Reference: Liberty
Hastings
Moralists are accustomed to distinguish between formal freedom, or man's natural power of choice, and real freedom, or power to act habitually in accordance with the true and good. Scripture has little to say on the mere power of choice, while everywhere recognizing this power as the condition of moral life, and sees real liberty only in the possession and exercise of wisdom, godliness, and virtue. Where there is ignorance and error, especially when this arises from moral causes (Ro 1:21; Eph 4:18; 1Jo 2:11 etc.)
See Verses Found in Dictionary
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly-minded, and 'you shall find rest for your souls'; For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
And you find out the Truth, and the Truth will set you free."
"In truth I tell you," replied Jesus, "every one who sins is a slave to sin.
Because, although they learned to know God, yet they did not offer him as God either praise or thanksgiving. Their speculations about him proved futile, and their undiscerning minds were darkened.
For the man who has so died has been pronounced righteous and released from Sin.
God be thanked that, though you were once servants of Sin, yet you learned to give hearty obedience to that form of doctrine under which you were placed. Set free from the control of Sin, you became servants to Righteousness.
We know that the Law is spiritual, but I am earthly-sold into slavery to Sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I am so far from habitually doing what I want to do, that I find myself doing the very thing that I hate. read more. But when I do what I want not to do, I am admitting that the Law is right. This being so, the action is no longer my own, but that of Sin which is within me. I know that there is nothing good in me-I mean in my earthly nature. For, although it is easy for me to want to do right, to act rightly is not easy. I fail to do the good thing that I want to do, but the bad thing that I want not to do-that I habitually do. But, when I do the very thing that I want not to do, the action is no longer my own, but that of Sin which is within me. This, then, is the law that I find-When I want to do right, wrong presents itself! At heart I delight in the Law of God; But throughout my body I see a different law, one which is in conflict with the law accepted by my reason, and which endeavors to make me a prisoner to that law of Sin which exists throughout my body.
Thank God, there is deliverance through Jesus Christ, our Lord! Well then, for myself, with my reason I serve the Law of God, but with my earthly nature the Law of Sin.
For through your union with Christ Jesus, the Law of the life- giving Spirit has set you free from the Law of Sin and Death.
For you did not receive the spirit of a slave, to fill you once more with fear, but the spirit of a son which leads us to cry 'Abba, Our Father.'
For you did not receive the spirit of a slave, to fill you once more with fear, but the spirit of a son which leads us to cry 'Abba, Our Father.' The Spirit himself unites with our spirits in bearing witness to our being God's children,
And the 'Lord' is the Spirit, and, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
But now that you have found God--or, rather, have been found by him--how is it that you are turning back to that poor and feeble puerile teaching, to which yet once again you are wanting to become slaves?
And as for what must have tried you in my condition, it did not inspire you with scorn or disgust, but you welcomed me as if I had been an angel of God--or Christ Jesus himself!
This story may be taken as an allegory. The women stand for two Covenants. One Covenant, given from Mount Sinai, produces a race of slaves and is represented by Hagar (The word Hagar meaning in Arabia Mount Sinai) and it ranks with the Jerusalem of to-day, for she and her children are in slavery.
It is for freedom that Christ set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not again be held under the yoke of slavery.
This is what I have to say--Let your steps be guided by the Spirit, and then you will never gratify the cravings of your earthly nature. For these cravings of our earthly nature conflict with the Spirit, and the Spirit with our earthly nature--they are two contrary principles--so that you cannot do what you wish. read more. But, if you follow the guidance of the Spirit, you are not subject to Law.
But the fruit produced by the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindliness, generosity, trustfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law! read more. And those who belong to Jesus, the Christ, have already crucified their earthly nature, with its passions and its cravings. Since our Life is due to the Spirit, let us rule our conduct also by the Spirit.
For it is by God's loving-kindness that you have been saved, through your faith. It is not due to yourselves; the gift is God's.
With their powers of discernment darkened, cut off from the Life of God, owing to the ignorance that prevails among them and to the hardness of their hearts.
and so might deliver all those who, from fear of death, had all their lives been living in slavery.
