Erro­neous and damnable con­cep­tion of spir­i­tual lib­erty in Christ Jesus.

Gala­tians 5:13. 1 Peter 2:16.

Christ came and died to obtain and to restore the spir­i­tual lib­erty once lost in the Gar­den of Eden through Adam and Eve’s trans­gres­sion. This is the prize of his unblem­ished pre­cious blood which he shed for our redemp­tion for the gift of free­dom for the wills (2 Tim­o­thy 2:26) once held in cap­tiv­ity by Satan after the fall and expul­sion of Adam from the Gar­den of Eden as it is writ­ten, that we should be saved from our ene­mies, and from the hand of all that hate us; to per­form the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remem­ber his holy covenant; the oath which he swore to our father Abra­ham, that he would grant unto us, that we being deliv­ered out of the hand of our ene­mies might serve him with­out fear, in holi­ness and right­eous­ness before him, all the days of our life. Luke 1:71 – 75.

First, to under­stand who your ene­mies are, you should first know who the ene­mies of God are such as you were in times past God’s enemy in your mind by wicked works as the result of the fruits of sin in your mem­bers –your flesh. And you, that were some­time alien­ated and ene­mies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he rec­on­ciled. In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblame­able and unre­prove­able in his sight. Colos­sians 1:21 – 22: (b) the ungodly and sin­ners in the world – the chil­dren of Satan (lit­tle chil­dren, let no man deceive you: he that doeth right­eous­ness is right­eous, even as he is right­eous. He that com­mits sin is of the devil; for the devil sins from the begin­ning. For this pur­pose the Son of God was man­i­fested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whoso­ever is born of God doth not com­mit sin; for his seed remains in him: and he can­not sin, because he is born of God. In this the chil­dren of God are man­i­fest, and the chil­dren of the devil: whoso­ever doeth not right­eous­ness is not of God, nei­ther he that loves not his brother. 1 John 3:7 – 10) just as you were once before you come to Christ but are now called, saved and instructed not to be unequally yoked with old friends of the world any­more but to come out of them; to touch no unclean thing, and to sep­a­rate from them that you might be received by God. 2 Corinthi­ans 6:14 – 18.

Now in Christ Jesus, you are deliv­ered from this present evil world (Gala­tians 1:4) and are no more of the world. The world will hate you as it once hated Christ if you are truly and devot­edly rep­re­sent the light, walk­ing in it and speak­ing the truth, as the truth is in Christ Jesus, of whom you are now rep­re­sent­ing in the world and called to defend his cause and to por­tray his image in the new man which after God is cre­ated in right­eous­ness and true holi­ness before the chil­dren of this world love which love dark­ness more than light because their works are evil. Christ do not set you free that you might love the ways, doings and prac­tices of them that hate the truth and light; as it is against spir­i­tual prin­ci­ples of the God of truth to give any false notion of approval and under­stand­ing in order to appease the anger and per­se­cu­tion of the evil ways, doings and prac­tices of sin­ners lest you incur the curse (woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put dark­ness for light, and light for dark­ness; that put bit­ter for sweet, and sweet for bit­ter. Isa­iah 5:20) of God on you: friend­ship with the world is enmity against God. Whoso­ever will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God. You are bought with a price and are set free from that you should not be ser­vants of men (as men’s pleasers). 1 Corinthi­ans 7:23. James 4:4.

Believer is pur­chased back by the blood of Jesus from the hand of his old mas­ter, the devil: now, he’s not to live for him­self any­more but to live for his Redeemer (Christ) in the world, for by liv­ing for him­self, he’s indi­rectly liv­ing for his old mas­ter once again (Romans 6:6) who through the lusts of the flesh, allure and tempt to ensnare into cap­tiv­ity. The believer is not free to choose his friend in the world or among the worldly than to seek the com­pany of those that love God and those that keep his pre­cepts (I am a com­pan­ion of all them that fear thee, and of them that keep thy pre­cepts. Psalms 119:63) who are call­ing upon the name of the God out of a pure heart. 2 Tim­o­thy 2:22. Note: our pres­tige for Christ and our eval­u­a­tion of his worth in our rela­tion­ship with him is deter­mined, not by our talks and dress­ing, but by our dili­gent walk to walk wor­thy of his call­ing before the world, reveal­ing the amounts of respect and honor we bring unto his name by our abid­ing life – walk­ing in him. The Lord has never once pre­tended; but he con­fessed to the honor of his saints, the value and worth of his brethren whom he lay down his life to save by his pre­cious unblem­ished blood, not ashamed to called them brethren before the crowd — my brethren and mother are they that heard the word of God and live by them. Matthew 12:46 – 48.

