Let Freedom Ring

(written from Sinclair Ferguson's Children of the Living God for a class)

Reading Ferguson's chapter on "Family Freedom" I couldn't help but to think of what it would have been like for Mephiboseth, or for a slave, to be truly adopted into the family of another. What would it be like to be one day treated as a cripple and outcast, or one enslaved without basic human rights and freedom, and then in the course of a day for everything to be changed? Having a freedom, a dignity, a worth imparted to you by another, another who loves you dearly and works for your complete restoration with him and others. Mind blowing.

I came to the Ferguson’s book thinking both about the plural you in Scripture, or the body of Christ, and also the film, “The Help” which I recently saw. This film depicts the horrible reality of the segregation of African-Americans in the 1960s in the US, after they had “technically” gained freedom from the former ways of slavery. The film vividly shows that this was unfortunately not the case. They were told they were free, but then quickly told their place, their dignity trampled upon, and then treated as if they weren’t even fully human. Atrocities. Grievous sins committed. Things not only done by those far off from Christ but those who claimed to be in Christ and even against their brothers and sisters also in Christ. It is no small thing. It is not so far in the past, either.

Ferguson reminds us the rich freedom we have in Christ. He talks about this freedom as one that brings change, peace, and freedom from anxiety, from traditions of men, and from Satan’s chains and bond over us, to name a few. This is what the Scriptures proclaim clearly again and again. Ferguson also points out that this is not merely a change in status nor an ethereal freedom. We are not merely freed from going to hell when we die; we are now free to live in righteousness, righteousness not just as individuals but as the whole body of Christ, the church. We are not mere servants of God; we are his full-fledged children, all of us - sons and daughters of God. We all got here the same way; we’ve all been adopted in. The dividing wall between Jew and Gentile has been abolished.

And yet I’m disturbed as I read Ferguson by the discrepancy. We are not to use our freedom for selfish ambition; we are no longer to live by the insidious sin that we are slaves of the former master. We are not to turn a blind eye to our brother. We are not to merely take the easy road. We are to love and act as ambassadors for our Father in the world. Yet even in present day America, even in our own denomination, there is great rift, which remains in the body of Christ.

How then shall we live? If we are truly free in Christ, how should this affect the way we live with one another? How should this affect how we defend and fight for the rights of our brothers and sisters in Christ? How should we worship? Are we to just wait for “them,” whomever “they” are, to make the first move and to move out of their comfort zone to come to our camp? Ferguson likens the Christian life to the year of Jubilee, or the year of the Lord's favor. Isn’t it time that we work true unity and as Martin Luther King, Jr., stated, “let freedom ring”?