My goal with this writing is to do a brief overview of Christian freedom. Since freedom is the opposite of slavery, and slavery is one’s subjection to a master possessing the power of death, death is central to how we define free living. For human beings, death is the consequence of sin; and sin is ultimately disobedience to God’s word. Satan, whose name is “the accuser,” is the chief agent of invisible entities that desire power to accuse sinners unto death. But the ultimate power over death belongs to God, that he sent his Son to die a sinners’ death on behalf of sinners so that the Son’s sinless perfection would be credited to those who repent and put their trust in Jesus. This Jesus rose from the dead on behalf of his own perfect life that is joined to his perfecting of many brothers who crucify their own sin at Christ’s cross. Since believers in Christ are joined to Jesus’s resurrection, sinners who trust in Jesus have freedom over death and are therefore free from all authorities who would use sin and death as a threat against freedom. Since a believers’ death rendered to sin has an active expression of obedience to God’s word, Christian freedom is a freedom to obey. Therefore, the free obedience of believers is to pick up one’s cross and follow Jesus, who is the Holy One who lived an obedient life commensurate to his free state as Son to God the Father.

Visible authorities under Jesus’s contemporary invisible domain have three categories: the civil magistrate is a ministry of justice that guards the state through the threat of death so to set boundaries to promote the flourishing of life; the household is a ministry of mercy that gives and nurtures life out of weakness so to build up strength and wisdom against any threat of death; and the visible church is the ministry of death and life, particularly the death and life of Christ the Word joined to the invisible bride so to advance and guard the proper visible and invisible worship of the Triune Creator of all. The church is then finally the most articulate ministry of freedom, since by the Scripture she proclaims the Christ who both upholds justice and forgives sins for the freedom of eternal life. Yet the visible church cannot do away with the other authorities; for it is not fitting for the church to issue capital punishment or to mother a nursing child, but rather to speak to the greater reality of death and life in view of God’s very kingdom and house. Christ, who exited the tomb, is then head over all visible dominions, and yet that invisible headship is shared exclusively with the church invisible, a free dominion that the visible church bears witness to.

Free obedience is then owing to Christ alone. And yet, headed by the Scripture, obedience to Christ is manifestly shown through one’s obedience to earthly authorities. Matters might be commanded by authorities that in themselves have no moral gravity on faith and worship. A civil governor may require citizens to obey daylight savings time, a mother may require of her child a particular way of making the bed, and a clergyman may prefer a pulpit that is made of wood rather than stone. There is often wisdom to why something is commanded over an alternative, but an alternative isn’t necessarily a denial of the Christian faith. The same goes for the decisions each individual is free to make. Though one tree was forbidden, Adam was free to eat of many other trees; but he would have had to learn wisdom in matching the varieties of food to his nutritional needs as well as understand the specific way to cultivate each specie. Once wisdom is learned, however, absolute obstinance against a conscience that has gained wisdom would finally infiltrate one’s moral disposition against proper worship. In the Garden of Eden, the woman’s unwise consideration of the words of an inferior creature accumulated to the eating of the forbidden tree. Yet, for any other tree that God rendered free—that is, for matters “indifferent”—any act of volition, no matter the level pertaining to wisdom, is an act that requires faith not to normalize one choice against others or forbid one choice as a creed for worship; for then it is a superstition. So the necessity of acting in faith links all free choice, on some level, to faith and worship, even when one is free to choose one out of many alternatives. So since the matter of faith has an accountability that pertains to the individual before Christ, individuals should obey authorities by faith if the authorized command would not require the individual to sin. And then the authority would have to answer to matters of faith and worship for themselves, for they are not above the judgment of Christ. The subject’s faithful conforming to a faithless authority is not then faithless. The obedience of the subject is free in Christ. Ordinarily, the free obedience of those subjects would help those in authority be confronted with their own obligation to obey Christ. It is only when the authority commands the subjects to sin should the subject obey God rather than man. The result for the subject might be suffering and even death, but such is joined to the suffering and death of Christ who was raised. And then when obedience to Christ at all costs is shown, the reality that all authorities are called to account before Christ becomes further publicized.

Since the gospel of Christ is a call for all people of all nations to repentance and faith, it is not ideal for Christians to raise their banner of freedom outside civil, familial, and, most of all, ecclesiastical society. Surely the individual must answer to Jesus alone regarding faith and worship, but worship is also communal, and the glory of individual faith is shown in relation to others, for Christ is the answer for all. Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem, and though he was driven outside the camp, he entered his priestly office of the tomb now emptied of corruption, his kingly office by his ascension to the Father’s right hand for his pending judgment of the world, and his prophetic office as he dwells amongst the brethren through breathing forth the Holy Spirit into the church so to prepare the world for his final judgment to the glory of his name. The Son of God gave up his freedom to come to earth as a humble servant to secure his bride—the invisible church who is a holy society of worshipers. So this humility was with Paul, who is free from all, yet was a slave to all so that he might win more (1 Corinthians 9:19). Though Paul was free, for instance, to eat all food, there are occasions when he did not partake of certain foods for the sake of freedom for others. Sometimes, amongst pagans, he would not partake on grounds of informed false worship (1 Corinthians 10:27-29); other times, amongst believers, he would not raise his banner of freedom to eat because doing so would have grieved a premature brother for whom Christ died (Romans 14:14-15). He exemplified the character of Christ, who, though he was a free Son, would not fly away from the cross so to gain the freedom of the brethren.

Therefore the death of death reveals the very character of freedom, for Christ institutes freedom through his free and obedient death. Death to sin means that the power of death has been put to death, and death to sin is made evident by Jesus’s rising from the dead. Visible and invisible authorities who would unjustly threaten death to gain temporal power have forfeited their freedom, for the weakest one is free from the binding of all men and angels through faith in the Holy One. An individual is however not an individualist, since those who are freed from Adam’s posterity of sin are made perfect in Christ, who is the firstborn of many brethren. So the saints, who are contemporarily exiled in a corrupt land, bear the name of Christ in communion so to mortify sin at the cross for the freedom of eternal life, looking to Jesus Christ who shall be glorified in free society when the Bridegroom beholds the bride!