We’re Free, Whether We Realize It or Not
“Romans 8:1 says, ‘There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.’… The reason why there is no condemnation on me is because all the condemnation has already fallen on Jesus. Wouldn’t God be unjust to demand two payments for one sin?” – Tony Walliser
Read Romans 8:1-4
We’re Free, Whether We Realize It or Not
There’s a funny thing about freedom: It’s only beneficial when we realize we have it. According to numerous accounts following the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War, some slaves remained on their plantations, performing their back-breaking daily duties as they always had – because they didn’t know they’d been declared free.
I remember hearing about a Japanese soldier on an island in the Pacific who maintained his battle readiness for years, unaware that World War II had officially ended, thereby making him free to return home. Freedom isn’t worth much if you don’t know you have it.
For some of us, our relationship to sin isn’t much different from that. The Scriptures tell us that as followers of Jesus we’ve been “born again” (John 3:3) and are “new creations in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Yet we act as if nothing’s changed, like we’re still “unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin,” as the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 7:14.
The Bible says we’ve been freed from the power and domination of sin. This is why Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). However, we either don’t realize it, don’t feel as if it’s true, or don’t believe it.
We regard ourselves as “sinners saved by grace,” with a tendency to fall back into old sin patterns rather than doing what Paul said we’re to do: “…count [reckon or consider] yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). We need to recognize that while we do sin, we don’t have to sin. To borrow a computer term, it’s no longer our ‘default setting.’
Years ago, I wrestled in several areas, including anger and anxiety. I would try hard – and harder to overcome them – and pray to the Lord for help. I didn’t understand the reality of the teaching that, “His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter 1:3).
Look at it this way: Suppose you had a huge debt, let’s say $50,000, and your creditor decided to exercise his right in the contractual agreement to demand immediate payment. Caught completely off guard, you immediately move to a defensive posture: “I can’t pay that. I don’t have the money!”
Ah, but you can. You just don’t know it. An anonymous benefactor, aware of your plight, has deposited exactly that amount into your checking account. So, the money you need to fully repay your debt is available – you just don’t know that you could simply pull out your checkbook, write a check for the full amount, and be totally free from your debt obligation.
In a similar, but far more profound way, the Lord has set us free from sin. Yes, temptations will still come our way, but we no longer have to yield to sinful impulses. Through the power of Christ’s Spirit in us, we can say no to sins that previously would overpower us.
Every day we can experience the truth of the promise Paul expressed in Romans 6:4, “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.”
Does this mean if we do sin, we’re not true believers? Not at all. This is why Paul candidly admitted, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15). But later he added these wonderful words: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1-2).
Meditate on that for a while. Isn’t that good news? As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously said in a little different context, “Free at last. Free at last. Thank God almighty, we are free at last!”