What Freedom Is and Isn't
Why living within God's design is more fulfilling than creating our own vision of right and wrong
In my last article, we explored the Gospel’s supremacy over moralism.
In this article, we will focus on the Gospel’s supremacy over the path of moral autonomy. We will explore the worthiness and beauty of God’s law, which helps us embrace our true design. God gives us laws so that we, as bearers of His image, can flourish and be made whole.
Put succinctly, true happiness can only be found by living in accord with our Creator’s design.
What is Sin?
When we think that sin is merely breaking rules, it reveals that our view of sin is hollow. Breaking rules is just a symptom of a deeper issue. At its core, sin is running from God as we abandon our true home.
The parable of the lost sons in Luke 15:11-32 shows that there is more than one way to run from God. The moralist (represented by the elder brother) runs from God by keeping all the rules for self-serving reasons. He complies dutifully with his father’s house rules but without joy, treating “obedience” as a means to an end versus an end in itself and its own reward. His dutiful living, he believes, will place God in his debt and make him feel superior to his peers.
The immoralist (represented by the younger brother) runs from God by resisting His rules. He demands control over his own life, valuing independence and personal autonomy above all. The immoralist believes that life divorced from God’s house, God’s rules, and God’s protective covering is the key to happiness and fulfillment.
This is the essence of sin—deciding that life would be better if God were dead to us. Both brothers operate from this sinister place, one covertly and the other overtly. This grieves our Father’s heart.
Sin represents a loss of perspective that is forgetful of God’s love and generosity. It denies the beauty and freedom of living inside God’s home and by God’s design. God’s commands, including their various restrictions (“You shall have no other gods before me…honor the Sabbath…You shall not murder, steal, bear false witness, covet,” etc.), are given not to oppress us but to liberate us. They provide the kind of freedom we have always wanted but never knew was possible.
What is Real Freedom?
The immoralist believes that freedom is getting to do whatever he wants. But freedom in the Gospel is when we discover that in Christ, we get to do whatever God wants.
The Gospel says that true freedom can only be found within healthy, life-giving boundaries that honor human design. In a way, we are all like a fish. For a fish to flourish, its life must be limited to the habitat of water. As soon as we take a fish out of the water, it becomes restless, breathless, and lifeless. Unless it is placed back into its natural habitat, the exiled fish will suffocate and die.
Biblically, the only “habitat” in which human flourishing is possible is within the moral boundaries that the Bible establishes (Psalm 19). God’s commands are the pathway to reaching our human potential. Living by any other code, creed, or philosophy can only lead to a second-rate life marked by insecurity, anxiety, discontent, and narcissism.
C.S. Lewis tells it true for us all:
"It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
Lewis speaks to the younger brother in us all. He addresses the part of us that embraces a false view of freedom—the part that wants the benefits of God’s blessings without His boundaries. Another word for this is entitlement. The entitled parts of us are like fish foolishly exploring life on land instead of swimming free in the waters for which we were created.
Beneath All Sin is a Condition of Lostness
It does not take long for the morally autonomous “prodigal” son in Luke 15:11-32 to realize that life apart from his father will wreck him (vv. 14-17). When his resources are depleted, his friends and even the prostitutes abandon him. Alone, he gets a job feeding pigs, considered an unclean and vile animal in this young man’s time and culture—a stark contrast to the life he once knew in his father’s palace—and ends up further belittling himself by eating the pig slop.
Finally, the young man realizes that he is utterly lost without his father. Even his large inheritance becomes sour when he attempts to enjoy it outside the context of his father’s love, care, and boundaries.
The younger brother’s experience reflects Blaise Pascal’s wisdom: there is a God-shaped vacuum in the human heart. Unless this vacuum is filled with God, we will be left empty, bereft, dissatisfied, lonely, and sad.
Sin feels good initially but eventually reduces and dehumanizes us. It works like a progressive addiction. An experienced addict might say that cocaine is a great high for a while, but it always destroys you eventually.
Sin is like salt water; in an effort to quench your thirst, you become even more thirsty.
Jesus Loves Finding Lost People
The beauty of the Gospel is that Jesus always stands ready to welcome us home when we turn away from our foolish choices and self-destructive patterns. To “come to our senses” is what the Bible calls repentance. To repent is to reject false ways of thinking and embrace God’s wisdom, even when it doesn’t make sense to us.
Obeying God’s commands might feel like running away from freedom, but it is actually running toward it. We become like the fish placed back into the water.
Religious moralists (like the elder brother) find freedom when they repent of their corrupted forms of righteousness. They “come to their senses” when they see the futility of depending on their own moral record for an identity—when they recognize that being good will never be good enough. Only Jesus can bridge the gap between our imperfect lack and God’s perfect abundance.
Irreligious immoralists find freedom when they repent of their sins. They “come to their senses” when they see the futility of searching for freedom outside of God’s design. An immoralist finds true freedom while living inside God’s commands.
Moralism and Immoralism: Flip Sides of the Same Coin
Moralism and immoralism are both vain attempts to make meaning out of our lives apart from God and His grace. Both are attempts to gain control over our unmanageable lives. Thankfully, God, like the father in Luke 15:11-32, opens His arms to both the moralist and the immoralist in us all. He gladly receives us when we come to our senses and sprint home to Him.
The father in Luke 15:11-32 welcomes his runaway son home. He not only allows his son back into the home but lavishes him with love, throwing a large party for him (vv. 22-24, 32). Similarly, our God says, “Come back home,” and “Come and dance with me.” Billy Joel might sing, “I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints. The sinners are much more fun.” But once we internalize the Father’s love for us when we are at our best as well when we are at our worst, we understand that the real dance is among the saints—those who have been loved so fully that the only option is to run home to the Father and celebrate.
The posture of the father toward his son mirrors God’s posture toward us. For the younger brother to be welcomed home, the elder brother must make a sacrifice. The younger brother has squandered his inheritance, so the only way for him to receive anything is for his welcome home party to be funded by his elder brother’s future inheritance.
The elder brother in Luke 15 is ashamed of his runaway sibling, but Hebrews 2:11-12 tells us that Jesus, our true “elder brother,” is not ashamed to call us his brothers and sisters. On the cross, He freely donated His entire inheritance to pay for the welcome party in heaven that awaits every lost son and daughter who comes home (Luke 15:7).
The Gospel is better than moralism because it reminds us that God’s commands are not burdensome, but are our path to joy and flourishing.
The Gospel is better than immoralism because it offers true, fish-in-water freedom within God’s loving boundaries. It calls us to come home and to the dance floor with the Father, who loves us deeply and welcomes us with open arms.
What can be better than this?
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An amazing post today. And a really good tool I can use. Thank you.
A very interesting post Scott, thanks for elaborating on the role of both the younger and elder brothers in this story.
You talk about the need to obey God's commandments and his way of life, as it is the way of joy and peace and happiness. The younger brother went in search of that happiness.
Yet God has many occasions within his Law for rejoicing before him at his Annual Festivals that were to remind Israel of the great events in history when God delivered them and provided for them.
The younger brother wanted to have this kind of party all the time, and have adultery as well.
The elder brother said that the Father had never given him a fatted calf to enjoy, but this is not true as he would have gone to the festivals three times a year to celebrate before God and rejoice with other from all over Israel. This shows his disrespect for what God and his Father had given him.
Taking the Festivals of God into the equation gives a greater dimension to the issue of moralism.