“The Glorious Liberty Of The
Children Of God”
Romans 8:21
The text which heads this page speaks of both bondage and liberty, “the bondage of corruption and the glorious liberty of the children of God”. “The bondage of corruption” is that bondage into which sin has brought us. It is the bondage of nature, the bondage which makes us all miserable slaves and prisoners. This bondage of corruption is the forerunner of the everlasting torments of hell’s bondage. Unless God intervenes, it will bring us and our children into eternal misery at last. All who live in the dungeon of sensuality and corruption, as the willing bond slaves of sin, dragged from place to place by the chains of envy, malice, anger, and wrath shall spend eternity in the darkness and corruption of hell under the wrath of God, unless the Son of God makes them free. “The bondage of corruption” holds multitudes in abject servitude to fashion, style, and social approval. It makes us all, by nature, slaves to our own corrupt passions; and that man who is a slave to his own passions is a slave to the worst possible despot. Physical slavery is the most immoral, debasing abuse of humanity imaginable. However, this “bondage of corruption” is indescribably worse. This is the bondage not of our bodies, but of our hearts, our minds, our souls! This satanic “bondage of corruption” manifest itself in many ways. We see it in the bondage of men to sin, to a craving for acceptance with and the approval of others, to the law of God, and to the traditions and customs of human religion.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God came into this world to deliver God’s elect from “the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God”. He came to set the captive free, to open the doors of the prison which held his people in captivity, to break the oppressive chains and shackles which held us captives to sin and Satan. Christ is the great liberator of men’s souls. He came to set his people free.
Salvation is the deliverance of chosen,
redeemed sinners by the grace and power of God
“into the glorious liberty of the children of God”. I want you who
believe to know and enjoy “the glorious
liberty of the children of God”. I realize that this is a very
controversial subject. But it is controversial only because of the prevailing
errors of ascetic, legal religion which have become so universally accepted
that all men call liberty licentiousness and bondage godliness. All human
religion is bondage, operates upon principles of bondage, and seeks to keep
people in bondage. I want every child of God to know that since Christ has made
us free, it is our privilege and responsibility both to stand fast in the
liberty of his grace, refusing to be brought again under the yoke of legal
bondage, and to use the liberty he has given us for the glory of his name and
the good of his people. "Stand fast
therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not
entangled again with the yoke of bondage." We must not allow those who
constantly spy out our liberty in Christ to bring us into bondage. Those
pretentiously righteous men, those promoters of religious bondage, are really
promoters of corruption. “If ye be led of
the Spirit, ye are not under the law.” Let
no man, therefore, put you under the law.