Free At Last

If you abide in my word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

A.) Set Free From Sin’s Dominion

The promise here by Jesus is that if they will abide in His word they will be set free. Christians have been set free from sin’s dominion. They are no longer a slave to sin (8:34). Upon being set free they are now alive to what they were once dead to and are dieing to what they were once alive to. Because of this their desire is to live for God and not unto self. Because they are no longer under Sin’s dominion — which manifested itself in the disregard for God’s Character and moral law — and are now under Christ’s dominion they have a desire to search out and walk in terms of a Spirit animated exaltation in God’s Law-Word

“But with the gospel and in Christ, united to him by faith, the law is no longer my enemy but my friend. Why? Because now God is no longer my enemy but my friend, and the law, his will, the law in its moral core, as reflective of his character and of concerns eternally inherent in his own person and so of what pleases him, is now my friendly guide for life in fellowship with God” ~ Dr. Richard Gaffin

B.) Set Free From Humanist Notions of Freedom

Liberation theology emphasizes the need to free the oppressed, the minority, and the victim from the social structures that are used by the majority ideological and moneyed interests that are advantaged by oppression. Liberation theology is animated and defined by the idea of class and culture struggle having as its goal the achievement of a social justice that would flatten all biblical hierarchical relational structures and would result in the equalizing of all men and women.

Liberation theology offers a liberation from oppressive institutional structures and as such when you read the Liberation Theologians you get the sense that they believe that the Gospel goes forward not by means of individuals being set free by Christ but rather you get the sense that individuals are set free only as political or social environments are set free.

Because of this you hear quite a bit of language from Liberation Theologians about institutional oppression, or corporate cultural wide structural sins, or oppressive cultural attitudes. You see it is whole cultures that are indicted and not individuals that make up the culture. The goal then is to change the culture from the top down by long marches through the cultural institutions where such oppression, structural sins, and victimizing attitudes supposedly come from.

Now in order for this to work the Liberation Theologians have to create a large class of people who feel victimized, and so to that end grievance, real and imagined, are drug up and used to convince people they are oppressed. Wives are putatively oppressed by their husbands and children and must be liberated from this bondage. Minorities are putatively oppressed by Majorities and the culture must be liberated from this bondage. Children are putatively oppressed by their parents and so the culture must be liberated from this bondage. Sexual deviants are putatively oppressed by Christian understandings of marriage and family and so culture must be liberated from this bondage. The poor are putatively oppressed by the Rich and so cultures must be liberated from this bondage. The West is oppressed by apparitions of a vengeful deity, with his bloody Son, who has a law word that must be esteemed and so the West must be liberated from this bondage.

And the Liberation that the Liberation Theologian offers up is a Top Down Liberation that is achieved by revolution and results in bondage that is, on the whole, more severe than any real bondage that existed prior to the successful Liberation.

The Liberation that Jesus promises in his promise to set people free is not social-institutional until it is first individual and personal. Jesus Liberates a person not primarily from their social oppressions — as real as those may very well be. Jesus Liberates a person from their own spiritual slavery to the Devil. Jesus Liberates not primarily from the sin of corporate structural sins but primarily from the sin of loving self above God. The promise of Jesus for Liberation is the liberation from the work of making the world revolve around me. Jesus will free the sin saturated heart not by calls for Revolution by the reality of regeneration.

Do you see the difference here between what the Liberation Theologian as Humanist offers and the Liberation that Jesus promises? The Liberation Theologians believes that people can only be set free as cultural institutions are changed and as the environment is redeemed in the direction of Marxist – Feminist definitions of social justice. The Christian believes that people can only be set free as individuals are regenerated. The Liberation Theologian teaches people that cultural conflict is the only way to be set free. Jesus teaches people that only an abiding in His word can set people Free. In the
end what the Liberation Theologian gives to people is only more bondage. What our Lord Christ gives is genuine freedom.

It is true that injustices abound in this world but the answer to curing the injustices of the world is not by pursuing a Liberation that is forcefully seized. The answer to injustices of the world is by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit upon individuals who build unjust cultures. When the Spirit moves to set people free … and when those people abide in the Word … then those freed people will build just cultures.

In short the primary problem is never political, social, or cultural. The primary problem is that people are dead in their sins and trespasses — he Liberation Theologian as much as anybody. It is not to much to say, I think, that people who advocate for various stripes of Liberation Theology Freedom, from socialism, to feminism, to the cultural Marxist, to environmentalism to code Pink do not know what it means to be free indeed.

Author: jetbrane

I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane