Freedom from What

John 8: 31 – 32 “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on Him, If ye continue in My word, then are ye my disciples indeed, and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
I have the habit of correcting people when they misquote this scripture.  They say “and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall SET you free.”  Instead of the word, make, they say the word, set.  I guess no big deal but I like to think of it this way.
You can set a caged bird free but he will always be a bird.  When you make someone free, a change of character has taken place.  You are not someone who remains the same as before you were made free.
II Corinthians 5: 17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature…”
If we have been made free, from what have we been made free?
Romans 8: 2 says, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”
The law of sin states that if you sin, you are condemned to eternal death.  Romans 3: 23 says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  In other words if we commit sin, we fall short of the standards that God requires to be righteous in His sight therefore condemned to eternal separation from God.  By the sacrifice of Jesus, we have been made free from that law.
Galatians 5: 1 says, “Standfast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled AGAIN with the yoke of bondage.”
What was this yoke of bondage that the Galatian believers were once entangled?  Paul had preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the church at Galatia.  He told them that by the death and resurrection of Jesus, they were made free from all the requirements of the law needed to please God.
After Paul preached such a liberating message, men called Judeizers, came into the church proclaiming that they had to keep the laws from which they had been freed.
The message of the Jewish leaders, Sadducees and Pharisees, is what kept so many people seeking to find peace with God, in bondage to rules and regulations no one could keep.
This wonderful good news, the Gospel, proclaims freedom from such rules and regulations which were impossible to keep. 
We have been made free from the bondages that men who do not know God and His word, have tried to put upon the people.
Romans 5: 1 says, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Having such freedom is wonderful, but Galatians 5: 13-14 tells us what we are to do, living with such freedom.
“For brethren, you have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for the occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”
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