.” Being free indeed – as Jesus put it –  is a complex, paradoxical condition that involves the attitudes, postures, and actions of discipleship – a way of life that appears to contradict our common understanding of the word. Disciples follow, submit, listen and respond to a King and to his purpose and direction, believe in that King’s absolute sovereignty, come under the authority of his laws and commandments. And all the while they possess and experience the “glorious liberty of God’s children” (Romans 12:).

The best way to reconcile and grasp this dialectic is to look at Messiah himself, the freest, and at the same time most obedient human being in history. From the beginning, the Son of God’s existence is grounded in freedom. The way Paul describes it in his Letter to the Philippians is that he starts at the Top and willingly descends to the bottom. He lets go: of his divine rights, of his glory and beauty, of his claim to worship and honor due him, of life itself, of control over his ultimate destiny (Phil. 2:6-8). Jesus’ own self-characterization is that he “always did what pleased the Father” (Jn. 8:29); that he came to do the Father’s will, not his (Jn. 6:38); and that he acted only as directed by God (Luke 22:42).

The obedience of Jesus is absolutely necessary given the false freedoms that we pursue. How many times do you hear references to someone as a willful child? I’m sure that’s how many of my parents’ friends would have characterized me. And I probably was – most markedly in my teen years – particularly strong-minded (my euphemism). But singling out a select number of individuals as willful disguises the fact that everyone fits the description. 

The claim that applies to you and me and the rest of humanity is that “we have all turned to our own way” (Isaiah 53:6). So each of us is a rebel, straining against the express will and purpose of God. For the most part we assent to the general charge of being sinners. It is in the deeper aspects of our wickedness that we stumble. For example, the thought that we are rebels might stick in the craw of those of us who believe that we were basically good persons. Even those of us who experienced being really bad (those of us who worked at building a better testimony) face the temptation of comparison. Either we comfort ourselves as at least not being as evil as (so-and-so) or we justify ourselves in at least not having done (such-and-such). 

Leidenfrost conflict in action

However painful it may be, the truth is that we are all stubbornly resistant to total surrender. Every one of us clings to an opinion here, a desire there, the thought that we are in the right, that it can’t be that God would ask us to give up what feels like the very essence of us. There is, for each human creature, a Leidenfrost layer (LL) of conflict between God’s ways and ours in some matter or another. You can see an LL in action, above: The surface of the plate is so much hotter than the water droplet that it forms a layer of super-heated steam that protects the liquid from evaporating. We droplets refuse to dissolve, fighting with all our strength to preserve every minute shred of idolatrous autonomy.

There is a deep-seated fear that an unreserved offering of ourselves to the Father, that complete conformity and obedience to his will ends with a negation of who we are – of self itself. This is the the serpent’s lie in the Garden, and is the exact opposite of God’s intention. If we need to disabuse ourselves of the deception, we need only consider two things: First, the life of Jesus, which demonstrates that following and fulfilling the will of God results in a revelation of the true human the Lord intends us to be. As Jesus listens and submits to the Father, he becomes a more and more complete demonstration of who he was as Son of God and Messiah – the perfect freedom to be and to do what was intended from the beginning, all through saying yes to God. 

Second, we can reflect on the satisfaction of pleasing God and knowing his pleasure toward us when we walk in obedience. Of course, we recognize that the freedom to obey is in itself a gift that comes because of Jesus’ life of humility and submission. And yet we do expect to hear the commendation, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” There’s some serious mystery in that verse, but also serious truth: Discipleship is what makes us the God-intended us. It is also what makes us happiest and most content, far more than if we insist on commanding our own little daily destinies.

For freedom Christ has set us free. Over the next number of posts I am going to examine the freedoms of faith, the liberty that comes from trusting in the Lord in the very places where the gospel calls us to offer and obey. To honor the recent stock market swoon and housing slowdown, I will begin with one of Jesus’ own favorite topics: Money.

Until next time, may the Holy Spirit attract us to the presence, the word, and the ways of God and to the joy of belonging to him.

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