by Pastor Patrick Cho
A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to share a devotional with our college ministry at their annual welcoming luau. Each year this proves to be one of my favorite events because of the chance to get to know the new collegians (and see the returning ones, as well!). I decided to share this time about the freedom we receive through the grace of God in Jesus Christ. I was blessed by these thoughts from the first chapter of a book by Sinclair Ferguson entitled By Grace Alone. In this book, Ferguson walks through a contemporary hymn written by an African pastor, E. T. Sibomana. The book covers a variety of themes related to the gospel and the grace of God.
In order to address the topic of freedom, it is necessary biblically to explain the human’s bondage to sin. Every person who walks this earth is in spiritual bondage. There are, of course, many people who have no sense of this bondage, who walk around completely certain that they are free – free to do what they want, free to live as they please. Many people are angered when they are confronted with the idea that they are not in control but are slaves to sin. But Jesus taught quite plainly in John 8:34 that the one who sins is a slave to sin.
The problem is that there is a widespread misunderstanding about what it means that we are sinners. Most people would admit that they are not perfect. Whenever I have a chance to talk to someone about their sinfulness, they are almost always ready to admit that they have done some wrong things. But this admission doesn’t go far enough. Generally, people believe that they are morally good and right but that they stumble from time to time. We are generally good people, they hold, who mess up occasionally. This is even how some professing Christians view their sinfulness. They would confess, “I’m a sinner because I have sinned in my life.”
This perspective doesn’t quite match up with the Bible’s description of the human condition. The Bible proclaims that all men are sinners by nature and are enslaved to their sin (cf. Ps. 51:5; Eph. 2:3). All men are born sinners and are bound to their sinful tendencies. As lovely as my children are and as much as I love them dearly, I understand that even at their young age they are sinners in desperate need of God’s saving grace. The problem isn’t that we are sinners because we have sinned. It is more accurately understood that we sin because we are sinners. This is our nature and our identity apart from Christ.
A person needs to understand and confess this truth in order to fully understand and appreciate the freedom that is offered in Christ. There is a wonderful proclamation of emancipation in John 8:36, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Jesus could set the sinner free because He paid the sinner’s ransom. He would go to the cross and hang in judgment for the sins of the world. As an innocent man, He would die the death in place of guilty sinners. The punishment that was rightfully deserved by sinners He would take upon Himself. He would bear the curse of sin for us that we might be set free.
The ideas of slavery and freedom, though they should be deeply etched in our minds because of our unfortunately history, are terms that are unfamiliar to us experientially. In America, we live in the land of the free. One of the banners of the American Revolution stated emphatically, “We serve no sovereign here.” But the reality is that all people are under the rule of a sovereign. Either they are bound under the despotic tyranny of sin, or they are slaves of a benevolent and righteous Lord. For Christians, we need to remember that we were purchased out of our slavery to sin and made slaves of righteousness (Rom. 6:18). So now, we no longer live for ourselves but for the one who died and was raised again for us (2 Cor. 5:15). Praise God for the freedom we have in Christ. Though we were in bondage to sin with no hope of deliverance or rescue, He made a way for us by sacrificing Himself. He set us free.