Journey Outside the Camp

Slavery to religion; freedom in Christ

People have the idea that being a Christian is being moulded to be a certain type of person armed with a list of dos and don’ts. They have the notion that Christianity pushes certain paradigms that force restrictions on people. For example, men are the head of the house; women must be submissive. You have to behave properly. You need to avoid bars. Rock music is bad. You cannot swear. You mustn't have dirty thoughts. You need to become intolerant of other people’s beliefs. And on and on. Being a Christian therefore is restricting yourself. You are chained and gagged. You become a slave.

That is so far from the truth. The truth is, we are slaves to sin. Whether we admit to it or not, that's the actual truth. Deep in our gut, we know we are sinful. Some people are better than others at glossing over this fact. “I’m not a bad person. I give to charity. I’m kind to my co-workers. I help my neighbours.” But even these people have moments of bare honesty and know they are sinners.

God wants us to be free from sin. He wants us to be free from the shackles of sin so that we can become who he created us to be: men and women who were created to find their best joy in worshiping God. In his mercy, God sent Jesus to take on our sin and the punishment we deserve in order to restore the freedom that actually belongs to us. When we believe, we are made new and can live free.

To let us see that we were created as people with freedom, recall what God said to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.

Genesis 1:27–28
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

God gave Adam and Eve the freedom to take charge of the whole earth. He didn’t give them specific commands on how to do it. He let them think for themselves and choose how to take care of the earth. They were free. But as the Bible records, they chose to believe Satan instead of God and in their act of rebellion, they lost their freedom and became slaves to sin and Satan.

Jesus came to right that and set us free.

Galatians 5:1
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

1 Peter 2:16
Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

Believing in Christ sets us free. Free to be alive. Free to be our real selves. Free to joyfully worship God because that’s the best thing to do in life. Being with God gives us the most happiness and pleasure. Why wouldn’t we want that? Why remain a slave to sin and an enemy of God when you can be a free and adopted son of the Lord of the universe?

Direction, not perfection

One of the misconceptions about being a Christian is that we are goody two-shoes. People, including Christians themselves, think that once they believe on Jesus, they can become good people overnight.

How I wish that were true. It is true that believing on Jesus justifies us. This means that the punishment we deserve for sin we have (and for future sin we may commit) is paid for completely by Jesus. We can stand before God and be counted as righteous. That is what we call justification (see for example Romans 4:22–5:1).

That doesn't mean we gain perfection. That will only come with our resurrected bodies. In the meantime, together with God's help, we work on the process of sanctification. Romans 6:1–14 tells us that we need to fight to keep sin away from our bodies. Verse 12 says, "Do not let sin reign in your mortal bodies." Reign is the keyword here. The word reign conjures up images of rulers and slaves, kings and soldiers. Make no mistake, the process of sanctification is not a walk in the park. It is a daily battle of surrendering our body and mind to God, in order that we can be armed to fight sin in every area of our lives. Like the character of  Christian in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, we are on a journey, heading towards God's heavenly city. Galatians 5:16–24 reminds us to walk by the Spirit and we will not gratify the desires of the flesh. That to me is a clear indication that though we have been justified, the old sin nature still lurks beneath the surface. It is no surprise then, when it rears its ugly head and we by natural instinct obey its lusts. We are by no means perfect. But we are to use the Spirit and kill our sinful inclinations and keep marching on towards God.

This process we will never finish. We will always have more sin inside us to kill. But the promise of God is that "he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." (Philippians 1:6). We will see perfection on the day of Jesus Christ. What a promise. So having faith and being justified is only the beginning. That work is God's alone. Sanctification is God's Spirit working in us as we direct our lives toward God himself. Justification brings direction, not perfection.