The Purpose of Christian Freedom

Introduction

The concept of Christian freedom is one that is often misunderstood. It’s often used as the basis for defending certain choices that aren’t explicitly prohibited in the Bible.

I have freedom. I’m not under law but under grace.

One way of defining Christian freedom can sound like this:

I can choose this type of entertainment because I have freedom in Christ.

I can drink alcohol (without getting drunk of course) because I have freedom in Christ.

I can work in this type of profession because I have freedom in Christ.

I can dress however I want because I have freedom in Christ.

The list could go on, but you get the point.

You may also hear people say something like, the Old Testament law was for the Jews before Jesus came but it isn’t for us and so now I don’t have to follow it. That’s all Christian freedom is - freedom from the Old Testament law.

Another, and probably the most extreme way people may talk about Christian freedom that would be: I’m not under any law, I’m under grace. All has been and will be forgiven, so nothing should be off limits. And then you probably say something like, let’s look at 1 Corinthians 10 for that.

Still others may say that Christian freedom means I have been freed from sin altogether! Once I became a Christian, I just stopped sinning. This is my Christian freedom - freedom from sin.

So this is the problem that we have. Christian freedom is a term that is thrown around often devoid of definition. People hear the term and they assume they know what it means. They hear others use the term and everyone kind of assumes that when someone else uses it they have the same definition.

And there’s some truth in all of this. In a sense, we do have freedom in our choices. In Christ, we have been freed from the law. We have been freed from our slavery to the law. We have been freed from our slavery to sin and we have been freed from the consequences of sin. Most people will recognize and admit that they haven’t been freed entirely from sin but we do see some freedom from sin through sanctification. But how do we identify what true Christian freedom is? And how do we spot false freedom?

This is important for us to get right because there are many who would define Christian freedom by taking verses out of context in order to justify sin or even a sinful lifestyle. They are deceived about their sin and in the process they trip others up and even cause others to sin. And it can make those who are seeking to live a life holy to God feel as if maybe they are missing something.

And then there are others who, by not understanding Christian freedom at all, will try to impose a legalistic system on themselves and others. They measure the strength of their faith on the basis of what they don’t do. Sure, I am free from the Old Testament law but I don’t drink or watch bad movies or wear clothes from that brand or give my money to anything Disney related and so on.

You can insert anything I don’t do because I’m not “allowed to” and in not doing these things I am actually holier. This is legalism, which was a huge problem in the Galatian church, and is just as problematic today.

And you kind of see this spectrum emerge. On one side is legalism and on the other side is license. And neither is Christian freedom.

This isn’t just a problem in our day, this was a problem in Paul’s day as well. We see false Christian freedom being called out in our passage today, which is Galatians 5:13-16.

So let’s read our passage together to see how Paul addresses this.

Galatians 5:13–16 “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

Propositional Statement

This morning, we will see four ways this passage helps us to distinguish between true and false Christian freedom so that we would love one another as God desires.

1. The Definition of False Freedom (v. 13a)

The first way our passage helps us to distinguish between true and false freedom is by defining false freedom. It’s the definition of false freedom.

Look at the first part of verse 13: “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.”

Quick detour before we draw out the definition. First of all, notice that Paul reminds the Galatians of their call to freedom. These are clearly Christians that he is addressing because he calls them brothers. And really the entire book of Galatians is about freedom.

Paul is writing to this church to address false doctrine and the idea that Gentile believers needed to conform to the Old Testament law in order to be saved. It wasn’t Christ alone, but Christ plus Moses.

The people responsible for pushing this false doctrine were known as the legalizers and as you can imagine, they were confusing a lot of people. They were being taught legalism as necessary salvation.

And so when Paul says they are called to freedom, this is why. He’s making a statement based off of the argument he made in the first part of the letter. The Galatians didn’t have the same problem that the Corinthian church had of abusing their freedom, but had the opposite problem. They were legalistic.

So Paul makes this point of why legalism doesn’t work and then reminds them, you don’t need legalism, you were called to freedom!

And this is exactly where people can start to get off track when they hear that and go from the legalism end of the spectrum to the license end of the spectrum. No moral obligations whatsoever. Live however I want. And Paul knows that so he addresses that and from here we are able to extract a definition of false freedom.

