Rethinking America: Biblical freedom means something different
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A few years ago, a pair of Mormon missionaries arrived on my doorstep for the first time. I am naturally pretty curious about everything. I had lots of questions, and they had lots of answers. But after a little while, it became apparent to me that while we were using a lot of the same words, those words meant something very different to each of us.
I left the encounter pretty confused and with even more questions. I wondered if, as a Christian, there were any words that my faith redefined the way the Mormons had. This week, as we celebrated Independence Day, I realized that “freedom” is one of those words.
The concept of freedom is central to the Christian life. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” (Galatians 5:1) But when the Bible talks about freedom, talks about it in a completely different way than we do on the Fourth of July. As part of rethinking America through a biblical lens, understanding freedom is paramount.
Americans generally think of freedom as "unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others,” (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Isaac Tiffany in 1819) It is the ability to do whatever you want as long as you don’t get in someone else’s way of doing what they want.
This is not the historically Christian, biblical view of freedom. Author Suzanne Woods Fisher recorded an Amish proverb that captures the essence of biblical freedom perfectly: “Freedom is not the right to do as you please but the liberty to do as you ought.”
Freedom is the God-given ability to choose and do what is objectively right and good. It is not the licenses to do whatever you want.
Romans 6 begins with the warning that the freedom we have through Christ and the forgiveness and grace we enjoy do not constitute a license to do whatever we want. “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!” (Romans 6:1-2) The chapter ends with a poignant description of Christian freedom: “But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:22-23) Jesus does not set us free for whatever we want to do. He sets us free to enable us to serve him because we love him. We can do what is good because we are no longer slaves to doing what is bad or ultimately selfish.
True freedom must be this way because the one being in the whole universe who can truly do whatever he wants - being ultimately free - used his freedom to do something good for us because of his love for us. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Then he did it. According to Jesus, our freedom depends on exercising it like he did. He said, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:31-32). “Abide” comes from the Greek word “meno,” which means both remaining in a certain state and remaining in a certain activity. Our freedom depends on doing what we were given freedom to do: serve Jesus.
But the American Dream, which American freedom affords, is to serve self. My own work for my own house and my own family and my own white picket fence. That is not biblical freedom or a biblical life purpose.
The good news, however, is that freedom is freedom, no matter what you think that freedom is for. Christians in America are blessed with extra freedom that we can do extra good with, which other brothers and sisters around the world do not enjoy. With our freedom from Christ acknowledged and protected by our government, we can use our freedom to vote, volunteer, contribute money, peacefully protest injustice, encourage those who do well, publically support and speak out FOR THE GOOD OF OTHERS, especially when it runs contrary to our own self interest.
True and biblical freedom is the unique ability of the Christian to work for someone else to achieve the American Dream.