Liberty

Sin is bondage! Anyone who has known any type of addiction knows that the addicted is enslaved to the addiction.

John 8:34 (ESV)  "Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin."

In jinglese that's "You can't eat just one!"   Sin is the fertilizer of more sin. There are rewards to sin and people love to be rewarded! Because of the pleasure of sin, we want even more of what pleasures us! That's why we are our own god. Sin is the way we appease the god of self.

How is it then we are slaves?

Matthew 26:41 "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

There are two external "forces" around our idol. One is God who endeavors to free the self from the flesh and the other who enslaves and puts this weak god in bondage. Satan knows that our god is weak and he uses the weaknesses of power, pleasure and beauty to enslave. Just as Pavlov's dog salivated at the thought of a treat, our flesh lusts after the promise of pleasure. That dark promise is temptation! We wait for that bell continually so that we may feel pleasure. That's bondage! (A trained dog is enslaved to his conditioning).

Because man is so easily deceived, God wrote down his will for us so that we are without excuse for our actions. God's Law are the Ten Commandments. Commandments are metrics to measure our own disobedience. God, from the start, had only one commandment; "Don't do what is forbidden by me!" (Genesis 2:17). In effect that says "Revere me, not you!" or in terms of what's written in stone: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." (Exodus 20:30; the First Commandment). The chronological first commandment is the prime commandment!

Mosaic Laws are those not written in stone, but relayed to mankind by Moses. They add nothing to what is already known. Mosaic Laws include the commandments, but are instructions on how to live commands. They are "Mosaic Instructions", so to speak. It is my belief, and many theologians, that the Ten Commandments are there as to "how" to love God (Commandments 1-4) and to love the neighbor (5-10). The Greatest Commandment and it's correllary is to love God and others (Matthew 22:36-40). And Jesus himself said that the way we demonstrate love to him is by keeping those commandments! (John 14:15).

"To love God and others" is never optional! Indeed this is what being a Christian is all about! It's the metric which assures us of our salvation! How do we show love to God and others? We put God first, we don't make idols, we don't curse God, we keep his day holy, we don't abuse others by murder, lying, jealousy, etc.! We have no freedom to "not love". That is a requirement!

1 John 3:15 "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him."

The penalty for "not loving" is eternal death. Hate sends people to hell!! Therefore, the Greatest Commandment and "the one like unto it" are requirements; hence "commandments", and they are operationalized by the Ten Commandments!  Those commandments are what Christians must do to demonstrate our love! We're not at liberty to not do those things! However, we must do them for right reasons; not self-centeredness (self-righteousness)!

Just as there are Mosaic Laws, or instructions, there is a "law of liberty":

James 2:12 So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.

"Liberty" is "the power to do or choose what you want to" (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). God bestowed upon his creation a "will". "Will" is a mental vessel for our "willingness" or "ability to choose". Weak-willed people do whatever it is they want to do and worship their "self" diligently. They are weak, thinking they are doing what they want to do, but are in fact, being deceived by the tempter.  This is where the expression "but, the flesh is weak derives" (Matthew 26:41).

Strong-willed people are those who resist temptation. Any sinner who dodges sin are strong-willed. That strong will is given to each individual by God. However, deception foils the will. Adam was weak-willed because the woman tempted him.

God didn't create automatons who were programmed to obey! He could have, but there is one reason that he didn't: he wanted his creation to love him! With that design criteria God gave us a "will" but that will was based on love. Hence, God created mankind with a "free-will". In essence, man always had/has a choice to follow his own flesh or submit to God. We can worship our own god or God!

Adam and Eve wandered over and stood under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. No one made them do that. They walked there freely. As they strolled underneath that tree they walked further from the Tree of Life; which was symbolic of Jesus. It was their choice. God chose not to force them to stay under his tree, but they did what they wanted to do! That's what we all still do: "We all do what we really want to do!" That's our free will, and we have the liberty to do that!

"Liberty" is "the power to do or choose what you want to". (Merriam-Webster Dictionary) .

