Now that we’re free from the curse and rigor of the Law, we should not be antinomians and disregard God’s commandments. Rather, we should all the more and in freedom seek to do His commandments, because they are good, delightful and bring liberty (Ps. 119:45 HCSB). Already at the time of Paul and ever since, when people hear the doctrine of Justification by faith alone, they think that we may do whatever we want now that we’re saved. Paul writes:
Rom. 3:8 And why not do evil that good may come?—as some people slanderously charge us with saying. Their condemnation is just.
Some accused Paul that according to his doctrine it wouldn’t matter what man does. We could do evil, if God could be glorified in that and we would be not condemned. Paul’s reply is simply, “Their condemnation is just.” A person who thinks in this way is on their way to perdition. That is not how the regenerate mind thinks. Even in the time of the Reformation, there were those who openly and shamelessly indulged in sin “upon pretense of Christian liberty”, their condemnation is likewise just. Christian liberty does not consist in the liberty to sin. They who claim that Christian liberty gives them the freedom to sin “pervert the main design of the grace of the gospel to their own destruction”. Christians are to use their liberty to do good, not evil. Paul writes:
Gal. 5:13-14 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
The Confession beautifully uses the words of Luke 1:74-75 to define Christian liberty as:
being delivered out of the hands of all our enemies, we might serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our lives.
We have been delivered from all the things mentioned in paragraph 1 (see above) so that we would not go back to them, but to rightly and properly serve God. We have been delivered from sin, to seek the holiness of the Lord and to worship Him as His children. We have been delivered from the rigor and curse of the Law, to obey out of love and without fear as children of our Heavenly Father. Those things from which we were delivered were and are our enemies. Therefore, now these obstacles have been removed from our way to God. But we also know that they still exist because we are not yet sinless and we have to wage war against them.
Although we are free because we are not bound to the power of sin, yet we are not absolutely free. We are not autonomous and we are not our own god. We are subject to our God and Savior. Peter writes:
1 Pet. 2:16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.
The word “servants” is the Greek δοῦλοι (douloi, G1401) which basically means “slave.” The crucial difference between a servant and a slave is that a servant puts themselves into service, while a slave is owned. Pastor John MacArthur writes, “servants are hired; slaves are owned”[9]. We are free, but what is the reason that we are free? We are free because we are slaves to the Lord Jesus. Our freedom comes through slavery to Christ. We are free and...
