Truth and Freedom

I had written on this same topic briefly here. It's fairly truncated and I thought it would be helpful to write some further reflections. My hope is explain a little better how it is we find real freedom. I hope you find this helpful, and maybe even liberating.



Slavery...


If you've ever witnessed someone in your life spiral deep into an addiction you may have noticed there are certain stages along the way. The closer they get to the so-called "bottomless pit" the more they take on a different character. They become increasingly irritable, violent, irrational, seclusive, the list goes on. You may even say they become an entirely different person, which is what makes addictions so insidious and ugly.  But these are not just the result of physiological effects from popular hallucinogenic drugs, it's an instinctive reaction of human behaviour to protect something that has become very important to them.

Throughout the course of an addiction, the typical patterns goes somewhat like this: First you may find the original attraction to the addiction and you quickly become attached to it. At first if it is taken away, you may be annoyed, but you could at least move on from it easily enough. But the more important it becomes, the more you will do anything to keep it, even when it becomes less satisfying. When things get in your way (lack of money, friends trying to intervene) you begin to feel victimized, and you quickly start to blame others for your dependancy. At this point your character begins to take on a different form. You become irritable if you don't have "it", whatever it may be. Eventually, however, there is nothing else in life than your all-consuming desire to have whatever it is you think you need. You have become, in effect, a slave.

This is exactly the effect of sin that C.S. Lewis uses to describe Hell in his book The Great Divorce. I quoted the following a couple months back during the Rob Bell controversy...

"Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining, always blaming others... but you are still distinct from it. You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it. But there may come a day when you can no longer. Then there will be no you left to criticize the mood or even to enjoy it, but just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine... "(The Great Divorce)

But there is a difference between sin and addictions. Addicts can reach a bottomless pit at which point they have either succumb to it and die, or have a moment of clarity in their despair and through grace are able to recover from it. Sin, on the other hand, in a truly eternal sense, has no bottomless pit. It will never end but continue on forever unless, as C.S. Lewis would say, it "is nipped in the bud."

Perhaps there's no greater modern illustration of this than the depictions of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. He was once Smeagol, a regular, happy, hobbit-like character who was overcome by the lure of the ring and even murdered his friend to acquire it. The ring consumed him, changed him, and became the master over him. Unlike the addicts of real life, however, Smeagol would physically transformed into the creature known as Gollum. The figurative Gollum clearly paints the ugliness of the all-consuming slavery of sin, but it also points to the inevitable dangers of misbelief and heresy.

But these addictions come in far greater form than what we're normally used to hearing such as drugs, alcohol, money, etc. They can be perfectly good things that are turned into ultimate things that, as Tim Keller would put it, become our functional Saviour. That is to say, raising good children, being successful at work, or having the perfect marriage, can all become our idols. We can all aspire to make sure to raise Christ-like and well disciplined children, and perform our work well, and be have good marriages through being good husbands and wives. There's nothing wrong with that. But when we turn these good things into the ultimate things, we displace the work of Christ as Saviour. In our drive to fulfill these goals we become overbearing to our children, we are far too driven in our work to the detriment of relationships, and when the inevitable rough patch occurs in our marriages our lives become completely disillusioned. We become slaves to these ideals, these idols of perfection, which will eventually fail in one way or another, and lead to destruction.

Truth, on the other hand, is freedom.

Freedom...


What the Bible describes as Truth, and what the general historical Christian consensus now labels as orthodoxy, is often viewed as being far too constraining and narrow-minded. But why should we expect it to be any different? Even if the Truth is constraining and narrow-minded that doesn't make it any less liberating. And it has certainly not been held captive by the hands of mere mortals who wish to box it up by their own whims. On the contrary, we can rejoice in the fact that God has been gracious enough to condescend to us that we may know the truth in the first place.

Our problem with Truth isn't so much that it's too constraining and narrow. It's just that, like Gollum, we've been far too consumed with the ring. Because of our stubborn belief in only half-truth we don't want the truth as revealed in Scripture, and because of our highly-esteemed but misguided intellect when the Truth does confront us it doesn't fit what we imagine it ought to be. We want something that affirms what we already believe, we don't want to be told different, even if what we believe invariably leads to destruction.

But the most difficult thing about Truth is to honestly accept it, because this goes against every ounce of our sinful beings. We would not, except by the grace of God, want anything to do with something that completely turns our life around. But when it happens, only then do we truly see the error of our ways and the glorious riches of God's abounding love and mercy.

I suspect for most of us who affirm and believe in Christ that the feeling of continual liberation through the knowledge and study of Scripture is a slow and often messy process. Such is the process of Sanctification. It's not very often that there is a complete turn around someone makes in repentance. But when it does happen it's always from God revealing himself in extraordinary ways. The example of Isaiah 6 comes to mind. Isaiah, having seen visions of God, cries out, "Woe to me!... I am ruined! For I am a man on unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." (Isaiah 6:5)

There are two important things that happen when we're confronted by the Truth. First, as Isaiah demonstrates, we finally see ourselves for who we really are. We realize, in the words of Isaiah, that "we are ruined." We are lost on our own, sold as slaves the the cravings of our sinful nature. And Second, that God is a just but merciful Father. As the story in Isaiah unfolds, his lips are touched by the hot coals, cauterizing them to cleanse them, and his sins are atoned for. Only then is he set free.

Or as Paul says in Romans 6:19ff
Just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
For when you were slaves to sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 


Of all the greatest theologians and pastors through the ages, one common thread remains in them all, and that can be summed up in the words of John Newton, who said, "I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am." Those who've had the most clear view of themselves had the most clear view of God himself, and therefore had the most urgency in imparting a strict and narrow but wonderful and liberating Truth.

When God created men and women he created us with a nature that worships. At any given moment we are always worshipping something. The object of our worship ultimately dictates our attitudes, behaviours, desires, etc. Before Adam and Eve sinned, they were free. They enjoyed everything in creation, each other, and enjoyed communion with God. When the fall happened, all of that was broken, and suddenly their desires turned away. The object of our worship necessarily dictates our actions, attitudes, and our beliefs. We are, by nature, slaves to the object of our worship. If the object of our worship isn't the eternal God, we are doomed to destruction. Therefore, in order to be redeemed, we need an act of God to rescue us from this slavery.

And this is exactly what only Christ can, and has, accomplished for us. Praise be to God.