For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.
Galatians 5:13
As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.
1 Peter 2:16
While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
2 Peter 2:19
Imagine being rescued from drowning in sewage and then jumping back into it. How shocking that would be! Yet there is a false liberty that suggests a Christian rescued from sin’s pollutions is free to jump right back into those defilements.
I was recently asked to listen to a sermon where a preacher taught that Christians have the liberty to drink alcoholic beverages. It reminded me of the very first time a Christian attempted to convince me that it was fine for a Christian to listen to contemporary Christian music. It was 35 years ago when I was in high school, and a young classmate was attempting to justify why he had the liberty to listen to the devil’s rock music because it was sprinkled with Christian lyrics.
When someone suggests to you that you have the liberty to do wrong, run the other way! Or if someone tries to persuade you that God’s grace means you are free to indulge in dancing, dressing immodestly (especially in a beach culture), or attending the cinema with its overwhelming filth, run the other way.
Why? Titus 2:11-14 give the answer: ‘For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.’
What does God’s grace teach us? To indulge in ungodliness and worldly lusts? No, God’s grace instructs us to deny or renounce such things. It teaches us to be sober, righteous, godly, pure and zealous in good works. It teaches us to live in light of the soon return of our Saviour (and when He returns, we certainly don’t want to be in the middle of sinning against Him). In summary, it teaches us to live holy lives, separate from all wrongdoing.
James 1:27 words it similarly when it says, ‘Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.’ Unspotted! Untainted! Uncontaminated! Pure Christianity is clean and spotless.
Liberty in the Bible speaks mostly of the freedom from sin made possible by the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It also speaks of the freedom from trying to be saved by keeping the Mosaic law (Galatians 5:1), as well as freedom from sin’s devasting effects (Romans 8:21).
The misuse of liberty is to think it gives us an opportunity to indulge in our old sinful appetites (Galatians 5:13). This includes rebellion against the righteous laws of our civil leaders (1 Peter 2:16). It also includes selfishly tripping up others, sending them sprawling into temptations (1 Corinthians 8:9). Many are they who point to the failures of professing Christians to excuse their own unbelief or sinful lifestyles.
2 Peter 2:19 reminds us that false teachers think they are free. They promise us liberty, but upon closer examination, we discover that they themselves are slaves to corruption, servants to sin. As any addict shows, sin binds us. The truth is, these false teachers have deceived themselves, and are attempting to deceive us with a false liberty.
Don’t fall for a fake freedom, one that suggests we are free to go back into the very sins for which Christ died and from which Christ saves us.
That would be like jumping right back into the sewage from which we were rescued.
Father, thank You for true liberty made possible by Your Son’s sacrifice on the cross. Thank You for emancipating us from sin’s slavery, and the promise that someday You will free us from sin’s curse. Help us to discern the lie that we are loosed from unrighteousness to be loose about it. Help us to stay far from that which angers You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.