Paul says in verse 13 that we are not to use our freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, so we can define false Christian freedom as anything that is used as an opportunity for the flesh or as an opportunity to gratify or satisfy oneself in the name of release of obligation from the law. This again would be the other end of the spectrum from legalism which is license.

And even Paul’s use of the word “flesh”here is an indication that this is a negative thing. Paul uses the word flesh in Galatians and other epistles to convey the part of us that is still sinful. Consider Romans 7:18 where Paul says “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”

Anything that would be an opportunity for the flesh would be anything that gave into that part of you that still wars against the Spirit. This can’t be the freedom that Paul says these believers are called to. So this definition of false freedom dismantles any argument where someone may be trying to justify sinful behavior or a selfishly sinful lifestyle by claiming Christian freedom. That is false freedom.

This is probably where the concept of Christian freedom is most abused or misunderstood. It’s used as a way to make an excuse for why I want to live in this particular way or continue this particular thing. It’s a cover for gratification of the flesh. It’s a cover for sin.

And this is also where it trips other people up, especially newer or weaker believers. They see a believer engaging in an activity that they think is objectionable and they assume that if this person is doing it, well, it must be ok. It may cause them to go against their own conscience in those moments, which is sin and thus they are stumbled by and led into sin by another believer justifying his or her own actions under the umbrella of “Christian Freedom.”

Paul clearly says, this isn’t what freedom is about, so it is false freedom.

And when we come across something like this in Scripture, we should ask ourselves, where is this true of me? Is there anything in your life that you are defending in the name of “freedom” that if you’re honest with yourself, you are convicted about? Is there anything that you’re doing that may be causing others to stumble? We should examine ourselves in this area.

So we see the first way this passage helps us to distinguish between true and false freedom and that is by defining false freedom. But Paul doesn’t leave us with just the definition of false freedom, he goes on to define true freedom as well.

2. The Definition of True Freedom (vv. 13b-14)

This is the definition of true freedom.

Look at the second half of verse 13 and verse 14. Galatians 5:13–14 “…but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.””

Paul says but, or instead of, using your freedom to gratify your sinful nature, use your freedom to serve others.

So we can define true Christian freedom as a means to serve other believers.

The word that Paul uses for serve here literally means be a slave to others. Quite ironic considering he is talking about freedom here! Our service to one another is slavery to one another.

Much of the letter so far has been a rebuke of legalism and dismissing and even condemning the need to return to adherence to the law.

Here, Paul is citing Leviticus 19:18 here and you will remember that Jesus himself said in Matthew 22 that the two greatest commandments were love for God and love for neighbor.

Jesus didn’t dismiss the law and neither does Paul. So how do we make sense of being freed from the law, yet somehow still fulfilling it?

Remember that God gave the law through Moses which were commandments and regulations that were later distilled into the Ten Commandments. But even those can be reduced to two: love God and love your neighbor.

The law wasn’t arbitrary. God is not an arbitrary God. He had a good purpose in giving the law. And that purpose was meant to lead us to love — not just rule-keeping, but genuine love for God and others.

We see this in the whole law but again focusing on just the 10 commandments you will see that the first four commandments express love for God; the last six, love for neighbor. If you truly loved God and neighbor from the heart, you’d naturally live out all of the 10 commandments. If you truly loved God and neighbor perfectly from the heart, the law would be unnecessary.

But here’s the problem with the law and why we can’t be saved by it. Does the law have the ability to change you so that you actually do truly love God and love neighbor when you keep the law?

No! That’s why Paul is telling the Galatians that it is foolishness to return to the law or to try to add anything to their salvation which is simply obtained by faith through Jesus. Because I can follow the law to the letter and still not actually love God and neighbor.

This is because even seemingly good outward behaviors can be done with sinful motives.

The person who does “good works” or keeps the law, whether Old Testament law or their own legalistic code, often does so because it makes them feel good. Which is a very selfish reason to do good. Or they do it to avoid negative consequences.

So it may look like love is the reason they do things, and it may look like love is the reason they keep the law, but in reality it’s to gratify their own sense of self-righteousness.

Laws and rules are powerless to change a person to cause them to truly love God and love neighbor.

All legalism does is create self-righteousness that masquerades as love. My natural, sinful, motivation for keeping the law is because it makes me feel like a good person when I do. That is not love for you, that is love for me.