Believer is not free to lis­ten to sec­u­lar music or to watch sec­u­lar films and videos, or to choose his friends in the world, than to keep him­self unspot­ted from it (James 1:27): those who are still link with the worldly and ungodly in the world out­side the con­text of the scrip­tures in any asso­ci­a­tion of com­rade­ship (can two walk together unless they agreed? Amos 3:3) with the unre­gen­er­ate men of this world are guilty of the sin and con­dem­na­tion of an unequally yoked together with unbe­liev­ers and are yet to dis­cover the true free­dom, lib­erty and light that lighten every­man that come into the world that they should not walk in dark­ness but to have the light of life. You can­not love the world, to love or walk in the way of the ungodly, to sit with the scorners to abide in the love of God! It is not pos­si­ble. Such is the dou­ble eye spo­ken by the Lord: and if the eye is dou­ble, the whole body is full of dark­ness, and if the light in such is dark­ness, how great is that dark­ness because of their asso­ci­a­tion with the chil­dren of dark­ness. The Lord says, I am come as light in the world, that whoso­ever believes in him should not walk in dark­ness, but have the light of this world. This is our free­dom and deliv­er­ance from wrong asso­ci­a­tion. In this light of life is found the true lib­erty to live and walk and not to stum­ble into pi or be ensnare by the fowler – the soul hunter: none is saved and free to keep his old – unsaved and unre­gen­er­ate friends in the world in a com­mon (habit­ual and famil­iar) rela­tion­ship for the lib­erty pro­cure by Christ is a call to walk in the gospel lifestyle (only let your con­ver­sa­tion becomes as the gospel of Christ. Philip­pi­ans 1:27), show­ing the dif­fer­ences between the clean and unclean, between the holy and unholy: I wrote unto you in an epis­tle not to com­pany with for­ni­ca­tors: yet not alto­gether with the for­ni­ca­tors of this world, or with the cov­etous, or extor­tion­ers, or with idol­aters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. 1 Corinthi­ans 5:9 – 10.

Sec­ond, the pur­pose of our lib­erty in Christ is clearly writ­ten that we might serve God with­out fear, in holi­ness and right­eous­ness before him, all the days of our life. This is the power of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus which has set us free from the law of sin and death. This is the free­dom from you, that is, the old man in whom noth­ing good could be found, that the body of sin might be destroyed – he that is dead is free from sin. Romans 6:7. This is what Christ did for you and me when we are cru­ci­fied with him and are no longer lives, but he lives in us to make us ser­vants of right­eous­ness, and not of sin, if we keep yield­ing our­selves, not to the flesh, lest we die (for, brethren, ye have been called unto lib­erty; only use not lib­erty for an occa­sion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. Gala­tians 5:13) but to the indwelling Holy Spirit of God for con­tin­u­a­tion in our present life and walk in the spirit (Gala­tians 5:25) that we might keep sow­ing to the spirit in the prepa­ra­tion for the har­vest of eter­nal life. Note: just as the flesh made man to die spir­i­tu­ally and was cut off from God through the lusts thereof in the Gar­den of Eden; his flesh was cru­ci­fied and buried with Christ to deliver him from the cor­rup­tion of it by God send­ing his own Son in the like­ness of sin­ful flesh, and for sin, con­demned sin in the flesh to graft him back to him­self, that the right­eous­ness of the law might be ful­filled in them, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. There­fore, Christ lib­erty is our inde­pen­dent, lib­erty and deliv­er­ance from the flesh that was once weak and in bondage to Satan but is now over­pow­ered through the inner man – the new man, if he will con­tinue to walk in the new­ness of life. 2 Corinthi­ans 5:17. Gala­tians 6:15.

The lib­erty of the world is an occa­sion or jus­ti­fi­ca­tion to the flesh, grat­i­fy­ing any imme­di­ate present lusts and sin­ful desires of the mind with­out any remorse or expec­ta­tion of rep­ri­mand from any. Those who shall dare say oth­er­wise are said to be judg­men­tal and crit­i­cal of oth­ers, intol­er­ance and prej­u­dice. Chris­t­ian lib­erty should not be a cover up by any means to do (but unto them that are con­tentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unright­eous­ness, indig­na­tion and wrath, tribu­la­tion and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gen­tile. Romans 2:8 – 9) evil. Who is it that will harm you if you be fol­low­ers of that which is good? Our lib­erty in Christ is the abil­ity or power to exer­cises in increas­ing god­li­ness and to pur­sue any­thing that is true, hon­est, just, pure, and lovely and of good report, virtue and any­thing praise­wor­thy. Philip­pi­ans 4: 8 – 9.

