For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Gal. 5:1)
This the freedom with which Christ has set us free, not from some human slavery of tyrannical authority but from the eternal wrath of God. Where? In the conscience. This is where our freedom comes to a halt; it goes no further. For Christ has set us free, not for a political freedom or a freedom of the flesh but for a theological or spiritual freedom, that is to make our conscience free and joyful, unafraid of the wrath to come (Matt.3:7). This is the most genuine freedom, it is immeasurable…For who can express what a great gift it is for someone to be able to declare for certain that God neither is nor ever will be wrathful but will forever be a gracious and merciful Father for the sake of Christ? (LW 27:4)
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6 responses to “FREEDOM (Part 1): Luther”
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I agree that is is a most beautiful thing for our conscience to be free. But surely this is not where this freedom "comes to a halt." Doesn't that limit God's power and contradict what other passages talk about? Even 2 verses later in Galatians, Paul says:
"3You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love."
Aren't we freed to live for God, to serve others, freed from the power of sin, freed to obey Christ rather than the yoke of bondage to sin? Maybe I missed something in your post, but I believe the Word points to more freedoms than only our conscience.
It's easy to get lost in thought and and to identify with the non-Self. But the work of Christ is a work in the heart. All things flow from the heart, which I define as the center of consciousness. I think of "conscience" as the awareness of right and wrong according to one's own morality. I think this post it about the freedom that comes when Christ replaces our own conscience. The thing about how "freedom comes to a halt" to me is like remaining at the foot of the cross, and not projecting the will of the Lord.
True freedom is the Sacred Heart of our Lord shining from the center of your consciousness. We cannot limit Christ by our puny ideas about service, politics, psychology, environmentalism, education, health care, food supply, population boom etc etc, and we do not "serve one another in love" because Paul told us to. Righteousness flows from the heart of Christ, which is our heart that He has given us. What this looks like or how it actually plays out confounds me considerably, but I trust that only this is freedom: the curtain was torn from top to bottom.
Jesus was a beggar. We are all poor in eyes of the One. Let Love shine from the Heart. Woe is me!
It's the "ideas" that make the heart evil in the passage below.
Matthew 15:16-20,
" Jesus said to them,
You are still no more intelligent than the others. Don't you understand? Anything that goes into your mouth goes into your stomach and then on out of your body. But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these are the things that make you ritually unclean. For from your heart come the evil ideas which lead you to kill, commit adultery, and do other immoral things; to rob, lie, and slander others. These are the things that make you unclean. But to eat without washing your hands as they say you should, this doesn't make you unclean."
In the NIV it's "evil thoughts". The Heart of Christ is pure Love in Action which does not hesitate. This is beyond thought. Christian freedom as such does not project the Will of the Father. It remains with. It abides.
Hey alex, Luther would certainly speak of a freedom within the realm of serving God and one's neighbor in love. Because we are freed from conscience, we are freed for love. But Matt's quote of Luther intends to demonstrate that Christ's freedom from the law is solely a spiritual freedom from the law of God, rather than political freedom.
But Matt… is this division really what Luther intends? You're more of a Luther scholar than I am, so I may be wrong on this, but it does not seem that Luther intends to sharply separate the law of God from the law of the world. In his sixth disputation against the antinomians, Luther says "Neither political nor natural law is anything, unless it condemns and terrifies the sinner (WA 39:358)" This implies that the civil use of the law can coincide with the theological (pedagogical
) use of the law.
Hi Todd. I don't know Luther's full context for the passage you quote ("Neither political nor natural law is anything, unless it condemns and terrifies the sinner").
So all I can do is take it as a standalone quote. But as such Luther is just mistaken here, or he said something he didn't really mean.
Because surely in its left hand use (laws by the state) we are typically interested only in a person's behavior, not in his inner life. If I get pulled over for speeding I feel irritated (at the cop, at myself, at fate) but I am typically not TERRIFIED.
And indeed, in a Western democracy, we consider that as a likely symptom of serious corruption in a local govt or police force, if some or all its citizens are experiencing TERROR associated with all police reprimands.
Likewise there are times where we break the law of the state ethically (civil disobedience) and don't feel pangs of conscience in so doing (the feeling of that I am a condemned sinner).
Of course there are times where the civil law is moral and just, and furthermore in a particular case breaking it and getting caught might evoke the same kind of inner sensation as in the Law's theological use. Sure. But Luther's quote claims that happens all the time and here he might be just indulging in hyperbole or is just wrong.
Dear friends,
These are great!
I appreciate all of these.
This is where freedom is truly found. This means Christ's forgiveness settles the troubled conscience. Whether it be fear of God's anger or fear of under performing in our projects of self righteousness, Christ speaks a Word, "FORGIVEN", which drowns out the voice of all accusations, whether demonic, self imposed, or law-based. His word of forgiveness creates this Freedom. So don't return to a yoke of slavery (the law for salvation).
More to come on Freedom 🙂
hey John, I've been working on the context… the particular disputation isn't found in english, so I've been wadding through Latin translations!
The previous thesis in the disputation reads:
"A law that does not condemn is false and fabricated, just like the Chimera or the Tragelaphus. Neither political nor natural law is anything, unless it condemns and terrifies the sinner"
[NOTE-
a Chimera is an animal with the body of a lioness with a tail that terminated in a snake's head, the head of a goat arose on her back at the center of her spine – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_%28mythology%29
and a Tragelaphus is a fabulous animal, partly a goat and partly a stag; from Greek mythology – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hircocervus%5D
It would obviously benefit to have the whole disputation available, but it seems that Luther is making a distinction between true law and a pseudo-false law. Since God's law is the most perfect law and it was only meant to condemn, then only true law condemns. Similarly, if I am only justified through faith in Christ, then laws which do not lead me to faith lead me away from Christ. I do not believe that Luther is speaking against the situational necessity of a first use of the law, but that on an absolute scale, this use is not the true (proper) role of the law.