Freedom

Evan H. Hopkins. The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life: Chapter Four.
- "The essence of well-being is freedom in life"
- "Liberty consists in the unrestrained activities of life."
- "Freedom is not the end but rather the condition of Christian conflict--of true victorious warfare."
- "For this it is necessary that life...should be in its true and appropriate element...Restoration consists in both the quickening of the spirit and its introduction into its appropriate environment...Spiritual liberty can be known, therefore, only by those who have life and are abiding in Him who is the true sphere of life."
- "There is a threefold emancipation we may notice in connection with our experience of true freedom: liberty for the mind, conscience, and the will."

For restoration to occur, my spirit must be enlivened and within the appropriate and healthy environment. This freedom occurs once the three areas of a person's being mind, conscience, and will are free. In the same way, now that my mind has been transformed in must be within its proper environment. This, according to Hopkins, is truth. I, specifically my mind, must abide in Christ who is known as the Truth. But what does it mean for this to happen?

Very simply, it means that my mind must be focused on spiritual matters, that of Christ and necessarily the Truth. To abide and take refuge in Christ is to be constantly training my mind's eye on Christ. When that occurs, liberty is realized because my mind is no longer restrained. I am not fighting off lustful thoughts--which I know are wrong--because my mind has been set free from the law of sin and death. Instead, I am under the Law of the Spirit of life in Christ which means my mind is achieving the purpose it was intended for, to glorify the LORD. My decisions are no longer restrained by the law of sin but instead I freely choose the correct path because my mind is abiding in Christ. These choices glorify God and not myself.

This is what the apostle Paul spoke about when he said that the law itself is good. Indeed, the Law that God gave us is holy and Christ came to fulfill the law, not destroy it. However, through the law, sin gained a stronghold in our lives that condemns us. No one is righteous by the Law, which due to sin's corrupting effects became the law of sin and death. We made decisions based on sin not based on God's glory and grace. . Our options are limited and restrained. We struggle to maintain a godly standard. Sin can only constrain and burden. Only Christ and God's grace is capable of freedom. Now, the law of the Spirit of life, realized only through abiding in Christ so that no man may boast in anything except Christ and him crucified, is making unrestrained choices based on God's glory. We are not longer limited by sin, but set free by Christ.

The moment I begin to take pride in myself for those choices, I have taken my mind off God and am no longer abiding in Christ. I may be making the right choice, but it is done so by the law of sin and death, not the law of the Spirit of life in Christ. To abide means to exist in. It is a constant presence. I must continually be consuming my mind with Christ, counting all else loss, lest that self-focus may return.

My mind has been transformed. Just as a plant without good soil, air, sun, and water will not live, my mind if not in its proper environment will not survive. That environment is in the Truth of God and no where else. What does this look like practically? Paul helps us in this endeavor but exhorting us to pray and give thanks constantly. Why do we pray? To recognize our dependence on God. Why do we give thanks? For getting something we did nothing to earn. Both cases show that God was responsible, not us. This puts us on our knees before God. In that position, pride cannot exist. Additionally, simply spending time in Scripture alone (reading, memorizing, meditating, praying) and together (discussing, praying, sharing, learning) properly places our mind in its created environment of the Truth.

The second area in need of liberation is the conscience. Sin wrecks our lives as its only power is to destroy. Its effect is seen in the guilt of a conscience. On one hand, the guilt is the recognition of wrongful actions or thoughts. It shows the quickening of the soul. However, it also shows that the soul of that person is not free as it is weighed down by the turmoil caused by guilt. Actions are chosen out of fear of future guilt, not out of purified desires in Christ. The conscience's true environment is then peace. When the conscience is at peace, it no longer dwells on past failures but is enlivened by the redemption and non-condemnation found in Christ. Practically, this is a matter of placing our focus on God and his Truth. Each of these areas does not exist on its own island but instead is joined together in the liberation or bondage of the soul.

The third area is the will of man. According to Hopkins, our will is not free. It is enslaved by fear and desire. With the soul being given life, a person may know the right actions but yet not take part in them. The question is then why is this? It is because the person's will is controlled by fear of the earthly ramifications or it is controlled by carnal passions. The person knows the actions are sin and struggles against it, but humans can only follow their strongest desire. So while we may know the right action, we do otherwise because our passions are stronger than our will. However, our will can never be strong enough on our own accord to overcome these passions. Christ can make our will strong enough, but our passions still exist. So while we may eventually perform the right actions, the passions still exist. It is only through the freedom from these passions that the will becomes totally free. With the passions gone, the will has nothing left to contend for supremacy but the desires of god.

This freedom is found in the love of God. Freedom of the will means we do whatever we please. The fully redeemed will is holy and therefore pursues the will of the Creator. These actions are not only right in the physical sense, but we take pleasure in doing them. It is no longer a struggle to perform them. We love those around us because it is the will of God and we find pure delight in that. This love is not from us, as our carnal, sinful nature only causes destruction and self-pleasure. It is a divine love that only comes from God. Truly, we can love because he first loved us. It is through this love that right actions are no longer based on duty to the law. Duty is motivated by fear of the consequences. Love (which casts out fear) is motivated by God. We may know our duty through faith but love is what makes it live-giving. Love removes the sense of duty and replaces it with Christ. We have been given faith and love as a gift from God. It is God's love that frees our will to love others and even God himself. His love allows us to love; it becomes our love.

When these three areas are fully emancipated, the soul experiences freedom as well. The restrained duty of the Christian life, plagued by fear, guilt, and passions, becomes of a life of liberty that lives out of the freedom found in truth, peace, and love. It is in this liberty that spiritual warfare must be conducted. Only when we are free can we truly partake in the battle on the side of Christ. If we are still restrained and struggling, we may be alive spiritually but we are still in a state of rebellion as we fight the desires and passions of our members. Where there is rebellion, there is no peace. Christ's yoke is truly light when we have full liberty because we delight in doing what is right. When it feels heavy and burdensome, we are struggling against sin. It is the love of God which frees our will, clears our conscience, and brings Truth to our minds that.

"But do you ask, How am I to get this love? 'Love,' one has said, 'cannot be produced by a direct action of the soul upon itself. A man in a boat cannot move it by pressing it from within.' It is not by straining and struggling that this blessed condition is brought about; it comes by a very real dedication of ourselves to God for this very purpose," Hopkins writes. We must pray and fully submit in all parts of our lives, trusting in God's sovereignty and love. As James says, we must ask with the expectation that God will give, being steadfast in the request, not for our own glory but for the LORD's.