Free!

“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”—Galatians 5:1

Several nights ago, I found myself watching the movie Amistad (1997). The movie is about a group of Africans who were captured by slave traders off the west coast of Africa in 1839. They were put on a ship, both men and women, where they were stripped naked, beaten, tortured, raped, and subjected to some of the most gruesome and horrid conditions known to man. Some of the African men were sold to Spaniards, but others mutinied and killed all of their captors except two. However, not knowing how to sail, nor the direction in which they were headed, they end up off the east coast of America, where they were captured and jailed. A trial ensues to ascertain whether they are in actuality property, or whether they are free citizens who were captured unjustly. Through the entire ordeal, the African men do not know what is going on around them. They were pawns in the American slavery debate raging between the North and the South, victims of the whims of a president who was desperately trying to keep the country from civil war.

The courtroom was tense as the case was decided that the men were indeed free, but then retried because of the political ramifications. Finally, in the midst of the trial, in a foreign land, with a foreign tongue and customs, one of the Africans had learned a few English words and while in chains shouts, “Give us FREE!”

Freedom is something that each one of us takes for granted and fails to realize the importance of until it is taken away. Amistad is a look into the evils of slavery, but it is more than that, it is a picture of our spiritual bondage to sin. The Bible says that each one of us, whether we like it or not, is in bondage to sin (Romans 6:16).

After watching Amistad, I cannot even begin to imagine the terrors that haunted the African captives. Seized, separated from family and friends, beaten, stripped, and forced to watch your friends and family be humiliated and tortured on a daily basis is more than I can stomach. However, that is what we are when we sin. Sin is deceptive and seeks to keep us in chains and bondage. It lies to us in order that we might not fight back, in order that we might not mutiny, but our spirit cries within us, “Give us free!” Each of us, in our heart of hearts, longs for freedom from the sin that stands watch over us, that humiliates us, that forces us to groan under its burden. But, we cannot shake that burden, we cannot win the fight against it, we try and stand, but we are knocked down by the slave-master’s whip. It was not until Christ stepped in and took that whip for us that we were able to see the dawn of freedom. It was not until Christ Jesus went to the cross and was crucified that we are able to feel the warmth of freedom’s Son. Christ broke the slave-driver’s whip by taking it for us, and now, when we trust in Him and rest in His promises, do we realize that we are free. He was crucified on our behalf that we might walk in freedom. That’s what the verse for today means: we are free!!! He has given us FREE! We are free from the power and bondage of sin, and although we still possess our sinful nature, we do not have to submit to Satan’s orders any longer, just as a former slave might see his former master and choose not to do what he says. He can ignore it. Why? Because he has been set free!

Dear brother or sister in Christ, let us walk boldly in freedom’s Son, forsaking the sin slave-master’s whip and showing others how they might be free from sin’s dark prison. Amen!