And this is because we are all bad to our core. We are all sinful. None of us are able to keep the law because even if we were able to outwardly follow all the rules and statutes, the underlying purpose for the law, which is love of God and love of neighbor, would never actually happen by keeping the law. The law is not fulfilled in the keeping of the law.

So what then is the answer?

The gospel, which frees us from the penalty for failing to keep the law and then enables us to fulfill the true purpose of the law.

When we place our faith in Christ by grace alone through faith alone, we are born again. We receive a new heart with new motives and new desires and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and a new and actual ability to love God and love others. We are fundamentally changed!

We can say with Paul earlier in this letter, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

The only one to keep the actual letter of the law and also fulfill the underlying purpose was Jesus Christ. He is the only righteous one. So the only way to be free from the law is if he takes our place in judgement as a stand in for us and if God credits his righteousness to our account. This was accomplished by his death where God poured our his judgement on him and subsequent resurrection from the dead proving that the payment was sufficient.

Once we are born again and the basis of our salvation is on Jesus’ perfect law keeping and not our own, we are free from the consequences of our failure to keep the law. When we fail, we are not condemned.

And because of that fundamental change of our identity, we are actually able to love and serve others out of pure motive instead of an evil, selfish motive.

That’s why legalism is so dangerous. It says, if you do these things and don’t do those things, then you look good to God and others and you earn favor. Legalism has no category for love and service of others.

But true Christian freedom says you don’t have the keep the law because you have been given a new heart with a new ability to actually adhere to the intention of the law which is love for God and neighbor. Now when you serve others, it isn’t out of self-righteous. It’s out of true, Spirit enabled, God-glorifying love.

And when you have a new heart and are able to fulfill the true intention of the law, you will never cast aside the moral requirements of the law.

And if you take this new found freedom from the law to go out and serve others, literally become their slave, putting all of their needs above your own. Dying to yourself. Then you are truly free because you are fulfilling the underlying intention of the law by doing so, which even a perfect outward keeping of the law without your new heart never could have done.

I don’t avoid that movie because it’s on some bad list that makes me feel like a good Christian when I stay away from it. I avoid it because it doesn’t help me love God or love you.” I don’t have a desire for that type of movie. I don’t have a desire to be entertained by sin. My desires have changed.

I don’t dress modestly because my rule book tells me that immodesty is bad and so when I dress modestly I feel like a good Christian. I dress modestly because immodesty doesn’t help me love God and it doesn’t help me love you because my immodesty causes you to stumble and fall into sin, which is the opposite of love.

Causing another to sin is the opposite of love.

Let me ask you, is this how you understand freedom? Do you see yourself as free for the purpose of being a joyful, voluntary slave, to others?

This is what true freedom is: liberation from sin and the consequences of the law in order to be able to serve others rightly.

So we have seen what false freedom is and now that true freedom is used in the service of others.

3. The Destructiveness of Legalism and False Freedom (v. 15)

Now let’s see the third way this passage helps us distinguish between true and false freedom by seeing the destructiveness of legalism and false freedom.

Verse 15 says “But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.”

These are some strong words that are used: bite, devour, consume. This is a warning from Paul about what happens when we get freedom wrong. Whether we negate the idea of freedom altogether and subscribe to legalism as the Galatians did or we adhere to false freedom and gratify our flesh, the consequences are severe.

Ultimately, the consequences are disunity. Divisiveness. Which makes sense. If true Christian freedom is used in the service of others, getting freedom wrong will lead to the opposite of self-sacrificing service of one another. Here the Bible tells us that getting freedom wrong leads to us essentially destroying each other.

How can you tell if a church understand freedom? Check their unity. If you see rampant disunity, it may be a sign that freedom isn’t rightly understood.

Do you see division in the church caused by people leading sinful lifestyles, focused entirely on themselves and wrecking everyone in their path, all in the name of Christian freedom?

Do you see weaker or newer believers being mocked by so called more mature believers for their sensitivity to things like drinking or entertainment or dress?

That’s the license side. What about division and destruction on the legalism side? Because that’s just as destructive.

Do you see believers who don’t fit the perfect mold of whatever that church tends towards, let’s say the “homeschool, stay at home mom, kids in AWANA with half the Bible memorized”, able to fellowship and feel loved in that church?

Or do you see people who don’t fit the mold being driven away by judgmental comments or even by confrontation in being called out incorrectly as making sinful choices over what should be considered preference?

