Freedom Has Come

What does it mean to be free? What are we free from? Well, freedom comes in various forms. From a worlds perspective, freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Constitutionally, the people of the United States may boast in this definition of freedom. However, is this true freedom? Only in minor respects. Biblically speaking, freedom is the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved to anyone or anything. Although, the United States has more constitutional freedoms than any other country on planet earth, these very freedoms are being eroded by the one who imprisons and enslaves many of the people of the earth as well as many American, that is, Satan.

The Bible describes man as the only thing in all creation that was created in the image and likeness of God the Creator. Not only was man created in God's image and likeness, but God gave him dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. (Genesis 1:26) King David tells us, "You (God) have crowned him (man) with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands." (Psalm 8:5-6) In other words, man was (is) God's crown jewel above all else created, even angels. The freedom that man lived in, in the Garden of Eden, was a complete freedom. He had no bounds, no limitations at all. But we know what happened. Satan caused the woman to reason, doubt, that she was already like God, so she fell prey to his seduction. In turn, Adam, the federal representative of mankind chose the woman over obedience to God and forfeited all, which included himself and all future mankind. Now, mankind had become imprisoned, enslaved, under Satan's dominion.   

Man was now lost, spiritually dead and unable to fellowship with God. However, God in His great love in which He loved man, did the most amazing, astonishing, stupendous thing that ever happened in the history of mankind, He became a man. (John 1:1, 14) "But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son..." (Galatians 4:4) God in His providence had now brought redemption to mankind. In the midst of mankind's condition of despondency, failure, rebellion and hopelessness, there came relief. Only God knew what man's need demanded, and only God could meet that demand. It was the Incarnation.

Man throughout the ages has hungered instinctively for three things. He has desired fellowship with God; he has desired to possess the life of God, eternal life; and he has desired the strength, and ability of God. Every ancient human religion has tried to answer this cry.  Even today, man still hungers for the same. All of the knowledge that our educational institutions of learning have provided has not eliminated from man's spirit this hunger. Every modern human religion tries to answer this hunger. It is not only the educated who seek to fill this hunger, but every level of humanity, in every society. It has been the same for every man from the time man died spiritually, until the present day, he has hungered for union with Deity

It has been our tendency, when thinking of Christ's coming to earth as a man, to dwell upon His self-denial, His sufferings, in coming to earth from Glory. Yet, as we know Him better, we believe that it was a joy to Him (Hebrews 12:2) who so loved man (John 3:16) and so desired man's fellowship, (1 John 1:3) to dwell on earth among men that He might give to man, who had never known his Creator, a true conception of Him. (John 14:1-11) How clearly Christ realized and appreciated this phase of His mission. The Apostle John said of Him, "No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. (John 1:18) How different was His life from the lives of the greatest philosophers and religious teachers before Him. They had come as seekers of the truth. He came as the revelation of the Truth (John 14:6).

Unlike fallen man, Satan had no dominion over Christ, because Christ was not spiritually dead. He walked in oneness with the Father. Although full human, His body was not mortal, that is, death doomed. He possessed a perfect eternal human body, the kind of a body that Adam had before the fall where he died spiritually, became death doomed. Therefore, as Jesus walked this earth His body was not subjected to death. It was impossible for man to have taken the life of Christ before His time had come. (John 10:18) He walked this earth free from Satan's dominion. As He walked the earth, He revealed the Father to man which is seen in His preaching, teaching and delivering them from the bondage of Satan. (Acts 10:38) Jesus said, "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." (John 10:10) In the life of Jesus, as He lived utterly free, rich and full on earth, we see revealed, the life that the Father had planned for man from the beginning.

Now comes redemption, freedom, through faith in Christ. There are two sides to redemption, the legal and the vital. The legal side is what Father did for us in Christ and the vital side is what the Holy Spirit does in us in Christ. As all mankind were partakers of Adam's death, bondage, judgment and all that spiritual death made him, now God has redeemed man completely from every result of Adam's treason through the identification of humanity with His Son. This is the message that comes to us by the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul as recorded in Romans 5:12-21. It reveals, that if the lordship of Satan over humanity was due to the identification of humanity with Adam in his crime of treason, then it is also legally possible for the works of Satan to be destroyed by the identification of humanity with the Son of God, the second Adam. (1 Corinthians 15:45)

The Apostle Paul tells us, "For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Corinthians 5:21) Jesus not only bore our sins, but our sin nature itself was laid upon Him, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Christ suffered until God could justify the human race. (Romans 4:25) In the mind of God, it was not Christ who hung on the cross, but the entire human race. So each one of us may say with Paul, "I was crucified with Christ" (Galatians 2:20). 

Jesus legally put all things under His feet (that is, under His Body, the church) in His resurrection. (Ephesians 1:22-23) We, believers, are seated with Him in heavenly places. (Ephesians 2:6) In this position, that of triumph, in His Name every enemy of ours is under our feet that we might reign as kings in this life with Him. (Romans 5:17) Christ has destroyed the work of Satan (Colossians 2:15; Hebrews 2:14; 1 John 3:8) and now those who confess Jesus as Lord and take Him as Savior are completely free from, sin, sickness, poverty and all the works of the devil. We are no long slaves under Satan's rule, but masters, reigning with Christ. This is freedom. 

So, "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." (Galatians 5:1) "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed." (John 8:36) PTL...