258. Free Indeed

Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. John 8:36. If we are to be free indeed, we must be freed from all earthly bonds because it says: “But the Jerusalem above is free; which is the mother of us all.” Gal. 4:26.

While we are in the world, we will have tribulations, so we cannot allow freedom for the flesh. However, by enduring suffering in the flesh, we come to true freedom in the spirit. There are thousands of bonds that want to bind us to the world—and our nature is disposed toward living in in the world; that is why it requires divine power to make us free indeed. When we read that the Jerusalem above is free and that she is our mother, that tells us that the Jerusalem above is the mother of the new creation, of divine nature. So we need to embrace our new mother and seek the things that are above; then the law of liberty will begin to have a liberating effect on us. It is a long process that we have to go through to become free indeed, and in order to attain to this, we need to be willing and patient. Only then is it possible for the Son to make us free indeed.

After receiving the Spirit, there is a time where one feels free indeed, but this is only feelings. As soon as the Spirit begins to lead us into the truth, we feel and experience that there is much we need to be freed from, and it is only through death we can really be free. Freedom and sin can never be united. As soon as a person commits sin, he becomes a slave to it, and his conscience is bound. We can only be freed from sin if we resist sin and crucify the flesh with its passions and desires. However, this can only take place through sufferings, for by nature we would rather commit or enjoy sin than suffer. That is why our Captain, the Lord Jesus Christ who is able to bless us so greatly, was made perfect through sufferings. We also come to perfection through sufferings by keeping the commandments and by living and walking according to them.

All liberty outside the way of suffering and the cross is simply false liberty; we are not called to that. We are called to liberty, but this liberty must not be used as an opportunity for the flesh, because the flesh also wants to be free. If we give liberty to the flesh, we allow Satan free reign. Put in another way, Satan is at liberty to the degree that the flesh is free. Our desire is not that Satan should be free; on the contrary, our desire is that he should be bound. But Christ became free because He didn’t allow His flesh to have any liberty. This is the liberty that we are called to, and we enter into this liberty step by step, through faith.