Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. – Romans 8:1-3a
When I finally (so I thought at the time) finished studying, I made a plan. I was going to take get a Working Holiday Visa and spend two years based in London and seeing all that Europe had to offer. It was a pretty normal thing for many people I worked and studied with. It was an opportunity to break off the shackles of corporate life, to find myself, to eschew social and familial and church responsibility and do whatever I wanted to do. It seemed like a good plan. I didn’t have any financial dependents nor the financial responsibility of a mortgage. It was the perfect time to be truly free.
You may have different elements in your picture of freedom, but I think many of us long for a change in our current situation that, we think, would set us free. You may long for freedom from health concerns, from family responsibility, from work, from financial strain, from broken or difficult relationships, from anxiety or grief. If only this was removed from my life, if only my life would change in this way, you think, I would feel truly free. More than that, I would truly be able to live.
When Paul, here, speaks of being set free, he isn’t primarily speaking of being free from these sorts of issues or situations. He is speaking of something that is deep and all-encompassing, and I think really sits at the core of what we really want to be free from. Those who are in Christ have been set free from the law of sin and death. The ‘law of sin and death’ is probably best understood as ‘the way sin and death work’ or ‘the modus operandi of sin and death’. Jesus Christ has set us free from the power of sin and death so that we can live by the power of the Spirit. We don’t have to live under the rules that govern the ways of sin and death anymore.
But how is this at the bottom of all our hopes for freedom?
All the ways in which we feel that the world and our lives are wrong, the ways in which we feel blocked or broken, the strain of living in this world, are the result of the ways that sin has infiltrated and corrupted every facet of life. Even my desire to “find myself” is the result of a broken relationship with myself and ultimately with God. Both my sin and the sinful ideas and ways of the world have corrupted the way I view myself and even the ‘solution’ for finding myself. Sin directs me away from God and directs my priorities away from what would be truly best for me.
When we are ‘in Christ’, it is not only that we are no longer condemned by our sin, but we also set free to begin living in the way that our Creator designed us to live. We are set free to hope for and work towards things that are healthy and lead to flourishing. We are set free to stop chasing after and doing things that feed addiction and pain.
We are set free to live.
This isn’t a promise that everything will work out the way we want or the way we plan. This freedom doesn’t mean that life will always be easy or that we won’t experience hard, even devastating, things; but that the power with which we live life is no longer one that kills, but one that enlivens. It doesn’t condemn us, nor does it crush us under the weight of expectation or the pressure to make something of ourselves. The Spirit of Christ shows us what we were made for, endows us with immeasurable value and worth and grounds us in the infinite love of a God who will never leave or forsake us.
This is the life we are set free to live.
Prayer focus:
- Praise God for the freedom He has won for us
- Pray that our hearts and minds will be softened and responsive to the ways God wants to reshape our desires and our ways
- Pray that as we fast and pray, we will be drawn deeper into the love of our God and captured by His beauty and radiance
