Now we are not only set free from ourselves, but also set free for a new life. One belongs to the other. No moral sermons, no condemnations, but daily freedom – to celebrate true encounters with self, with God and with the people around us. This freedom in Christ is so certain that it may serve us as the basis for a God-centered attitude toward life. Freedom obliges in the best sense of the word.

“For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand fast therefore in her…”
Gal 5:1

“Yet you were called to freedom, brothers; only do not let freedom become an occasion for the flesh, but slave to one another through love.”
Gal 5:13

“For all things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos, whether Cephas or the world, whether life or death, whether things present or things to come. All things are yours, but you belong to Christ and Christ to God.”
1Cor 3:22-23

“Everything is permitted to me, but not everything promotes me! Everything is permitted to me, but I will not let anything put me under their authority.”
1Cor 6,12

“Everything is allowed to me, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is allowed to me, however, not everything builds up.”
1Cor 10,23

Freedom is a gift. It is also an expression of a new reality. In it, everything is allowed, but not everything builds. We are encouraged to have a differentiated and active approach to life. We are a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). That wants to be lived. This wants to be celebrated with a corresponding attitude towards life. All things are yours, Paul says, but you belong to Christ and Christ to God (1 Cor. 3:22-23).

Grace educates

“For the grace of God has appeared, … it educates us . ..”
Titus 2:12

First is grace. From this follows freedom. Of course, the overflowing grace of God can be misunderstood as carte blanche. Freedom is always misunderstood. However, this should not be taken as a reason to classify freedom as dangerous, or even to restrict freedom. Paul states in Colossians that grace of God is to be “known in truth” (Col 1:6). Because 100% grace turns life upside down. Grace makes free. Because grace truly sets you free, it can do much more. God’s grace does something to us. Grace changes us and teaches us. God’s grace leading to freedom can do much more than any restriction set up by human beings.

Sometimes it is said that grace simply makes you lazy because it relies 100% on God’s working. Then you don’t have to do anything yourself (this is the expression of self-righteousness). But then we know neither God nor His grace. Here we read what grace did for Paul:

“But in the grace of God I am what I am; and His grace which worketh in me was not in vain, but far more than all of them I labor, yet not I, but the grace of God which is with me. Whether it be I or they, so we herald, and so ye have come to believe.”
1Cor 15:10-11

“Far more than they all do I labor …” Grace is not a guide to laziness. By grace, Paul worked harder than anyone else.

The apostle mentions two other things in this passage that are worthy of closer consideration. They are the words “not in vain” and “so we herald”. First, he says that “His grace working in me has not been in vain. “ In Paul, God’s grace has worked. God’s grace was not in vain with Paul. The gift was not only gratefully accepted, but also used daily. This is a concrete indication of how we ourselves can also take care that His grace in us should not be in vain. Let us leave room for God to work in and through us.

Then Paul also mentions that this is essential to his preaching: “Be it I or those, we herald, and so you have come to believe”. The statement concerns the whole passage 1Cor 15,1-11. But in it it is explicitly also about the grace that worked in Paul himself, as we have just read. Grace educates, and Paul himself is a good example of what grace can do in someone. To Timothy he writes:

“The word is credible and worthy of every welcome that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. However, for this very reason I obtained mercy, so that Jesus Christ might display all patience in me, as the first, as a pattern for those who believe in Him in the future, for aeonian life.”
1Tim 1:15-16

Farewell to lawlessness and legalism

Freedom challenges. Grace challenges. However, both are important pillars of the gospel. The handling of this has to be learned, and it should be a declared goal in every congregation and community to encourage everyone on his or her very own way in this. When Paul writes about freedom, it is often because there are people (“false brothers”) who want to restrict freedom. At that time, this was often done by those who wanted to (re)introduce the Mosaic Law. Today, there are often very different rules and expectations that are binding on the community. But these all distract from freedom in Christ Jesus and from the truth of the gospel.

“But as for the false brethren smuggled in (who had come in by the way to scout out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, to enslave us completely [unter dem Gesetz zu] ), we have not yielded to them even for one hour even apparently by submission, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.”
Gal 2:4-5

We read here how important it was for Paul to clearly point the churches in Galatia (Gal 1:1) to Christ. Even if it is not said in so many words, but freedom is found only through clear direction. It is “our freedom which we have in Christ Jesus”. So freedom is always in dependence on Him and concerns the things He has brought about. This can change our lives radically and very practically. Neither lawlessness nor legalism will get us anywhere, but only the bond with Christ Jesus. He puts us in God’s reality (cf. 2 Cor. 5:18-21). He “accomplished” all things (John 19:30) and thereby created a new reality.

The challenge is met through healthy spiritual growth. It’s about growing up in the faith. This process has a lot to do with differentiation. Only the differentiated handling of grace and freedom allows them to become usable in our lives. Differentiated here does not mean that legalism is smuggled back in through the back door, but that dealing with God’s grace and Christ’s freedom is used as a starting point for spiritual growth and every subsequent step is measured against it.

Paul describes it this way:

“The same [Christus] gives some as apostles, others as prophets, still others as evangelists or as shepherds and teachers -.

