Freedom
For freedom Christ has set us free.
We celebrated Independence Day in the United States this week. Independence Day commemorates the declaration of independence from tyrannical British colonial rule by the Second Continental Congress in 1776. The Revolutionary War had already started. The colonists were in revolt over British oppression, but public sentiment was still divided. During this time, Thomas Paine’s writings had a significant impact on shaping public support for independence from Great Britain.
In The American Crisis, Paine made an apt analogy between fighting worldly tyranny and fighting spiritual tyranny: These are the times that try men’s souls. . . . Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.1
In the spiritual life, mankind is likewise subject to the tyranny of the devil. Original sin entered the world through the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve. Sin imposed spiritual slavery upon mankind and the devil became the “ruler of this world.”2 As a consequence, “the life of man upon earth is a warfare.”3 “Though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war.”4 “We are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”5
In the fullness of time, however, God the Father sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem mankind. Jesus came to cast out the “ruler of this world” and to destroy the works of the devil.6 During his public ministry, “He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil.”7 Ultimately, Jesus went to the cross to redeem mankind from slavery to sin. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”8 Indeed, through Jesus Christ we are “no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir.”9
To be a son and an heir of the living God is true freedom. The authentic vocation of human freedom is to choose to become a disciple of Jesus Christ.10 “There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to ‘the slavery of sin.’”11 St. Paul thus exhorts us not to turn away from our freedom in Christ by sin: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”12
True spiritual freedom is also living life in the Holy Spirit. “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”13 “By the working of grace the Holy Spirit educates us in spiritual freedom in order to make us free collaborators in his work in the Church and in the world.”14 “By joyfully fulfilling the Father’s will in every circumstance of life, after Christ’s example and in the power of Spirit, the Christian advances on the path of authentic freedom and looks with hope to the time when he will enter into the ‘full life’ of the heavenly homeland.”15
Obtaining this level of spiritual freedom comes at a cost. The spiritual life is a life-long process of purification and conversion. We must go through the dark night of the senses and the dark night of the soul. This process of purification, conversion, spiritual healing and deliverance allows us to truly live life in the Holy Spirit. At the highest level, “the one who enjoys the anointed power of the Holy Spirit is the one who in the language of the Scripture has put on Christ.”16 Having fully put on Christ, we can truly say along with Jesus, “the prince of this world cometh, and in me he hath not any thing.”17
Thomas Paine indeed captured a spiritual truth when he wrote, “the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” As we go through the process of putting on Christ, the Holy Spirit will animate our soul and our life. We will advance on the path of spiritual freedom. The spiritual battles along the way will not be easy, but the triumph will be eternal life with the Lord Jesus. How glorious a triumph it will be!
My prayer for you today is that the Lord would grant you courage in your spiritual warfare and pursuit of holiness, that you would be transformed by the renewing of your mind in Christ, and that you would be healed and delivered from every influence of the devil. May God grant you spiritual freedom in Jesus’ Name! Amen.
Eric A. Welter is an employment lawyer and trial attorney with a long-time devotion to intercessory prayer. He is a Catholic Christian who has been involved with intercessory and healing prayer ministry for over twenty years. The Abound in Hope Ministry website is https://www.aboundinhope.org/ministry.
Eric’s books on prayer are available in paperback or e-book format on amazon.com.
Effective Intercession for Our Loved Ones: Power Tools for Prayer.
(Available on amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.)
Effective Intercession for Ourselves: “Power Tools” for Prayer (Part Two). (Available on amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.)
Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, December 23, 1776.
See John 12:31. Bible references are to the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, unless otherwise indicated.
John Paul II, General Audience, Wednesday 2 September 1998.
Catechism of the Catholic Church section 1733 (citing Romans 6:17).
Catechism of the Catholic Church section 1742.
John Paul II, General Audience, Wednesday 2 September 1998.
Rev. Bro. Augustine Momoh, OP, The Anointing Power, Forward by Most Rev. Ayo-Maria Atoyebi, OP, at x (Wellness for Humanity Ministry) (2d Ed. 2018). See Romans 13:14.