Each year, Passover teaches us how we need to be redeemed by the blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His sacrifice frees us from the captivity of every sin (Titus 2:14). This should excite us immensely. But it should do more than just excite us.
Ancient Israel experienced a similar liberation as they were released from their physical captivity—from the bondage of slavery (Exodus 20:2). They left Egypt with a high hand, excited and thrilled to be on their way to the land promised to their forefathers—a land in which they would be free from oppression—a land flowing with all the goodness and riches only God could provide.
The Carnal Mind Tends to Forget
By the time the Israelites had reached the shores of the Red Sea, they realized that Pharaoh wasn’t going to let them go so easily. Even after having witnessed the 10 plagues and God’s awesome power to deliver, they panicked because Pharaoh and his army pursued them. Pharaoh is used here as a type of Satan, who will do everything in his power to keep us from clinging to the liberty of our calling.
God came to Israel’s rescue and utterly destroyed the Egyptian army in the Red Sea after providing a miraculous passage for the Israelites (Exodus 14:26-30). God promises to do the same for us (James 4:7) if we will likewise exercise faith with obedience. This miracle caused the Israelites to look to their Deliverer and believe and fear the Lord (verse 31).
Three days later, however, the Israelites had forgotten God’s mighty miracles that had brought them out of Egypt. They began to focus on their immediate physical needs. They had come to Marah, in the wilderness of Shur, and murmured because the waters there were bitter (Exodus 15:22-24). A month later, they started complaining again (Exodus 16:2-3). In each of these cases, as with many of the events that followed, Israel looked back to what they had in Egypt. They could not let go of their captivity. That inability to let go of their past eventually cost them their lives. With only two exceptions, they died in the wilderness without entering into the Promised Land.
The Apostle Paul warned us not to fall into this trap (1 Corinthians 10:6, 9-10). The Israelites did not understand the freedom they had miraculously gained. That lack of understanding was the root cause of why they failed God. We might think we understand the freedom of our Christian calling, but Paul continued, “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (verse 12).
Called Out of Slavery
The Bible reveals that Satan is the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). He has ruled the society around us ever since man was cut off from God in the Garden of Eden.
Herbert W. Armstrong wrote, “Adam had been created with the potential to be born a son of God. Even though not as yet even a begotten son of the God family, he had been created as potentially just that. Once he succumbed to Satan’s way of choosing to ‘do his own thing,’ in rebellion against a deliberate command of God, he became spiritually the property of Satan. He actually had succumbed to the government of Satan, choosing the law of that government, leading automatically into attitudes of self-glory, coveting, competition, desire to get rather than God’s way of give.
“All humanity came out of Adam and Eve. The present world was founded in them. The world has ever since been held captive! The world had thus chosen the way of the kidnapper, rather than of the potential Parent!” (A World Held Captive).
Because of Adam and Eve’s choice, God closed off access to the tree of life, a symbol of His Holy Spirit. As a result, Satan has been able to sway mankind by broadcasting negative attitudes and emotions and, by doing so, exercising control over the minds of people.
The Exodus illustrated that it is impossible to break free from the hold Satan has on mankind by any human power. It takes the miraculous power of God.
Israel also proved that it is impossible to believe and obey God without His Spirit. Throughout the Old Testament, we see time and time again the abysmal failure of mankind’s eating from that tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Israel’s history proved that “the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be” (Romans 8:7).
From the time of Adam and Eve, man has been enslaved by sin, by Satan’s way of life, and subject to the penalty for sin, which is death (Romans 6:23).
But in His great love and wisdom, God had worked out a plan of redemption, long before Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, to pay the ransom and return His potential offspring to Him. Christ was that Lamb slain from the foundation of this world (Revelation 13:8), to reconcile us—by His death—to our Father (Romans 5:10).
While God will extend this to all people in a future resurrection, today He is offering that opportunity only to a select few, His called-out ones. God has called these people out of the darkness of this world to be a holy people, separate, set aside for a purpose: to live by the power of His Spirit (1 Peter 2:9-10). Just as Israel proved that it is impossible to follow God and His instructions without His Spirit, we are called to prove that it is possible to do so by the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us.
The Gift of Liberation
When we call ourselves Christians, we say that we are followers, or disciples, of Jesus Christ. Christ Himself defined a disciple as one who would “continue in my word” (John 8:31). It is that word of Christ that makes us free (verse 32). Every time we sin and disobey the instruction of our Maker, we again become the servants, or slaves, of sin (verse 34).
Christ knew that once His sacrifice was completed and He was resurrected and accepted of the Father, God could reconcile man to Himself and make available the Holy Spirit, enabling mere men to keep the spiritual law of liberty. So He announced to His disciples that they would receive this power shortly after His ascension to His Father (Acts 1:4-5, 8). On the day of Pentecost, the disciples, who obediently stayed in Jerusalem as Christ had instructed them, received this power and were filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1-4).
The Apostle Paul wrote, “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Romans 8:9). We are liberated from the works of the flesh as we allow the Spirit of God to work in us. And unless God’s Spirit dwells in us, we cannot call ourselves followers of Christ, because we cannot keep His words!
Paul continued, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of [sonship], whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (verses 14-16).
Tremendous blessings await us as we allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit of God. “But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein [which is only possible with the help of the Holy Spirit], he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed” (James 1:25). As the Spirit enables us to keep God’s law of liberty, we are made free.