It is not to tangible 'flaming fire' that you have drawn near, nor to 'gloom, and darkness, and storm, and the blast of a trumpet, and an audible voice.' Those who heard that voice entreated that they might hear no more, read more. for they could not bear to think of the command-- 'If even an animal touches the mountain, it is to be stoned to death;' and so fearful was the sight that Moses said-- 'I tremble with fear.'
But he who looks carefully into the perfect Law, the Law of Freedom, and continues to do so, not listening to it and then forgetting it, but putting it into practice--that man will be blessed in what he does.
Act as free men, yet not using your freedom as those do who make it a cloak for wickedness, but as Servants of God.
Moreover, our eyes have seen--and we are testifying to the fact--that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever acknowledges that Jesus Christ is the Son of God--God remains in union with that man, and he with God. read more. And, moreover, we have learned to know, and have accepted as a fact, the love which God has for us. God is Love; and he who lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
Morish
Besides the common application of this term, it is used in scripture symbolically, as
1. The liberty obtained by Christ for those that were captives of Satan. Isa 61:1; Lu 4:18; Joh 8:36.
2. The conscience set free from guilt, as when the Lord said to several, "Thy sins be forgiven thee: go in peace."
3. Freedom from the law, etc. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free." Ro 7:24-25; Ga 5:1. Jesus said, "I am the door: by me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." Joh 10:9.
4. The Christian's deliverance from the power of sin by having died with Christ, as in Ro 6:8-22; and, having reckoned himself dead to sin, experimentally enjoying liberty, as in Ro 8:2-4, after experiencing that the flesh is too strong for him The deliverance is realised by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and the love of God is known and enjoyed. Christ is then the object before the soul, and not self.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, For he has consecrated me to bring Good News to the poor, He has sent me to proclaim release to captives and restoration of sight to the blind, To set the oppressed at liberty,
If, then, the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed!
I am the Door; he who goes in through me will be safe, and he will go in and out and find pasture.
And our belief is, that, as we have shared Christ's Death, we shall also share his Life. We know, indeed, that Christ, having once risen from the dead, will not die again. Death has power over him no longer. read more. For the death that he died was a death to sin, once and for all. But the Life that he now lives, he lives for God. So let it be with you-regard yourselves as dead to sin, but as living for God, through union with Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let Sin reign in your mortal bodies and compel you to obey its cravings. Do not offer any part of your bodies to Sin, in the cause of unrighteousness, but once for all offer yourselves to God (as those who, though once dead, now have Life), and devote every part of your bodies to the cause of righteousness. For Sin shall not lord it over you. You are living under the reign, not of Law, but of Love. What follows, then? Are we to sin because we are living under the reign of Love and not of Law? Heaven forbid! Surely you know that, when you offer yourselves as servants, to obey any one, you are the servants of the person whom you obey, whether the service be that of Sin which leads to Death, or that of Duty which leads to Righteousness. God be thanked that, though you were once servants of Sin, yet you learned to give hearty obedience to that form of doctrine under which you were placed. Set free from the control of Sin, you became servants to Righteousness. I can but speak as men do because of the weakness of your earthly nature. Once you offered every part of your bodies to the service of impurity, and of wickedness, which leads to further wickedness. Now, in the same way, offer them to the service of Righteousness, which leads to holiness. While you were still servants of Sin, you were free as regards Righteousness. But what were the fruits that you reaped from those things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of such things is Death. But now that you have been set free from the control of Sin, and have become servants to God, the fruit that you reap is an ever-increasing holiness, and the end Immortal Life.
Miserable man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body that is bringing me to this Death? Thank God, there is deliverance through Jesus Christ, our Lord! Well then, for myself, with my reason I serve the Law of God, but with my earthly nature the Law of Sin.
For through your union with Christ Jesus, the Law of the life- giving Spirit has set you free from the Law of Sin and Death. What Law could not do, in so far as our earthly nature weakened its action, God did, by sending his own Son, with a nature resembling our sinful nature, to atone for sin. He condemned sin in that earthly nature, read more. So that the requirements of the Law might be satisfied in us who live now in obedience, not to our earthly nature, but to the Spirit.
It is for freedom that Christ set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not again be held under the yoke of slavery.