Faith Is Freedom. Law Is Slavery
For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
I have previously said that God gave us His Law that we might live according to His will, achieving whatever destinies He has for us. I believe this to be truth, and I believe that wherever we apprehend God’s Law, that is always a gift from God.
My belief about God’s Law, and my belief in God’s Law, arises from my faith. My belief about God’s Law, and my belief in God’s Law, arises from my belief in God.
My faith leads me to embrace God’s Law, and to strive to follow God’s Law in every way and on every day. My faith leads me to choose right over wrong, and good over evil, and so I strive to follow God’s Law.
Yet here is a paradox. Because my faith gives me the freedom to choose, my choice to follow God’s Law is not submission to God’s Law. In choosing to follow, I am not choosing to bend the knee. Likewise if I chose to bend the knee, I would not be choosing to follow.
How can this be? How can following God’s Law not be submission to God’s Law? If I follow God, if I embrace what God has willed for my life, how am I not submitting to God—and if I say I am not submitting to God, how am I not guilty of the sin of pride?
Let us be clear: If all I say is that I do not submit to God, or that I do not submit to God’s Law, then at the very least I am guilty of the sin of pride.
Yet let us be clearer still: By definition, to submit to God is to yield to God’s Authority. Submission is always yielding to authority, not embracing love. Submission is borne of fear and of pain. Submission is not borne of love and of joy.
We follow because we want to. We submit because we have to.
It is a subtle distinction, but my choice to embrace God’s Law is because God’s Law is of God, not because it is the law. I cannot choose to follow God without also choosing to follow God’s Law, because to follow God is to follow all that is of God. To embrace God is to embrace all that is of God.
It is by faith that I am free to choose to follow God, or not. It is by faith that I am free to choose to embrace God, or not. It is by faith that I am free to choose to follow God’s Law, or not.
It is a subtle distinction, but the difference between choosing to follow and submitting is entirely what is in the heart. Is my heart filled with love and joy, or is it filled with anger and pain? Do I grit my teeth when I do as God’s Law says I should, or I do I smile and sing?
When we choose a friend, when we choose to love any person, our hearts are necessarily filled with joy, for such is the nature of friendship and love. When we choose God, when we choose to follow God, our hearts are therefore also necessarily filled with joy. We cannot choose God, or choose to follow God, and be angry about the choice. We cannot therefore choose to follow God’s Law and be angry about that choice.
Thus we can see that it is no mere flowery phrase to say that faith is freedom, or to say also that submission is slavery. Faith is what allows us to see that we have a choice, that we can choose—and must choose—every day who and what we will be.
To merely obey the law, even God’s Law, to submit in such fashion to that law, even God’s Law, is to become a slave to that law. That is a choice made in anger or in pain, and certainly with reluctance.
To have faith, and therefore to choose to follow God as well as God’s Law, is a choice made with joy and in an abundance of love. That is never a choice made in anger or in pain, and never with reluctance.
God gave us His Law that we might know what is right and what is wrong. God gave us Faith that we might choose that which is right over that which is wrong. Through Faith we are free to follow God’s Law, and to do so with joy and happiness and love. Through Faith we need never merely submit to God’s Law, obeying its particulars with anger and sadness and pain.
Faith is Freedom; Law is Slavery. God gave us both, that we need not be slaves at all.
Your wisdom is a thing of beauty, Peter. I so adore you!
Yes, “we follow because we want to”, and we WANT to because we trust God. We trust His love. We have faith in His over-arching Plan that is beyond our knowing. When we follow our intuition, which is the guidance from God that makes us feel ‘right’ about a decision, and when we follow a path that is loving and in accordance with God’s Law, we are saying that we ‘allow’ for God’s Plan to unfold, and we trust Him. When we pray for something we fervently wish, we add the reminder to ourselves of ‘this or something better, in keeping with your Will’. It feels like freedom, because we are choosing, and are receptive to, ALL possibilities. Then we ‘let go and let God’.