Servants of Righteousness
True freedom comes from total submission to God’s law. That, as we have seen, is only possible if we allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit of God.
What does it mean to be led by the Holy Spirit? Paul states that we have to become servants, or bondsmen, of righteousness.
“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness” (Romans 6:16-18). Becoming a servant of righteousness means that we are to give ourselves wholly to the service of God.
In order to give ourselves wholly to God’s service, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, as the disciples were on the day of Pentecost. The Bible tells us that that Spirit, our inward man, needs to be renewed every day (2 Corinthians 4:16).
It is through our righteous lives and contact with God in prayer and study that He will renew His Spirit in us. Daily we can grow in the power that enables us to overcome, to live righteously, as we willingly submit ourselves to become bondsmen for the ultimate liberty. “[W]here the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17).
So are you truly free when you’ve made a commitment to God’s way of life? Yes and no.
God created man as a free moral agent and will not force His way of life upon anyone. But, a slave of righteousness is not free to do as he pleases, to disobey God, to continue to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He does not have a license to disobey the law (Jude 4). Rather, by God’s grace and through the implanting of His Spirit into his mind, he has the freedom to obey. Are you a slave to righteousness?
God’s slavery is not a yoke of bondage as sin is. Yet that is how Satan wants you to look at it. God Himself is a slave to righteousness. By freewill choice He has denied Himself the opportunity to sin, to choose evil. He cannot sin because He will not sin.
With God’s mind in us, we too can and should make that choice voluntarily. “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. … Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God …” (1 John 3:2-3, 6-10).
Breaking the Yoke
Too often, when we stumble and sin, we try to overcome by our own might. This is one of the major reasons we tend to battle the same sins over and over again. We entangle ourselves again in that yoke of bondage. But God wants us to see that overcoming is only possible if we exercise the power of His Spirit in us. Christ Himself said, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36). Breaking the yoke on the bondage of sin is God’s doing, not ours! This is a major lesson Christians must learn.
Being redeemed through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ does not mean that Satan has given up on us. Like Pharaoh, he pursues us and tries to enslave us again and again. Unfortunately, when we fail to use God’s Holy Spirit to overcome, we are like the Israelites who opposed themselves by failing to see the miracles of God in their lives and longing for the slavery from which they came—those Israelites who never made it into the Promised Land.
It is possible for a true Christian to be enslaved again into bondage when he or she fails to look to God to provide the power for spiritual growth. Paul understood this when he wrote, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1).
When we fail to use God’s Spirit, we can be deceived by the fake liberty Satan promises.
The Apostle Peter gave a strong warning to the members of God’s Church to turn away from the false teachings by which Satan tries to deceives us. Concerning these apostate teachers Peter wrote, “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning. For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them” (2 Peter 2:19-21).
Only if we are led by God’s Holy Spirit will we be able to discern right from wrong and true liberty from the bondage of sin. This is why it is vital that we grasp the deep meaning of the day of Pentecost and recognize the importance of stirring up the Spirit of God in us.
Choose to Be a Slave
God presented the first man, Adam, with a free choice to come under the government of God—to be given God’s Spirit—by eating from the tree of life. Adam could have qualified to restore the government of God on Earth but rejected that offer.
Mr. Armstrong wrote, “Had Adam chosen the tree of life, he would have been brought into direct relationship with God—begotten as God’s own son. Through God’s Spirit joined with his human spirit, he would have had the ability to understand God’s spiritual purposes and knowledge and [been] able to develop the very mind of God. He would have been led by God in building God’s world. Instead, he was led by Satan, and the whole world family, started through Adam, was deceived into building a civilization that became Satan’s world—a world held captive” (op. cit.).
God also presented us with the free choice to be submissive to His rule—He has sanctified us, preserved us and invited us into His family. He offered us the same thing He presented to Adam: to lead in the building of God’s world. Once we accepted His offer, through the process of repentance and baptism, He gave us access to the incredible power of His Holy Spirit, which enables us to keep His spiritual law. He also taught us that we had chosen to be the slaves of righteousness. He showed us how we ought to be the examples that will show the world it is possible to lead a righteous life, if only we willingly submit to His Holy Spirit.
Today, we are being prepared to build and lead a better world to come, a society in which the whole creation “shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). True freedom is about voluntarily submitting yourself to the law of God, the way of outgoing concern for others.
God presented us with an example to follow. Jesus Christ was filled with the Holy Spirit from birth, and by this power was able to live a completely sinless life. He acknowledged that it was God’s doing and sought to emulate His Father in every aspect of His life (John 5:19). Christ also instructed us to draw on that same power, by taking on the mind of God and abiding in Him (Philippians 2:5; John 15:5).
Do we look to God for everything? No problem is too big for Him to handle. If we let the mind of Christ live in us, we will look to the Father to supply us with the power we need in everything, just as Jesus Christ did.
Christ humbled Himself voluntarily and took on the form of a servant, or slave. He was obedient to God and God’s law in everything—even unto death (Philippians 2:7-8). He knew He could bear all things by the power of God in Him.
You too can do all things if you follow that example (Philippians 4:11). Think on the awesome opportunity God’s people have to show all mankind the power of God’s Holy Spirit as it works in their lives.
Let’s not oppose ourselves or look back on our former lives with longing, succumbing to the brainwashing of Satan, who calls his yoke of bondage freedom. Instead, let’s value the gift of God’s Spirit by voluntarily coming under the authority of God—the only way to true, lasting freedom.