Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

2 Cor. 3:17

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

John 8:36

And by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses. 

Acts 13:39

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

Rom. 6:22

What does freedom in Christ mean? This is a question I have often pondered over my years as a Christian. To be honest, I’ve never understood the nuances of this idea, although I have some thoughts about it.

The concept of freedom in Christ stands in direct contrast to what many non-Christians believe that life in Christ is all about. 

A common belief is that being a Christian represents anything but freedom, and is instead built around a life of “Don’t do this” and “Don’t do that.” 

For many people, the idea of following Christ is about limiting what you can do and denying yourself all the fun things that life has to offer.

However, God tells us something different in His Word. All the verses above speak of the freedom we have as believers in Christ.

But what exactly is this freedom FROM or freedom TO?

First of all, as believers in Christ one of the most important freedoms we have is freedom from guilt due to our sins.

Christ died and was resurrected to pay the penalty for all our sins, both past and future. If you’ve accepted Jesus into your life, you don’t have any sin that has not been forgiven.

While we may still have to deal with the repercussions of our sins on this fallen earth, we’re no longer burdened with the guilt of our sin, as we’ve been made righteous in God’s sight by the blood of Jesus.

Our freedom in Christ means that we’re innocent and guilt-free.

Because of Jesus’s atoning death, which fulfilled the Old Testament law, we no longer have to make sacrifices to God to wash us clean of sin. Jesus did that once and for all. 

As believers in Christ, God sees us as new creations, clean and justified forever. That should lift our burdens and make our hearts feel lighter.

A second important aspect of our freedom in Christ is that we are free from the chains that sin shackles us with. Repeated sin drags us down and leaves us with an inferior quality of life. 

Jesus said,

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

John 10:10b

It is difficult to live joyous, peaceful lives when we have sin hanging over us.

With Jesus as our Savior, we should be living a better, more fulfilling life that we were before we accepted Him into our life. 

We are free to live our best life, even though we live in a fallen world plagued with sin and evil. 

God wants us to live each day to the fullest, without worry and anxiety over everyday concerns and problems that non-believers focus on (Matt 6:32).

Lastly, I believe that one of the best parts about freedom in Christ is the absence of death and the promise of eternal life that God has made to us as believers.

In one of the most famous verses in the Bible, we read,

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

With Christ as our Savior, we have freedom over death. Once our fleshly bodies die, we’ll be given new spiritual bodies and live with God forever. We’ll never taste death.

That should give each believer something to eagerly look forward to.

This is just a quick summary of some of the important aspects of freedom in Christ. But it should give us hope as we deal with all the challenges this life gives us.