Christ our Freedom

In 1 Corinthians 1:17-31 Paul is showing how the cross of Christ challenges the reining cultural values of wisdom (especially for the Greeks) and power (especially for the Jews). What if Paul wrote this to an increasing post-Christian, postmodern culture? Modern man cried out for autonomy. Postmodern man continues this in the name of freedom, trying to off even the "chains" of modern metanarratives and authority. Postmoderns search for personal freedom and fulfillment, wanting to define life for themselves. How does the Bible step into their world?

The green text is where I have changed 1 Cor. 1:17-31, otherwise it is word for word.

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For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with great efforts of human competence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

For the message of the cross is constraining and limiting to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the liberty of God. For it is written:

“Through your own fault you will lose the inheritance I gave you. I will enslave you to your enemies… for you have kindled my anger” (Jer. 15:14).

“So I [the Lord] gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices” (Ps. 81:12).

“Those who make [idols] will be like them, and so will all who trust in them” (Ps. 115:8).

“For everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8:36).

Where is the truly free man? Where is the truly autonomous, independent, self-sufficient? Has not God made slavery the freedom of the world? For since… the world through its freedom did not know him, God was pleased through cruciform and costly preaching to save those who believe. Modern men demand autonomy and postmodern persons look for freedom, but we preach Christ crucified: a barrier to modern men and a chain to postmodernists, but to those whom God has called, both modern and postmodern, Christ the freedom of God. For slavery to God is freer than man’s freedom.

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. “At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures” (Titus 3:3). We were “slaves to sin” (Rom. 6:20; John 8:34). God chose the humbled, the enslaved to righteousness (Rom. 6:18) to shame the freed, autonomous, self-sufficient. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him and no decision of our own freedom, no act from our own independence that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us freedom from God (John 8:36)—that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”

 

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Christ is the fulfillment of all that they desire. They desire freedom--but their very search enslaves them. It becomes a ruling desire that they must have for fulfillment and so they become a slave to this value.

 

Christ comes to them and says, "I will set you free from sin. I will set you free from this enslaving search of self-independence and autonomy and freedom. Apart from God, my Father, you will never be free, you will never find what you want. Come to me, and I will set you free. With my righteousness, you can freely come to God (Eph. 3:12; Heb. 4:16), who you were created for, and in whom you will truly find yourself."

 

Yet, the cross is foolishness, weakness, dependence--it is acknowledging we are not free, but dependent on God. It is costly. It is enslaving, too--we become slaves of God, slaves to righteousness. But this is what we were created for, and only in that slavery do we find freedom. For we will worship, we will be enslaved to something. But Christ, as Tim Keller, says, is the only master who forgives, who gives grace, who gives freedom, who gives fulfillment.

 

But we have to bow our knee. So postmoderns cry out, "Intolerant! Narrow-minded! It is not how I want to define my life in my freedom. Giving up my freedom to become a slave, to find freedom on God's terms, is not my idea of freedom." 

 

But Christ still cries out, "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." This is the GOSPEL for many today.

 

But Christ is not limited to the power of God, the wisdom of God, the freedom of God. He is the power of God for the business men, the honor of God to the shamed, the acceptance of God to the people-pleasers, the security of God to the fearful.... Whatever reigning value, driving desire we are enslaved to, Christ is the answer.

 

May we be faithful in preaching the Gospel to all around us!

 

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).

“He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.’” (Matthew 5:34).

“But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life” (Rom. 6:22). 

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17).

“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not yourselves be burdened again by the burden of slavery” (Gal. 5:1).

See also 1 Peter 2:16; 2 Peter 2:19; James 1:25, 2:12; Ephesians 3:12