Finding Freedom In Christ

This summer has been a time of discovery in my faith. I'm realizing how much of my faith has been so determined by the way we've learned to conceptualize it within the context of Western (or more specifically American) Christianity. More specifically, this summer I have been learning a lot about freedom in Christ.

I think our systemized theology and the way its been taught in the church as far as free will is concerned has done quite a disservice to Christ-followers. We talk about free will in the context of original sin. Free will is what caused sin. Whatever causes sin must not be good, therefore, we accept free will as the one flaw that god created us with.

We've dealt with this by saying that free will is not a flaw. It is the little thing that God begrudgingly created us with so that we could choose to love Him. If He didn't create us with free will, we would essentially be robots. No better than a little girl's play doll that says, "I love you Mama!" when its button is pushed. I think this is a shallow understanding of the cause for free will and though it attempts to cast a positive light on free will it only does so after first affirming our fear of free will.

Our understanding of free will is crucial to the way that we view ourselves and the way that we live our lives for God. In the past I have prayed fervently that my will would be broken and that it would be replaced by God's will. I felt that I could only do the will of God by my will being totally obliterated. Essentially I felt that the only way to please God was for me to know His will in every choice I made, in every word I spoke, and in every thought I had and to carry it out perfectly. We say that God gave us free will so that we would not be little robots, but for so much of my life I tried to make myself into a robot.

In church we speak of being empty vessels. We sing "I want more of you and less of of me. Empty me. Fill me with You." I saw myself as a Christian as literally being a body that God would move exactly as He would. Just an empty shell of a person, no desires of my own, no interests of my own, nothing that would define me as anything other than a vessel for Christ.

We have a few downfalls with these perceptions:

1. Free will is seen as a flaw.

We have been created in God's image. If I could have a baby and choose for it to always love me, I would. That would not make my baby a robot. It just means that they would not deviate from that principle love. Instead, free will is given to us because God Himself has free will. God has free will and does not sin. Free will is not sinful. We do not need to forfeit free will to serve God.

2. We identify our "selves" as our "flesh".

Paul spoke of sin as being fleshly desires. We are instructed to put off our flesh, which is being corrupted. Flesh does not mean humanity. Living a godly life does not mean living above our humanity. Flesh does not mean our personalities. To seek to live a life empty of ourselves is to seek a life of slavery and domination. This mindset is a dressed up version of gnosticism, which was declared as heresy in church councils at least as early as 325 AD.

3. We tend to assume that free will does not exist within the will of God.

We tend to assume that God's will is very specific in every instance. By we, I mean me. This is my major pitfall. You know those game shows where there are three doors and the best prize is behind one door, a decent prize is behind another, and a bogus prize is behind another? For every choice I make I see a line of doors (usually many more than 3). One door is God's perfect will. Some are very clearly not within God's will. And the others... Hope for the best. Unfortunately, I never know which door is *the right* door, because clearly there is only one. I now believe that is untrue.

With these three main pitfalls (there are probably more, but these jump to mind), we can essentially live what we call a "Christian" life by living as though we have to fight the odds to be acceptable to God. Or we live out of our own efforts to perfect ourselves. Or we live lives devoid of the beautiful things God individually created us with because we see our uniqueness as a thing to be emptied out of us. Or we live in perpetual guilt that we are living outside of God's will 97% of the time because we make choices that are slightly less than His best. Then we face a paralyzing fear for any decision we have to make in the future.

I'm beginning to believe that God's will is far more general and broad in nature and that so long as we are living within that grand narrative of love, ushering towards the Kingdom, that God leaves a lot of the details of how that happens to us. That said, our wills can be at odds with that narrative, and in those cases or wills must be submitted. Not broken. But submitted.

Okay, I'm about to get into some theologically sketchy terrain, but bear with me. Those who are familiar with theology will recognize hints at the idea of two separate hypostases in Christ that was deemed heretical in a church council. But again, bear with me.

When I was a young teen I read this book by Max Lucado called "He Chose the Nails". In this book, Lucado makes a statement that he believed that if the soldiers hesitated in nailing Jesus to the cross that because of His overwhelming love for us, Jesus would have snatched the hammer right out of their hands and began nailing Himself to the cross. It's a nice sentiment, but I think it's unbiblical and misdirecting.

Matthew 26:39 says, "Going a little farther, [Jesus] fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”"

Indicating there were two wills. He did not want to die. He would not have hammered Himself to the cross. When Jesus walked back from praying he found the disciples asleep and He says to them, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." He said this to them, supposedly for not staying awake and keeping watch with Him. I think He said it just as much to reflect the conflict of wills He was experiencing Himself.

He prayed again, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done."

Max Lucado, Jesus did not choose the nails. He chose His Father's will, submitting to it and to the nails. The thing is not to demolish our wills. They are not always opposed to the will of God. God gives us freedom within His will. There are times when He wills something specific for us (I think these things are blatantly obvious and difficult to miss; we don't have to be petrified that with every decision we might miss His perfect will). There are times when are wills are at conflict with what God wills.

Even then, we aren't to obliterate our wills, but to submit them to God.

Romans 8:7,9,15

The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so....You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ...The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”