Your spir­i­tual free­dom and lib­erty in Christ should not be evil spo­ken of lest it becomes an occa­sion of fall to the brother of lit­tle faith or you become an occa­sion to fall unto oth­ers if your lib­erty is exer­cised in any the appear­ance of evil – abstain from all appear­ance of evil. 1 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 5:22. There­fore, lest the true sense of Christ lib­erty is mis­con­ceive in the church, Apos­tle Peter (1 Peter 2:16) warns that as free, and not using your lib­erty for a cloke or pre­tense of mali­cious­ness, but as the ser­vants of God. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place. Trust you not in lying words, say­ing, the tem­ple of the Lord, the tem­ple of the Lord, the tem­ple of the Lord, are these. For if ye thor­oughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye thor­oughly exe­cute judg­ment between a man and his neigh­bor; If ye oppress not the stranger, the father­less, and the widow, and shed not inno­cent blood in this place, nei­ther walk after other gods to your hurt: then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for­ever and ever. Behold, ye trust in lying words that can­not profit. Will ye steal, mur­der, and com­mit adul­tery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, we are deliv­ered to do all these abom­i­na­tions? Jere­miah 7:3 – 10. Note: It is to walk con­trary to the pur­poses of the cross when a believer chooses not to walk in the lib­erty of Christ or not to pre­pared to make him­self stand firmly in the lib­erty if he keeps walk­ing in crafti­ness, not renounc­ing dis­hon­est things which are damnable to his soul — the fruit and reward of a hyp­ocrite before God. The ser­vants of God are ser­vants of right­eous­ness (being then made free from sin, ye became the ser­vants of right­eous­ness. I speak after the man­ner of men because of the infir­mity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your mem­bers ser­vants to unclean­ness and to iniq­uity unto iniq­uity; even so now yield your mem­bers ser­vants to right­eous­ness unto holi­ness. For when ye were the ser­vants of sin, ye were free from right­eous­ness. What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now being made free from sin, and become ser­vants to God, ye have your fruit unto holi­ness, and the end ever­last­ing life. Romans 6:18 – 22), a good tree wholly planted by the Lord to pro­duce all the fruit of the Spirit which is all good­ness and right­eous­ness and truth, prov­ing what is accept­able unto God. Eph­esians 5:9 – 10.

Now, the Lord is that spirit, and where there is spirit of God, there is lib­erty. 2 Corinthi­ans 3:17. This lib­erty includes the abil­ity of a believer to visit other churches and to go from one church to another to com­pare spir­i­tual things with spir­i­tual; here a lit­tle, and there a lit­tle. There is no con­gre­ga­tion com­pleted with all the five-​fold gifts of min­istry for his edi­fi­ca­tion and spir­i­tual growth as it should be unto the full­ness and mea­sure of the stature of Christ; so the scrip­tures says not to for­sake the assem­bly of one another as the habit of some is even though we still need to be care­ful of the field we seeks to glean from, lest they should feed us with poi­so­nous meat to hin­der us from run­ning the race well. These are very dif­fer­ent from some out­law brethren of spir­i­tual rebels and crim­i­nals who are jump­ing from one church to another because they refused to be cor­rected in sub­mis­sion to cor­rec­tion for any wrong doing, think­ing that nobody has the right to check, cor­rect, rebuke and reproof them of their ungodly con­ducts, but their end is destruc­tion (a man that is an heretick after the first and sec­ond admo­ni­tion reject; know­ing that he that is such is sub­verted, and sins, being con­demned of him­self. Titus 3:10 – 11): them that sin rebuke before all, that oth­ers also may fear. 1Timothy 5:20.

If there is any place on earth where men are expected to behave sen­si­bly, orderly, holily, justly, rightly, solemnly, soberly and godly, it is none other than the house of God, which is the ground and pil­lar of truth. The beauty of our lib­erty in Christ is found in the nine fruit of the Spirit such as love, joy, peace, meek­ness, faith, long­suf­fer­ing, gen­tle­ness, good­ness and self con­trol or tem­per­ance (against such there is no law): none is allowed to behave unruly in the church to another or against the author­ity of the local church (1Thessalonians 5:14) and none is free to speak fool­ishly or to utter jest­ing which is not con­ve­nient for because of those things the wrath of God is com­ing upon the chil­dren of dis­obe­di­ent, and every idle word that men shall speak shall be accounted for on the day of judg­ment. Eph­esians 5:4.

Believer’s free­dom and lib­erty in Christ is not in any way the license to rebel against any of the author­ity of the land which falls within the bond of the scrip­tures – let every soul be sub­ject to higher author­ity, for there is no author­ity that be except God. Take for exam­ple, the present sit­u­a­tion of Covid virus 19 lock­down as some churches openly defies the author­ity, hereby spread the infec­tion among their church mem­bers and cause pre­ventable death of cer­tain mem­bers by mass gath­er­ing. The church is not the con­crete and cemented build­ings we sit under to wor­ship God, but the indi­vid­ual believer’s are – let us prac­tice social dis­tance until every­thing is brought under con­trol. By the way, there is no gov­ern­ment is per­se­cut­ing the church not to preach on the inter­net because of the virus lock­down, while then are cer­tain in the church exag­ger­at­ing on the lib­erty of asso­ci­a­tion when they are actu­ally rebelling against the word of God to sub­mit to the state author­ity until the virus sit­u­a­tion is brought under total con­trol? And though we are born again, filled with the Spirit of God, yet, we are to be in obe­di­ent and sub­mis­sion to our supe­rior boss at work as ser­vants of God, not only to the good man­ager, but also the bad and for­ward in the fear of God, our lib­erty in Christ is not in any way to become proud, self– opin­ion­ated in spir­i­tu­al­ity with­out moral­ity before the peo­ple who employed us to work for them.