Both of these types of errors from either legalism or license, stemming from a misunderstanding of Christian freedom lead to utter destruction and disunity. Biting, devouring, consuming, as Paul says.

A church that truly understands Christian freedom should be one that is characterized by selfless service of one another. When someone who is different or doesn’t fit the mold comes in, they don’t feel ostracized or othered. They are welcomed and loved.

It will be a church where confrontation happens to be sure, but when it does happen it is is Biblical and out of love and for things that are truly sinful, not preferential.

But zoom out from the church and examine your own life. A church that truly understands Christian freedom shows it by their love for and service of one another, despite their differences. But what about you on a personal level? Do you tend toward legalism or license? Do you destroy others with your lack of concern for them, causing them to stumble with your public choices? Are you harboring a sinful lifestyle under the guise of Christian freedom?

Or do you hold yourself and others to a standard that the Bible does not? Do you require of others what even God does not require of them? Because that is just as destructive and consuming.

There is no gray area here. Either we understand Christian freedom correctly as an ability to fulfill the underlying intention of the law in service to one another with a pure motive of love from a heart changed by the Spirit, or we get it wrong and we literally destroy each other in the process.

If we look at our lives and see that we don’t truly love our neighbors and thus don’t fulfill the law, we should examine our hearts to see if they truly have been changed. If we truly are born again. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13:5 “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!”

Legalism and license should both be handled with repentance.

So we’ve seen the third way our passage helps us distinguish between true and false freedom and that’s by showing us false freedom’s destructiveness.

4. The Power for True Freedom (v. 16)

Let’s see the fourth way this passage helps us distinguish between true and false freedom by seeing where the power for true freedom comes from. The Power for True Freedom.

Verse 16 says “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”

And I know this verse is after a heading break and is very clearly connected to the rest of the chapter. But it’s also very much connected to verses 13 through 15.

This is the source of the power of true freedom. The Holy Spirit. Not something from within us that we conjure up and certainly not something we get from the law.

Because we have to admit, this doesn’t necessarily come easy or happen automatically just because we are saved. Loving others selflessly can be hard!

If false freedom is gratifying the flesh, and true freedom is loving service to others, how do we actually do this? It’s stated right here — by walking by the Spirit.

We still have our flesh, even after we are saved. Christian freedom is not freedom from sin itself. We can still fall into both legalism and license. I know I have fallen into both of these in a variety of ways since I have been saved. But how did I get out of it once I fell into it? By pulling myself up by my bootstraps and trying harder? No, By walking by the Spirit!

By communion with God daily. By searching his word and applying it to my life. By fellowship and relationship with other believers. With brothers who help me to grow and love God and others more. And most importantly by praying for the Holy Spirit to change me and my desires to actually love God and love others! By the slow and painful process of sanctification. But not by anything I have done. It is all a work of the Spirit in my heart and so God gets all the glory.

We can’t attempt to manufacture true Christian freedom on our own just like we can’t fulfill the law on our own. We need a new heart and even after we have that new heart we still have our flesh and so we need the Spirit to help us to mortify our sin and to enable us to lovingly serve others from a pure motive. We must be changed, but we are powerless to change ourselves.

This is a promise. A guarantee. If we walk by the Spirit, we will not gratify the desires of the flesh. These two things cannot coexist - the desires of the flesh and Holy Spirit given desires and guidance.

Read the rest of chapter 5 if you want to understand more of how that happens. I would encourage you to do that a further study if you want to better understand walking by the Spirit. And be encouraged that if you see any of those fruits in your life, the Spirit is working on you and sanctifying you and has freed you to fulfill the law by your love and service of others.

Conclusion

And that’s what I want to leave you with. This reminder to walk by the Spirit so that you get Christian freedom right. So that you can use your freedom to love and serve others as God intends.

Both ends of this spectrum are the result of not walking by the Spirit. Whether you are gratifying the flesh and calling it Christian freedom or ignoring freedom altogether and attempting to be holy by keeping a bunch of rules, you miss the whole point.

Once your heart is truly changed, walk by the Spirit and you will be able to avoid both of these pitfalls and practice true Christian freedom that manifests itself in a loving service of others, fulfilling the underlying intention of the law in the process.

Remember this: You were set free — not to serve yourself but to serve others. That’s true freedom.

Let’s pray.