• For the adaptation of the saints to the work of service,
• for the edification of the body of Christ,
• until we all reach the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God,
• to the matured man, to the measure of the full growth, the completion of the Christ,
• so that we may no longer be minors, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine as by surging waves, and carried about by the unpredictability of men, by the cunning that is calculated to spread error by design.”
  

Then the apostle summarizes all this:

«Wenn wir aber wahr sind, sollten wir in Liebe alles zum Wachsen bringen, hinein in Ihn, der das Haupt ist, Christus …»
Eph 4,11-16

This is the farewell to lawlessness and legalism, because it is replaced with something much better.

The fear of freedom

There is much fear of freedom and grace. When Paul writes “all things are allowed,” I have repeatedly seen these words cause consternation, even though the phrase continues seamlessly with “but not all things build up” (1Cor 6:23 1Cor 10:23). Paul apparently differentiates better than others and does not let that stop him from proclaiming 100% grace and 100% freedom in Christ. Those who are truly free do not have an avoidance strategy, but a clear and positive direction in life. He who is truly free can rest in himself because he has come to rest in Christ, and in Christ he can rest because he knows that God has come to rest in Christ.

“For all things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos, whether Cephas or the world, whether life or death, whether things present or things to come. All things are yours, but you belong to Christ and Christ to God.”
1Cor 3:22-23

Not everyone sees it as positively and clearly as Paul. Fear of 100% grace and freedom is tough. Not everyone can handle it, and sometimes, it seems to me, freedom is not expected of believers. Not every community is comfortable with critical questions. However, it would be healthy if we realize that in every community there are very different needs and opportunities. Freedom will always cause fear in some. But that need not mean that others are denied freedom. To understand this difference and nevertheless to set people free in a targeted way and to introduce them to a real freedom is the task of every healthy community.

Freedom can be misunderstood. Freedom can also be abused (cf. Rom 3:8). But this should not trigger a retreat from freedom. On the contrary – it would be a good indicator that things should urgently move on. This is about the principle. It’s healthy for children to grow up, too. It is healthy for parents to lead the way, to show the way, to guide their children into freedom and independence. To have such an image before one’s eyes is the privilege of living community. Instead, I have seen communities resist time and time again. Stability, it is thought, is achieved by creating “guardrails.” These guardrails in the form of laws, guidelines or value formation want to establish an external stability of the community, but they distract from a true freedom in and through Christ. What Paul is pointing to is an inner stability in that the person is established in Christ. The path is completely different. The result will also be different.

Prevention strategies for healthy growth in faith:

• Emphasis on behavior, rather than inner beliefs
• Emphasis on laws, rules, values, rather than on the grace of God in Christ Jesus.
• Avoiding biblical teaching (avoiding a culture of learning, thereby preventing healthy differentiation).
• Dogmatic doctrines that must not be questioned
• One-sided characterization (only teaching, only evangelism, only pastoral care, etc.)
• Silencing or denouncing other points of view
• Centralization of doctrinal statements (dependence on teaching and teachers).
• Ideological imprinting
• Black and white thinking (exclusion, demarcation)

These are characteristics of healthy expression:

• Everything is of God, everything is through Christ (Christocentric thinking, cf. 1Cor 8:6).
• Grace central
• God’s word central
• Promotion of a learning culture (not: dogmatic teaching culture)
• Promotion of differentiated perspectives (thus: growth in faith)
• Fostering a diverse community (through: diverse expression with all the gifts of Eph 4:11-12).
• Promoting a growth toward Christ (cf. Eph. 4:15-16).
• Openness to service, people of all backgrounds
• Unity in Christ is recognized and preserved (Eph. 4:3-7)

Freedom outlook

It goes one step further. What is gained in freedom today, in real freedom, is also an image of God’s action in and with creation. Paul writes in Romans:

“For I reckon that the sufferings of the present period are not worthy of the glory that is about to be revealed in us.
For the foreshadowing of creation awa its the unveiling of the sons of God. Because the creation was subordinated to vanity (not voluntarily, but for the sake of the subordinate) In the expectation that creation itself will also be liberated from the slavery of transience to the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that all of creation is groaning and laboring with us until now.
But not they alone, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we ourselves also groan within ourselves, awaiting the state of sonship, the release of our body. For it was upon this expectation that we were saved.”
Rom 8:18-24

The creation has a premonition and is waiting for the sons of God to become known. There is an expectation, Paul writes, that creation itself will also be liberated to the freedom of the glory of the children of God. This has to do with God’s purpose in creation. Creation itself is to become free, as are the children of God. This is an outlook of freedom that is rarely talked about. That this is hardly a topic in the proclamation is not surprising, however, if the children of God themselves are not introduced to freedom. But if we learn to know freedom in Christ – as we learn to trust in God’s grace, it also opens our understanding of God’s ways on a much larger scale.

He who is not aware of his own freedom in Christ cannot imagine freedom for creation. These things are related. Only the proclamation of God’s grace and freedom in Christ Jesus, as Paul persistently and emphatically speaks about it again and again, paves the way to a liberated view of God’s activity.