Freedom in Christ

Part 4 of 4

“If it’s not about Jesus, it’s not about anything.”

(Motto of the Fountain of Life)

Invocation:  Father, in Jesus’ name we pray that this subject be treated faithfully, honestly and respectfully.  We invoke the motto of the Fountain of Life to keep all that follows in a proper focus and that the name of Jesus be glorified.  

In prior sections three questions were answered.  

1) Who is Jesus?  He is the legitimate outrageously faithful giver of grace and freedom.   

2)  Who are we?  We are God’s very own children:  legally through adoption; ontologically through begettal; and emotionally through our Abba, Father.   

3)  What does freedom look like?   

On the one hand, we discussed what freedom does not look like.  We examined a tragic shooting, the commands of God and the condition the heart and determined that God will allow each sinner’s heart to judge itself and that only God knows the heart.  Therefore we cannot determine who is in hell.  What we can determine is that we are created for good works (Ephesians 2:10); that freedom in Christ does not authorize, permit or condone murder or any sin.  We know this because sin does not reflect the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5).   And one incredible aspect is that this freedom in Jesus includes the ability to please God.  Today we shall continue with question 3. 

There exists a freedom which is far more wonderful than a physical ability to move or to act without constraint; or a mental ability to act upon what we desire; it is far more precious than a technical legal right granted by a government or a sovereign authority.   It is the freedom which exists in Christ.  How do we get it?  Broadly speaking, we get it when we obey God.  At this point many will argue that obedience is not freedom; that submission is demeaning.   

Atheists Richard Dawkins & Sam Harris

Atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris argue that obedience to God is oppressive and lead to social abuse.  It follows that rebellion against God or cultivating our own will to power (Frederick Nietzsche) is the only true freedom.  That argument is actually well accepted, however it confuses ability with freedom.  Let us dispose of it with a solid example. 

In part 3 we touched upon the law of Gravity.  Is obedience to Gravity servitude, demeaning or oppressive?  Is the ability to break law the only true freedom?  Not at all!  And here is where misunderstanding of freedom arises.  Equating lawlessness to freedom is a false equivalence.  The ability we possess to break the law of gravity; to jump off a high building or out of a plane without a parachute is not freedom.  It is insanity.   That is self-evident because our basic human instinct is that of self-preservation.  It is insanity to commit an act which leads to self-destruction.  And it is self-evident that disobedience to gravity leads to our harm.    

Gravity is not oppressive.  In fact it is a law that gives us freedom to move and to live.  Without it, we would fly off the earth.  We would never be able to build or establish anything that is permanent.  That includes our farms, food, water sources, etc.  It is self-evident that obedience to Gravity leads to our good.  In like manner, obedience to God leads to our good.  Freedom from God leads to our harm.  Obedience to God frees us to live.  Disobedience to God leads to death.

VICARIOUS HUMANITY

When we accept Jesus as Lord, we participate in a change, a recapitulation initiated by His Vicarious Humanity.  Recapitulation is a change of headship.  Adam answered for all mankind as our universal representative once and led us all collectively into destruction.  Jesus answered for all mankind as our universal representative once and led us all collectively into salvation.    As no one was excluded from Adam’s destruction, no one is excluded from Christ’s salvation. 

Therefore all people, you and me included, under Adam’s headship fall into destruction.  “The heart is deceitful above all things and is desperately wicked,” Jer. 17:9.  This is our nature.  This is our legacy from Adam.  Without Jesus it is true of all men.  It is true of me and it is true of you.  It will be true until we are dead and buried and forgotten.   

And here is a mystery.  At the same time all people, you and me included, under Jesus’ headship fall under the grace of His salvation.  Read many verses such as Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us".  This is God’s unilateral transaction at the universal level, some say the Federal level.    This is God’s unchanging free will for us.  This is grace.

But what about me as a person?  What about the individual? Is the individual important?  Yes!  Relationships begin with the individual.  Remember that Adam, individually as a person, sinned alone, nevertheless all of mankind fell under Adam’s condemnation.  Jesus, individually as a person died alone, nevertheless all of mankind falls under Jesus’ Salvation.  The ramifications of their individual actions had universal import.  The individual is supremely important. We are far more than just nameless lambs in Christ’s flock.  We are children of the Father, and as such we each have individual identity and importance with Him.

Our individual freedom from the law of sin and death, from the yoke of bondage (Galatians 5:1) is our freedom in Jesus.  It has its actualization in us through the vicarious life of Jesus.  We see that Jesus is human.  Jesus is God.  That means He has the power to live a vicarious human life for us.  Vicarious broadly means, in our place.  And this directly effects even our repentance.  How does the vicarious humanity do this?  Let’s look at repentance and faith.

THE REPENTANCE & FAITH NECESSARY FOR SALVATION

Brethren remember Galatians 2:20.  “I live by the faith of the Son of God.”  We do not stand or fall on the strength or weakness of our own faith.  We live by Jesus Christ’s faith.  We are one with the body of Christ, therefore His faith is attributed to us.  And by it we live.  In like manner let us consider our repentance.

Theologian Elmer Colyer

Theologian Elmer Colyer said that, “This is where (Tom) Torrance really drove this point home for me, is, when Jesus starts his ministry, the first thing he does is he goes to John the Baptist and he’s baptized in the Jordan. Well, John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. And I never could get my mind around why Jesus went to John to be baptized. He didn’t need to be baptized. He didn’t have any sins to repent of. So what is this whole thing with Jesus going into the Jordan and being baptized?”

