Christ came to free us from sin through His atoning sacrifice. Hebrews 2:14-15 tells us Jesus “shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death — that is, the devil — and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (NIV).
When Christ was in a synagogue on the Sabbath day He read from Isaiah: ‘The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed….” (Luke 4:18-19).
The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Christ paid the death penalty for us, but, as Paul wrote, this freedom does not give us licence to continue to do the very things that brought on the death penalty (Romans 6:11-22). A person can’t be spiritually free unless he understands the truth, which is God’s law and His word. Jesus stated, “… whoever commits sin is a slave of sin” (John 8:34).
James called God’s law a “law of liberty,” or freedom, when he said that “he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does” (James 1:25). He continues in the next chapter: “So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty” (James 2:12).
The Scriptures point out that God’s Spirit guides us to truth (John 16:13), and helps us to understand the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 2:10-14). The Holy Spirit is a precious gift God grants based on repentance, the acceptance of Christ, water baptism, the laying on of hands and a willingness to obey (Acts 2:38; 5:32; 8:14-17).This spiritual understanding leads to freedom: “Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” ( 2 Corinthians 3:17).
God does not just dismiss our sins, ignoring our lawless acts. We are told “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3) so “that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone” (Hebrews 2:9). Jesus Christ was crucified so that all mankind could be forgiven of sin, have the death penalty removed and receive true freedom, telling us: “’If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free’”(John 8:31-32).
Many are confused by what is meant by “the curse of the law” mentioned in Galatians 3:10-13 and do not understand in what way Christ became a curse for us. Jesus Christ, by being crucified as a condemned criminal, “bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness” (1 Peter 2:24). This was what Paul meant in Galatians 3:13 when he wrote, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (NRSV), not that God’s law was cursed.
Through God’s grace and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we can first be forgiven of our lawbreaking and then enabled by the Holy Spirit to obey God’s law which is true freedom—with the ultimate goal and promise of being able to live for all eternity in perfect obedience. A Christian is called to liberty in Christ, receiving forgiveness of sins through His shed blood, freedom from guilt, an awareness of the truth of God and, as a free gift, the hope of eternal life.
