…The truth will set you free…Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom…
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.  John 8:32; 2 Corinthians 3:17; Galatians. 5:1

Augustine said that true freedom is not choice or lack of constraint, but the ability to be what we are meant to be. Therefore, he reasoned, humans were created in the image of God, so true freedom is found in living it out. In other words, the closer we conform to Jesus, the freer we become. The farther we drift from this, the more our freedom shrinks.

Not to disagree with Augustine, but I think this is only one part of the vast subject of Christian freedom. “The truth will set you free”. Jesus is the truth and He does set us free. No question about that. He found freedom in doing what He saw His Father doing, and we find freedom in doing what Jesus is doing (Jn 5:19).

But another element of Christian freedom that is central to Christian maturity is found in His presence, as 2 Cor 3:17 points out. What we were recreated in Jesus for is “to love God and enjoy Him forever”. This goes beyond anything the the image of God within us to the purpose of God for us.

Many churches emphasize the cross and the crucifixion, which are central to Jesus atonement for us, without moving on to His resurrection which raised us up with Him and made the presence of of God a reality. This freedom is only found in the presence of Jesus: The crucifixion made it a possibility for the first time since Adam, but when Jesus rose, God with each of us became reality. And “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom”.

But just because freedom is a possibility and freedom is a reality, doesn’t mean any one of us owns that reality. You see, there are plenty of entities out there that exist to deprive us of that freedom which is our birthright in Jesus. So after declaring us free in Jesus, Paul tells us to “Stand firm and don’t let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery”.

This is why freedom is an attribute of the spiritually mature. Standing firm against all that would enslave us rarely happens in an instant. For example, just when a younger believer finds freedom from some habit or nagging sin, they sometimes find themselves enslaved again in spiritual pride or self-righteousness.

And the very institutions which may have helped us find salvation in Jesus, may ultimately hinder us from finding freedom in Him. Freedom becomes for us one of those mind-transforming works of the Holy Spirit within us (Rom 12:2) that no teacher or institution can do more than merely point to. But “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom”.