If the Son shall set you free, you will be free indeed.

Continuing on in the same passage (John 8) as the last three posts, Jesus tells us that the kind of freedom He will bring is “out of this world” (my paraphrase).  Like many of us, His hearers did not understand. In a culture where literal slavery was a reality, those in His audience thought they were free, because they were not literal slaves. But Jesus was talking about a different form of slavery, the kind I was talking about in last day's post.

For example, some of us are in prisons of our own making. I see many trapped in prisons of bitterness, or anger or greed, as well as a whole variety of more obvious addictions.  On the other hand we can in fact be free even in prison. The apostle Paul was. Read the book of Philippians which He wrote from prison. It is full of rejoicing.

Our modern world has this view of freedom that consists of casting off restraint, and in particular casting off Biblical morality.  “It's old fashioned and outmoded and narrow minded and restrictive. Who needs it?” But let me ask you, with its divorce rates and suicide rates and the occurrence of alcoholism, gambling additions and the like, would you say that our society's casting off restraint is bringing freedom?  I mean is the phrase “free indeed”  something that comes to mind when you think about our (post Christian) culture?

If God does not exist, or if He has left us to struggle on our own, then what I am saying is nonsense. On the other hand, if He is ready willing and able to come along side of us to help (and He is), and we are not availing ourselves of His help, then it is our attitudes and beliefs that are nonsense.   One of the names of the Holy Spirit in the greek is 'Paraclete'. It's made up of two words 'para' (as in parallel) which means along side, and 'kaleo' called. So one of the functions of the Holy Spirit is that He is called along side to help and comfort us. Do we in the West need any of this?

At the very beginning of His ministry, Jesus identifies Himself as the One who would come to heal the broken hearted, to release the prisoners and to set at liberty those who are oppressed  (Luke 4).   Why would we not want His help? From what I can see we do want to be free, and we think that that is just doing  what we want to do. Too often than brings bondage. Why would we not want to be “free indeed”?  It does not make a lot of sense.