Imprisoned in LibertyRobert was so strong that I once saw him pick up and carry a refrigerator by himself. His strength plus his integrity landed him a job as a guard at a maximum security facility in a town called "Liberty." The inmates must wince at the irony of that name. As men and women Paul had known prison. I don't mean the jails of Philippi, Caesarea, or Rome, but the mental dungeon his guilty conscience had constructed when he realized that the Messiah--the focus of his deepest lifelong yearnings--had become the victim of his frenzied, misdirected zeal. Then a man came, offering liberty and revealing divine plans for him to testify to kings of the Messiah. The man had given sight to blinded eyes and offered cleansing of sins in the waters of baptism. The chains had dropped away, and the prison gates had swung open. Later this freed prisoner wrote to other ex-cons: "You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another in love" (Gal. 5:13). Even today some who would be released from sin might wonder if their new life in Christ might be merely a new confinement. Will they be set free only to be imprisoned in liberty? Have no fear: since Christ has set me free from the chains of sin and death, I willingly submit to Him. I want to lock the door against temptation. I enjoy the security fence around my wayward heart. I know that I am my own warden, guard, and chaplain. I can walk out any time I want, but I don't want to. Why should I? I am not imprisoned; it is protective custody. Liberty is my new home, and I like it here. —Steve Singleton | |
Want to go deeper?Paul uses the Greek noun eleutheria and the related verb eleuthereé to describe two concepts. The first is the contrast between life in servitude to the Law of Moses and "life in the Spirit." Paul calls the former "a yoke of bondage" (Gal. 5:1) and the latter"freedom that we have in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 2:4). He urges the Galatian Christians, and by extension all Christians, to "stand fast" and resist becoming "entangled again in a yoke of bondage" (Gal. 5:1). Yet this freedom involves a willing submission to Christ and to one another for the sake of love (Gal. 5:13). Paul's other concept concerns the Christian hope of one day becoming free from "bondage to decay" (Rom. 8:21), a hope certified by Christ's own resurrection.
Leon Morris. Galatians: Paul's Charter of Freedom (2003). Among Paul's letters Galatians burns like a firestorm of rebuke, persuasion, and passion for the truth of the gospel. Against those who would preach "another gospel," Paul deploys an arsenal of theological reasoning and the rhetoric of vivid, contrasting images that have arrested readers of every era. He contrasts freedom in Christ with bondage to the law, the children of God with slaves of elemental spirits, and justification by faith with works of the law. But what are these "works of the law": good works by which people assert their self-achieved righteousness, or practices of the Jewish law that defined social boundaries and thus stood as a barrier to Gentiles from entering the new covenant? Astute readers will recognize this question as central to the recent scholarly debate over the "new perspective" on Paul. Leon Morris clearly stands in the tradition of Martin Luther and the Reformers. With seasoned insight and deft simplicity, he explores the complexities and bold affirmations of Galatians--laying bare its essential structure, logic and meaning. Never diverted by interpretive fashion or speculation, he represents a classic exegetical tradition that focuses on the plain meaning of the biblical text and the apostolic truth of the gospel. Readers who have puzzled over the twists, turns and compressed arguments of Galatians will be delighted to have Morris as their guide. The text that through the centuries has ignited the embers of gospel faith calls with clarity again in our day. | |
carelessly walk down Liberty's streets, the cons must watch, trying to imagine what it would be like for cell doors to swing open, security gates to slide back, and tower guards to hold their fire. Liberty! How that name must taunt and torment their souls!