“For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.” – Galatians 5:13-15
In one of Martin Luther’s many works on justification through faith alone by grace alone in Christ alone, he penned the following statement: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” This statement reflects the same tension that is present in the verses above: namely, as Christians, are we free or are we servants/slaves? The answer is that we are both at the same time.
In one sense a Christian is the freest person in the world, for in Christ we have been set free from the master of sin that used to enslave us. This master has been defeated by The Master, thus setting us free from our old master. And so we are free from sin! And yet we must realize that we now serve a new master, one who exhorts us not to use our newfound freedom for ourselves but rather to use it to serve others. Thus, we are those who, by the power of the Spirit, choose to use our new freedom from sin to serve others.
The Christian life is a life of gratitude to Christ for our freedom from sin, and this same gratitude is meant to be our fuel for service toward others. Rather than bite and devour and destroy one another, may we serve one another freely and lovingly, remembering that Christ himself has served us through his death and resurrection.