'I Was Free Born'

And they gave him audience unto this word, and then lifted up their voices, and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live. And as they cried out, and cast off their clothes, and threw dust into the air, The chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle, and bade that he should be examined by scourging; that he might know wherefore they cried so against him. And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned? When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman. Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born. - Acts 22:22-28

    'And they gave him audience unto this word.' Paul had been telling the Jews how God had saved him by his free grace and sovereign mercy in Christ. They listened with relative patience until he told them how God, in his glorious sovereignty, had rejected Israel as a nation and sent the gospel to his elect among the Gentiles (22:17-21). When they heard that God has mercy on whom he will, without regard to human merit, religious rearing, family descent, or racial heritage, they were enraged. Fallen men are always angered by the declaration of God's sovereignty in the exercise of his grace (Luke 4:25-29). Hearing that God had rejected them and had chosen to save worthless Gentiles, these self-righteous Jews were filled with rage. They began to act like wild beasts. They cried out, 'Away with such a fellow from the earth: for it is not fit that he should live.' As they screamed for Paul's blood, they tore off their clothes, preparing to stone him to death, and threw dust into the air. Their hatred of God's sovereign character nearly drove them insane. They could not get their hands around God's throat, so they tried to kill Paul.

    Then the chief captain commanded one of his soldiers to bring Paul into the castle to beat a confession out of him (22:24). As they were preparing to do so, Paul asked, 'Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?' (22:25). Of course it was not. The thought of beating a Roman citizen was horrifying to the soldier. He ran to tell his commanding officer, 'You ordered us to beat a Roman citizen.' That scared the chief captain. He came to Paul and asked, 'Art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born' (22:27-28). He was born in Tarsus, a free city, which had been declared free by Mark Antony, long before Paul was born.

    For the purpose of our study of this passage, I take these words as coming, not from the mouth of Saul of Tarsus, a citizen of Rome, but from the mouth of Paul the believer, a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem. What Paul here says of himself, every true believer may joyfully declare concerning him or herself: 'I was free born.' We are citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Heaven, has declared that city to be free by the power of his blood. And he did it long before we were born. Being free-born citizens of the kingdom of heaven, we shall never be brought into bondage (Gal. 5:1). Four things are clearly revealed in the New Testament about this spiritual freedom that need to be understood by every child of God.

    1. All men and women by nature are in bondage

    Man loves to boast of freedom, independence and liberty. But all men are, in a spiritual sense, abject slaves by nature. All are in bondage to sin (Rom. 6:20), the servants of 'the lusts of the flesh' (Eph. 2:3). Those who serve their own passions are slaves to the worst possible despot. Yet, by nature, we are all ruled by the evil passions of our own depraved hearts. Having broken God's law, all are in bondage to the law and under the curse of the law (Gal. 3:10), under the sentence of death (Rom. 6:23). To one degree or another, all of us are natural slaves to other men, craving their approval, acceptance and applause. And all men and women are by nature slaves to religious tradition, custom and superstition. The maxim of the humanist is true: 'Man believes what he is raised to believe.' Religion is a cultural thing. It is passed on from father to son, generation after generation. This natural, cultural, environmental religion brings people into terrible bondage. The Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to set the captive free, to open the doors of the prison, break the iron chains and steel fetters and bring his people into freedom and liberty, even 'the glorious liberty of the children of God' (Isa. 61:1; Luke 4:16-20; Rom. 8:21).

    2. Christ alone makes sinners free

    No one ever comes to enjoy true liberty before God and in his own conscience, except by the blood, righteousness and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. But we must beware of false liberty. Every good thing is imitated by Satan, and he has deceived many with a false liberty. Some are so naive that they imagine a mere profession of faith is liberty. Others presume they have found liberty when they have mended their lives by self-righteous reformation, ceasing from certain evil habits of outward behaviour. Some even substitute a spirit of licentiousness in the name of grace for spiritual freedom. But neither legalism nor antinomianism nor empty religious profession can bring true liberty. Only Christ, the Son of God, can make sinners free (John 8:36). He purchased liberty for God's elect by his sin-atoning death as our substitute (Gal. 3:13). He proclaims liberty to sinners through the preaching of the gospel (Isa. 61:1-3). And he sets his people free by the power of his sovereign grace through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, who causes awakened sinners to know him who is the truth (John 8:32).

    3. All who are born of God are born free, born into freedom (Gal. 4:1-7)

    The moment a person is born again he, or she, is a child of God, and is free in Christ. The moment a sinner believes on the Lord Jesus Christ he begins to enjoy a real and lasting freedom in his soul. As the believer grows and matures, he enjoys his liberty more freely and appreciates it better. But the liberty is his as soon as he trusts Christ.

    In Christ, we are free from sin, Satan and the law. Christ has freed us from the guilt, condemnation and dominion of sin (Heb. 9:14; Rom. 8:1; Eph. 2:1-5; Rom. 6:11-18). Our Saviour has delivered us from the power and tyranny of Satan, too. By nature, Satan holds a usurped dominion over all men, blinding them, deceiving them and leading them into captivity at his will. In salvation, Christ dethrones the devil by the power of his Spirit. He enters the hearts of his elect, binds the strong man and takes possession of his house (Luke 11:21-22). And the Son of God has freed his people from the Mosaic law (Rom. 5:20-21; 6:15; 7:4; 8:1-2; 10:4). The New Testament never addresses God's saints as people under the law, but always as people free from the law: free from the statutes of Old Testament judicial law, free from the ceremonies of the law, free from the bondage of the moral law. Believers in Christ have no covenant with the law, no condemnation by the law, no constraint from the law and no obligation to the law. Christ satisfied all things in the law for us. The lives of God's saints are not governed by the rules and regulations of the law, but by love and faith in Christ and the glory of God (1John 3:23; 2 Cor. 5:14; 1 Cor. 10:31).

    However, according to the New Testament, our freedom in Christ extends far beyond these matters of doctrine, and reaches to the common affairs of everyday life. Faith in Christ gives us freedom from all the customs, traditions and superstitions of human religion. We are not to be the servants of self-righteous, religious traditions and customs. We are duty-bound to repudiate them (Matt. 15:1-9; Col. 2:6-8,16-17,20-23). Neither the church of God nor gospel preachers have any right to develop laws and rules of conduct for God's people. To do so is to add to the Word of God.

    In Christ we are free to use every creature of God for food, happiness, satisfaction and comfort as we seek to serve him in this world. Old Testament Levitical law made the use of some things unlawful, but in this gospel age, for the believer, there is nothing common or unclean (Acts 10:14-15; Rom.14:14; 1Tim.4:1-4). Use all things in moderation. Carefully avoid offending a weaker brother. Make your use of all things subservient to the glory of God and the welfare of his church. But understand that you are free to use God's creation as his child (Rom. 14:2-3,13-15,20-23; 1 Cor. 8:9-13).

    Christ has given us the freedom to worship God (Eph. 2:18;Heb. 4:16): freedom to call upon God in prayer, freedom to observe the ordinances of his house and freedom to serve him.

    Furthermore, being born of God, in Christ, believers are made free from the fear of death (Heb. 2:14-15). Since they are justified by his grace, redeemed by his blood, robed in his righteousness and born of his Spirit, the second death has no power over God's elect (Rev. 20:6; John 5:25).

    4. There is a glorious liberty yet to be revealed (Rom. 8:21-23)

    In heaven we shall be totally free from sin and everything sinful. But when Christ comes and makes all things new, in our resurrected, glorified bodies, in immortality and glory, we shall be completely freed from all the consequences of sin. That will be 'the glorious liberty of the sons of God'!