(This is an add-on to the last post, "What Is Free Will?")
If we have been "set free" in Christ, the manner in which we experience that freedom is in the new birth. But it isn't like Jesus simply opens the door to a new life, and "Voila!" you are "set free." The picture of our freedom is more profound than that.
God's plan for our freedom is not as simple as changing our environment (i.e. our perspective, circumstances, behavior, etc.). I think that's where the Christian "self-help" movement has gone dangerously wrong.
Unlike a man walking out of the prison doors to a new life of freedom, the picture is more like the man, himself, being changed within the prison walls, then living out that freedom in spite of his environment and in front of the other prisoners.
That's why we often don't feel like we are free when the bible says that we are. Have you ever read verses like, "You have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God," (Romans 6:22) and thought, "I certainly don't feel like I've been 'set free' from sin?"
In my life, I relate more to what Paul says in Romans 7:15-19, "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing."
The bible makes a clear distinction between being led by the "flesh" and being led by the "Spirit," and as believers, while we live, we can actually be led by both. Thank God He's the source of my righteousness, because on my own, I have no chance for freedom from sin.
"I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey My rules." (Ezekiel 36:25-27)
Notice that it is God who sprinkles clean water on us to cleanse our unrighteousness, it's God who removes our heart of stone and gives us a new heart of flesh, it's God who puts His Spirit within us, and it's that Spirit who causes us to walk and obey. It's God who rebirths us...it's God who sets us free.
So, there is no room to receive credit and glory for our own salvation. That belongs to God alone. In fact, if freedom were somehow possible without God, wouldn't that merely be considered a prison break? We aren't simply fugitives from unrighteousness. We have been set free and given a new life under grace.
