What Does It Mean to Be Free in Christ?

“Would you be free?” So goes the opening lyric of the old hymn “Power in the Blood.” But though the song was written more than a century ago, the question is never old. To many, however, it’s a puzzling question. To ask someone if they wish to be free assumes that they are currently not free. To put a finer point on it, to ask the question presumes that someone is currently enslaved or imprisoned.

But in our enlightened age, we find ourselves happily freer than ever before. We fancy ourselves a liberated people. We use terms like self-actualization or agency to underscore that we can do as we please. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau declared in the first line of The Social Contract, “Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.”

Scripture testifies otherwise. Quite the opposite of Rousseau’s quip, mankind is not only enslaved—we are born so. Still worse, the enslavement that Scripture speaks of is not from without but from within. Indeed, the full line of the hymn is, “Would you be free from the burden of sin?”

These are strong words. Should not concepts such as slavery be reserved for more serious situations? But Scripture proclaims that mankind’s deepest and most incurable of problems is sin.

When Adam fell, he plunged both himself and all mankind into sin. We are no longer free to obey God. As the Apostle Paul says, “You are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness” (Rom. 6:16).

Notice that there is no neutral option. We will serve something, either sin or God, but there is no middle ground. While this is stark news, it also speaks to something glorious. We are created after God’s image and, as such, we are to obey God.

However, the great tragedy is that while we are created to serve God, we are no longer free to do so. In our corrupted nature, we lack the ability to obey Him. On a more practical level, this is why we open our mouths and gossip pours out. We are quick to be angry. We fall into greed, malice, lust, bitterness, covetousness, and complaining. Even if we catch ourselves not wanting to do such things, we repeatedly do the very things that we do not want to do, with all the consistency of a dutiful servant. As Jesus said, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin” (John 8:34).

It would be one thing if our slavery was merely a ball and chain that we could physically break off with a mallet or solve with the stroke of the political pen. It would be one thing if our bondage could be remedied with therapy, self-help, positive thoughts, or an extra dose of discipline, gritted teeth and all.

But our enslavement runs deeper—down to the soul.

Only as we understand the depths of our bondage does the concept of redemption shine so brightly. The word redemption simply means to be bought back—in our case, to be bought back or purchased from slavery to sin.

But if we are unable to unshackle ourselves, what hope is there of deliverance?

No sooner had Adam and Eve fallen than God promised to send a Redeemer (see Gen. 3:15). The Old Testament rolls forward with this promise in mind when, in the fullness of time, Jesus reads aloud these words from Isaiah at the outset of His ministry: “[God] has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives” (Luke 4:18; see also Isa. 61:1).

Liberty! Freedom! However, Christ did not merely proclaim this liberty; He secured it by giving up His life as a ransom. When Christ died upon the cross, He satisfied the wrath of God as He paid in full the just penalty for the sins of His people. Christ has “redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Gal. 3:13). Then, by virtue of His resurrection, Christians are said to be no longer “in [our] sins” (1 Cor. 15:17). Instead, we are in Christ.

To be in Christ is to be free. Just as a former inmate should no longer think of themselves as in prison, likewise, Christians should no longer consider themselves as in their sins. Certainly, we will fight against sin in this age, but we have been delivered from the dominion that it once held over us as we await the final day when we shall receive our full liberation as God’s children.

Lastly, let’s clear up a possible confusion regarding the word free. Whenever we hear the word free, we typically add the word “from,” as in, “I am free from debt,” or “free from cancer.” This is gloriously accurate because Christ sets us free from our sin, shame, and guilt.

But there is more. We are also set free to. Before, we not only failed to submit to God’s law, but we were also unable to do so. When the Holy Spirit applies the finished work of Christ to believers, we are now empowered to obey the God who created us and loves us.

So, would you be free? The only way to answer this question rightly is to recognize that apart from Christ, mankind is held captive to sin and death. But if we are in Christ, we can join Paul in saying that we too have “redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses,” and all because of God’s lavished grace upon us (Eph. 1:7–8).