Theologian Thomas Torrance

Thomas Torrance asks, whose sin is Jesus confessing there in the Jordan?  He is sinless.  He doesn’t have any sins of his own to confess.  But through His vicarious humanity he takes our sinful corrupt diseased deprived and alienated humanity upon Himself.  He is our big brother who does it all for us in our place.  Jesus even confesses our sins correctly and righteously, because we can’t even do that right.  Colyer says, “So all of this wallowing in our guilt and everything that we often times do as Christians, we don’t even do that right. We can’t even repent. We don’t even feel sorry for our sins in the right way. Even Jesus has to step into the Jordan. Think of it, the Son of God stepping into the Jordan, confessing all of our sins once for all in a perfect way so that we don’t always have to be worried, ‘did we confess it enough?’ you know, are we sorry enough?”  Jesus simply cuts the ground out from underneath our worry. “Christ has already done that, in our place, in our behalf, in our place – he invites us then to simply say; Lord I screwed up again, but thanks be to God you identified with me in my brokenness, you already know it, you’ve already confessed it, you offer me, your new life once again on the basis of what you’ve done there on the Jordan confessing my sins.”  He even frees us from worry and doubt.

Theologian Gary Deddo

Jesus repenting for us is only one aspect of His vicarious humanity.  He draws us to share in His humanity and to become like Him to have his mind and heart (Philip 2:5).  Theologian Gary Deddo says, “He put on our humanity to heal it, to restore it, to forgive it and to cut it away from sin and set us free. When we become like Christ, we’re not becoming like something different from Christ: we’re becoming one with his humanity.  He’s sharing everything He has with us, so what’s His is ours, and what’s ours is His.  Including His repentance for us.”   

He assumes our imperfect faith and repentance.  He frees us from our own weak, carnal, imperfect faith and repentance, and shares his powerful, spiritual and perfect faith and repentance with us and allows us to make them our own.  From what else does Jesus free us?

VICARIOUS DEATH AND BURIAL

Freedom enters into our salvation

The Western Church has inclined towards theologia cruces, theology of the Cross; that is toward things surrounding the Good Friday event.  The Eastern Church has inclined towards theologia gloriae, theology of glory; that is toward things surrounding the Easter event.  However, Good Friday cannot exist without Easter and Easter without Good Friday.  The humiliation of Christ occurs in the public arena.  It is the suffering and crucifixion under Pontus Pilate, dying, being buried and descending into hell.  And it is here, in His humiliation, that His vicarious humanity has a direct bearing upon our freedom and salvation.

Judged:  The death of Jesus Christ accomplished His law.  By this we mean that in the death of Jesus Christ, the Persons of God have acted as the Judge and the Defendant as required by law.  They have passed the verdict, which was carried out upon the Defendant.   The judgment which belonged to us was placed vicariously upon Jesus freeing us from it.

Crucified:  Crucified means rejected; handed over to the death of the cross inflicted by authority upon the guilty.  Without Christ, this is the righteous action of God on the human creature.  What befell Christ is what ought to befall us; Christ vicariously bore it for us freeing us from it.

Dead:  Without Christ, death is the end of all planning and striving; it is where all thoughts perish, Psalms 146:4.  Dying means exhausting the last of our power or efforts.  Without Christ, death is the last action that can happen in the creaturely existence.  But Christ has vicariously died for us freeing us from it and freeing us into unlimited possibilities.

Buried:  The greatest names of any generation or culture will be forgotten by later generations.  That is what being buried means.  Listen to the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes 9:5.  “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing.  And they have no reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.”  Without Christ, in the grave all humans fall into forgottenness; and that is the judgment on man.  That is God’s answer to sin:  Without Christ, there is nothing else to be done with sinful man, except to bury him and forget him.  But, Jesus was vicariously buried for us freeing us from forgottenness.  

Descended into hell:  Hades in the Old Testament sense is where man continues to exist only as a non-being, as a shadow…the dead can no longer praise God, they can no longer see His face…It is a state of exclusion from God.  In Jesus God comes vicariously in our place, descends into hell and takes our punishment upon Himself, freeing us from it. 

Reverend Todd Crouch

Brethren, this is all Good News.  And it only gets better because the good news does not end here with freedom from judgment, punishment, death and burial.  It goes even beyond the final resolution of sins.  He is risen.  That means that He takes us with Him into life eternal.  And that is Fantastic News.  Rev. Todd Crouch has pointed out how fantastic this news is in this very thought provoking and powerful statement.  “God loves us more than he loves Himself.”  Brethren, God died for our sins.  From all the evidence of the Bible, Rev. Crouch has spoken truthfully. 

CLOSING:  “Who is Jesus?  He is the legitimate faithful giver of grace; this Redeemer Savior God is man just as we; He is the one from whom all blessings flow.  And one of those blessings is freedom.  Who are we?  We are God’s very own children, members of His very own family. We are the legitimate receivers and objects of His outrageous faithfulness.  Our identity is firmly secure in who Christ is.  Love is the foundation of this relationship and freedom is its fruit.  What does freedom in Christ look like?  It is freedom to please Him; the freedom from destruction; the freedom unto undreamed possibilities in eternity with Him.  Brethren, we began this series with the motto of the Fountain of Life.  Let’s also close with it.  If it is not about Jesus, it is not about anything.  This is far more than a motto.  This is salvation.

 Benediction:  Dear brothers and sisters, grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  To Him be glory both now and forever.  God bless you all.

Rev. George Relic, Assistant Pastor (724-583-9217)

Fountain of Life Church

2021 Old National Pike, Washington, Pa 15301

A congregation of Grace Communion International