"Free-will" does not leave us when we are born-again. It's with us forever. Sin is always a choice. We always sin because we are deceived, but sin is always a choice. Christians make wrong choices because that flesh is weak. Although, we are of the spirit, we still have original (Adam's) inherited propensity to choose wrongly; or sin! In fact we have the free-will anytime to stand under that "other tree" where our idol lives (the self) and leave the  midst of the Garden where the Tree of Life stands. Because we can still eat the fruit of the forbidden tree as Christians, we can still surely die! Our free-will remains. We can choose not to stand under God because we are not automatons.  We are "safed". not "saved" in that we still have our free-will intact.

Just as Job had his free-will to abandon God and take the path most taken; and he was a righteous man, we still have that choice as well! That's liberty.

Just as sin enslaves us, so can regulations. Obeying instructions out of fear is not God's M.O.!  When one obeys merely because it's a regulation, then it's not out of love! People are put in chains to rules. Rather than "loving", all our time is still focused on our "other god", the self! How can I keep my self out of hell? I love my self and I don't want it to be destroyed! Obeying commands for the mere protection of your own god, is the serpent still deceiving. Self-righteous people are still enslaved, but fail to realize it! Satan is good at his job and to protect our own idol, people are easily deceived!

When we become Christians we are born again. That's the sacrifice of the self and with our god toppled, we become new creatures who God protects from unfair tactics of Satan. New creatures are no longer prone to deception. We still have free-will, but God puts his whole armor on us (Ephesians 6:11). That armor is what God's hedge around Job symbolized.

Romans 8:21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Sin enslaves and by trickery rules do too! It's a matter of focus. Are we still preoccupied with the self or are we in love with God? When we are born-again the promise of eternal life is there. As such we are surely thankful to the Savior! How can we show that thanks? By loving God! How do we show God that we love him? By loving others!

When our actions and behaviors are in check out of thankfulness, we do it because we love God; not because we must obey to save ourselves. We are saved by grace (God's gift) not by works. In fact attempting to obtain salvation by works is still depending on that old god of self.  That "other god" has no power to grant eternal life. It's mere flesh powered by selfishness!

Because we love is why we obey. Jesus came to fulfill the Law!

Galatians 5:14 "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

Jesus came so that the Law be fulfilled for right reasons: out of love for him! We still have the liberty from regulations with one exception: we are commanded to love and love we must do! That's what Christianity is all about, but what our self has the hardest time doing! It's because we love our self that we fail to love others. God allowed us to love our self. We can do that, but not to the extent that we love the self over God and others!

When we were born-again, the chains of sin were removed! Likewise, were the ropes which tug on us! The rope of temptation is weak. We can pull free when we put the self aside and focus on others. There is power in love and love cuts the ropes which also binds us.

Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

 Christ's blood shed for us disentangles by cutting the ropes and breaking the chains of bondage. We are free persons; new creatures! We have become emancipated from our god of flesh. We can still chose slavery again. That's our free will. However, with God's hedge we are protected.  Sin will never ever enslave any Christian again, except for one: rejecting God called grieving the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30)

As such, as long as we have faith, we can sin all that we want to and still have the hope of salvation! Why? Because we are at liberty to do what we want to do! New persons desire to do new things! Not only are we free from sin, but rules and regulations as well. Now, our motives for obedience, is because we love God. There is no longer a curse with disobedience, but the choices of the new creation are different. Now we chose to obey out of love. We obey for right reasons. As such loving Christians chose not to sin so as to please God whom they love!

How do we make right choices as weak-willed people? It's through Jesus! His Holy Spirit resides in Christians to aid us in our battle of the wills:

2 Corinthians 3:17  "Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

In essence, if a person is a true Christian he (or she) is out of bondage. The rules for obedience is no longer required because it's the Spirit who guides. The rules are still there. Jesus said that., but the new creature has a new heart!  It's so much easier to obey out of love than coercion and that's liberty! Libertarians can chose to do wrong things, but out of love they contain their desires. That's the new creation! We have been freed from the yoke of resentment and are free to love:

Galatians 5:13 "For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another."