Freedom Part I
Why Our Definition of Liberty Matters
By Greg Russell
Renovate Church—Centennial CO
It truly is a special time in America! In honor of our nation’s historic 250th anniversary, the next couple of posts are going to focus on how a biblical understanding of liberty applies to things like patriotism, our national heritage, and civic responsibility.
But before we can unpack the political or historical implications of freedom, we have to establish a foundational definition. We need to look at freedom in general—what it is, how it works, and how we are called to think about it.
This might seem like a no-brainer, but just like so many other good, God-given things, freedom is profoundly misunderstood in modern culture. If we don’t get this definition right from the outset, every single application that follows will be skewed. It’s like a long, complex math problem: if you make a calculation error in the very first step, the entire equation is corrupted, and your final answer will inevitably be wrong.
Let’s get the equation right from the start by examining what freedom actually is—and what it isn’t.
The Illusion of Absolute Autonomy
If you look up “freedom” in standard dictionaries, you will find a universally accepted definition: the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. While that description accurately captures the civic and secular understanding of liberty, it falls short of explaining how true freedom operates in reality.
An intense debate between Jesus and His critics in John 8:31–36 exposes the fatal flaw in this philosophy:
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you really are my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.”
This passage contains a fascinating contextual detail. John notes that Jesus was speaking to “the Jews who had believed him.” Yet, a few sentences later, these same individuals are angrily defensive and claim they have never been enslaved.
How could they be called believers? Because in the ancient world, just like today, many people possessed a highly superficial belief. They saw Jesus perform miracles—healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, casting out demons—and they believed in His supernatural ability. But they did not place their ultimate trust in Him. Their faith lacked a true foundation.
Jesus clearly distinguishes between superficial mental assent and authentic discipleship. He says, “If you hold to my teaching, you really are my disciples.” Real faith is substantial; it is an active trust that drives behavior. And it is this specific, obedient relationship with truth that unlocks genuine liberty.
True Knowledge Requires Reality
We often hear secular culture quote the phrase, “The truth will set you free.” But they routinely omit the prerequisite phrase: knowing the truth.
In biblical terms, knowledge is far more than an intellectual data dump in your head. To “know” something implies an intimate, working relationship with reality. It means navigating an object, a person, or a concept exactly as it truly is.
Consequently, real knowledge requires absolute truth. You can believe something that is completely false—people do it every day—but you cannot know something that isn’t true. By definition, knowledge is true belief aligned with objective reality.
When we ignore physical reality, the consequences are immediate and brutal:
- If you believe you are immune to fire, reality will painfully correct you the moment you touch it.
- If you believe you are exempt from gravity and step off a tall building, objective reality will meet you at a terminal velocity of 118 miles per hour.
Sometimes, truth is simply the unyielding wall you crash into when you are wrong. It can be a brutal teacher.
When Freedom Demands Restriction
Does this same rule apply to non-physical, spiritual realities? Absolutely. In fact, miscalculating the truth about moral freedom carries consequences that are far more insidious and destructive than gravity.
When a person adopts the secular definition of freedom—the right to do whatever they want, whenever they want, without restriction—they inadvertently march straight into bondage. Why? Because apart from the transforming grace of God, our natural human desires are profoundly broken and self-destructive.
You are “free” to abuse substances for momentary pleasure, walk into toxic choices, or indulge malicious impulses. But that path never yields liberation. It leads directly to addiction, relational wreckage, and psychological torment.
True freedom is never the total absence of restriction; true freedom requires the right restrictions. Consider a simple physical illustration:
[A Fish in Water] --> Restrained by its environment --> Fully alive and free
[A Fish on Dry Land] --> "Free" from the water --> Suffocates and dies
A fish is only truly free when it is restricted to the water, because water matches its design. If you remove the fish from the water to give it “absolute autonomy,” it dies.
The same principle governs human design. If you restrict your diet and commit to physical exercise, you gain the functional freedom of good health. If you restrict your time to rigorously practice a musical instrument, you gain the artistic freedom of proficiency.
Restriction is the actual pathway to capability. In the spiritual realm, when we practice the strategic restrictions of fasting, prayer, and meditating on Scripture, we aren’t ruining our fun—we are aligning ourselves with our true spiritual nature.
Transforming Our Desires
When Jesus confronted His listeners about their spiritual state, they immediately went into deep cultural denial, claiming, “We have never been slaves of anyone.” Historically, this was a total delusion—Israel spent the vast majority of its existence subjugated by global empires like Egypt, Babylon, and, at that exact moment, Rome.
But Jesus bypassed their political blindness to expose a deeper diagnosis: “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” This diagnosis level-sets humanity. Because every single one of us has sinned, every single one of us has experienced the localized, internal slavery of broken desires. This is why a purely rules-based, legalistic religion never works. If you are just trying to follow external commands (“Thou shalt not…”) while your internal desires secretly crave the forbidden behavior, you aren’t free. You are just a restrained prisoner.
True freedom occurs when Jesus alters your perspective so deeply that what you want changes. A legalistic mindset says “I want to do this sin, but I can’t because of the rules.” Living in true freedom has you saying “I don’t want to do this sin, because I see the destruction it causes.”
When you hold to the teachings of Jesus, you begin to see reality through His eyes. You realize that sin leads to decay, and righteousness leads to life. Suddenly, you aren’t white-knuckling your way through obedience; you are freely pursuing what is genuinely best. As the old saying goes, following God is either completely impossible or beautifully easy—because once He captures your desires, you are simply doing exactly what you want to do.
Keeping Step with the Spirit
Living out this reality in real-time requires a daily, tangible resource. We still battle the lingering appetites of the flesh and the immediate pull of temptation. Knowing the truth is the starting point, but we need dynamic power to sustain it.
That is precisely why Jesus promised His followers that He would send the Holy Spirit to lead them into all truth—the exact truth that sets us free. The Apostle Paul underscores this beautifully in his second letter to the Corinthians:
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” (2 Corinthians 3:17)
The New Testament places an unrelenting emphasis on life in the Spirit: walking in the Spirit, keeping step with the Spirit, praying in the Spirit, and being led by the Spirit. True liberty is a supernatural transformation that occurs as we follow Jesus, allowing the Holy Spirit to gradually reshape us into His image from one degree of glory to another.
As we move forward into examining the complex dimensions of liberty, we must anchor ourselves to this foundational equation.
National freedom is a high civic blessing, but it cannot cure a captive soul. True liberty is not the right to do what we want—it is the supernatural power to live as we were designed. And if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.