Freedom, Indeed

I suppose, or at least I hope and pray, that we can all think of a time in our lives that we tasted the sweetness of freedom. My greatest sense of it came in April of 1972 when I got out of the Marine Corps and sat aboard a ferry that took me across Puget Sound from Bremerton, Washington, to Seattle. Yes, sweet freedom. No more high and tight haircuts, shiny black shoes and brass belt buckles; early morning three milers; formations and inspections; endless orders and calls to duty. Of course, that moment of elation and relief didn’t last long. I might have held my breath four years but it was the typical exhale. Short in duration, and it wasn’t long before I was forced to inhale and back in bondage.

“…Ye shall be free indeed,” such were the words Jesus spoke to the Pharisees in the Gospel of John, Chapter 8. But not just ‘free’, but free indeed. What does indeed mean? Most of the time I hear it said, it’s a word taken as an affirmation to a statement that is believed to be fact or a truth. Indeed, that’s what’s meant here. Even in the Greek, the word ontos means truly, in reality; in point of fact. Still, if you have read my blogs, you know I enjoy wordplay; so when I read ‘indeed’ here I also hear ‘in deed.’ Now, that means we’re free in deed, or as the word ‘deed’ is defined, it is an act or gesture.

I think this is also what my Lord was saying in this verse; but we must be cautious. He was not saying we were free in deed to do anything; including to go on and live in willful and presumptuous sin. No; God forbid! As Jeremiah Burroughs pointed out in a sermon he gave on this verse,

We must know that we are not set free by Christ from obedience to the law. We are bound to obey the law still, but here is the difference: we are not servile to the law. We keep it freely. You keep the law now by being a law unto yourself and having all that God requires of you in His law written in your heart by the law of sanctity He has given you.

How are we free in this regard? We are told that Christ is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption. Knowing that Christ is our wisdom (law justified in  Him as good and holy), righteousness (His human perfection in keeping the law) and sanctification (His holiness and preservation of us), we can appreciate the reasonableness of Burroughs’ statement, spiritually exhale the old and inhale a free man.

However, if this isn’t enough, then consider: Since you are free of the scrutiny of God’s eye under the law, He now looks to perfect any good or grace He sees in us as free men. Oh, how sad it is when we profess to be Christians but continue to perceive God as a harsh taskmaster! As if He were Pharaoh! Have you not read Isaiah 42:3, “A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking flax shall He not quench.” If you are His called, then you are His for eternity! From before the foundation of the universe, He knew you. He called you, and we know Him because we know His voice! Now; Today, God watches over us to perfect His Son’s inheritance. What this means is that we can, by faith, freely serve Him, and He will take notice of every action. He will sanctify it; perfect it… as pure as gold. However insignificant or imperfect the act, God will refine it as part of working all things together for good. Today, He watches over us and He shall perfect our works, even as He did Sara when she laughed and called Abram ‘lord’ in jest (Gen. 18:12) after learning she would conceive in her old age. Consider how God sanctified her and had the Apostle Peter write of her as a holy woman; subject to her husband (1 Peter 3:5-6.)  Indeed, the Word of God teaches us that we are free both under the bondage of the law, but also having to make perfect our offerings. It is all born of His grace and we are in Christ, and Christ is all, in all.

Now exhale for we are free indeed.