The Gift of Freedom: Liberation from Sin’s Tyranny

If you’d like a shorter, pocket-sized version of this devotional series, I created a 7-day “Gifts of Jesus” guide that offers quick daily Scripture, reflection, and prayer prompts. It pairs beautifully with what you’re about to read – Day 6 “The Gift of Freedom.”

Born in Chains

The concept of freeman and slave was very common in Paul’s day, just as it is today. Ancient Rome was built on slavery. Approximately one-third of the population lived in bondage—owned by others, stripped of autonomy, compelled to obey their masters. Everyone understood what it meant to be enslaved. It was visible, tangible, undeniable.

But what most don’t understand is that all of us are born as slaves to sin. This slavery isn’t physical—it’s far worse. We are in bondage to our sinful nature, desires, and natural disobedient tendencies (Romans 6:16-17). Before Christ, you weren’t free deciding whether or not to sin. You were a slave to sin, unable to do anything but rebel against God.

This offends our modern sensibilities. We like to think of ourselves as autonomous, self-determined, free to choose our own path. But Scripture tells a different story. You were dead in your trespasses and sins, following the course of this world, walking according to the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:1-2). Dead people don’t make free choices. Slaves don’t determine their own destiny. You were in bondage—real, absolute, inescapable bondage—and you didn’t even realize it.

The slavery was so complete that you loved your chains. You didn’t want to be free because sin had so corrupted your nature that you actually preferred darkness to light (John 3:19). Like a slave born into captivity who has never known anything else, you thought your bondage was freedom. You called your rebellion “choice” and your slavery “autonomy.” But you were in chains nonetheless.

The Price of Liberation

But when Jesus defeated sin and death on the cross, He created the means to liberate us from our bondage. The cross wasn’t just about forgiveness—though that alone would be glorious. The cross was about breaking the power of sin and death that held humanity captive (Hebrews 2:14-15).

Jesus entered your slavery voluntarily. He who was perfectly free became a servant, taking the form of a bondservant to redeem those in bondage (Philippians 2:7). He lived under the law you broke. He experienced the temptations you surrendered to—but without sin. And then He went to the cross as your substitute, taking the full weight of your slavery upon Himself.

Through Christ’s work, He has loosed us from our shackles, paid the price and bought our freedom, and gave us a new status in God, a new identity never to be enslaved again. This is redemption in its most literal sense—buying back a slave to set them free. Christ paid the ransom price with His own blood, purchasing you out of slavery and into freedom (1 Peter 1:18-19).

The price was astronomical. Your gift of freedom cost God His Son. It cost Jesus His life. And it proves definitively that you cannot free yourself. If you could have escaped your bondage through willpower, religion, or moral improvement, the cross would have been unnecessary. But sin’s power was too great, the chains too strong, the debt too high. Only God could break what bound you.

Freedom From What?

Christ’s liberating work has two dimensions—freedom from and freedom for. First, understand what you’ve been freed from:

Free from the tyranny of sin. Sin no longer has dominion over you (Romans 6:14). You’re no longer compelled to obey its lusts. You’re no longer powerless in its grip. Sin still tempts you, still entices you, still wages war against you—but it doesn’t own you anymore. You’ve been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light (Colossians 1:13).

Free from the bondage of fruitless legalisms which so many put themselves under as a personal effort to become “good enough” for God. This is the particular danger Paul addresses in Galatians. You’ve been freed from slavery to sin, but you’re equally freed from slavery to religious performance. You don’t have to earn God’s acceptance through rule-keeping. You don’t have to maintain your salvation through perfect obedience. You don’t have to live in fear that one mistake will cost you everything.

The legalist and the libertine are both in bondage—one to rules, one to lusts. But Christ has freed you from both. You’re not under law, trying to earn your way to God. And you’re not lawless, doing whatever feels good. You’re free to obey God from love rather than fear, to pursue holiness as an expression of your new nature rather than a desperate attempt to create one.

Free from death’s ultimate claim. Sin and death no longer have control over us because Jesus has won the victory and earned our freedom (1 Corinthians 15:55-57). Death is still the last enemy, and you’ll still experience physical death unless Christ returns first. But death is defanged. It’s no longer the terrifying doorway to judgment but the portal to glory. You’re free from its eternal power.

Freedom For What?

Now let’s shift our focus to what you’ve been freed for and our new purpose. You’ve been freed from sin to become a slave to righteousness (Romans 6:18). That might sound like trading one slavery for another, but it’s completely different.

Slavery to sin meant being compelled to do what you didn’t truly want to do, what destroyed you, what separated you from God. But slavery to righteousness means being empowered to do what you were created for, what fulfills your deepest longings, what brings you into communion with your Creator.

While we are on this earth, we still have our sin nature and will continue to fall short until we go to Heaven and are fully glorified. Don’t misunderstand—freedom doesn’t mean sinless perfection in this life. You still battle indwelling sin. You still stumble and fall. You still experience the frustration Paul describes: “The good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice” (Romans 7:19).

However, we have the indwelling Spirit to help us as we strive to put off our old ways and instead live according to our new liberated identity in Christ (Romans 8:13). The Holy Spirit is the power behind your gift of freedom. He convicts you of sin, empowers you to resist temptation, transforms your desires, and progressively conforms you to Christ’s image. Your part is to cooperate with what He’s doing—to put to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit’s power.

This is the daily battle of Christian freedom: striving to live according to who you now are in Christ rather than who you used to be in Adam. It’s not earning your freedom—Christ already accomplished that. It’s living in the freedom you’ve been given, refusing to return to the old slavery, standing fast in the liberty Christ purchased for you.

Stand Fast in the Gift of Freedom

Paul’s command is urgent: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” This suggests real danger. You can be free and yet live as if you’re still enslaved. You can be liberated but voluntarily put the chains back on.

Don’t return to slavery of sin—as if Christ’s victory were insufficient. Don’t return to slavery of legalism—as if Christ’s work needed your supplement. Stand in the freedom Christ won for you. Fight to maintain it. Refuse to let anyone—including yourself—put you back in bondage.

Your freedom was too costly to waste on slavery. Christ died to liberate you. Live like it.

Reflection Questions

1. In what areas of your life are you still living as if you’re enslaved to sin, even though Christ has broken its power over you?
2. Have you put yourself under bondage to religious performance, trying to become “good enough” for God through rule-keeping? How does Christ’s completed work free you from this?
3. How would your daily battles with temptation change if you truly believed sin no longer has dominion over you—that you’re free to obey God?
4. What specific ways can you “stand fast” in your freedom this week, refusing to be entangled again in slavery to sin or legalism?

Prayer

Consider the specific areas where you’re living in bondage rather than freedom—whether slavery to sin or slavery to religious performance. Thank Christ for paying the price to liberate you. Ask the Holy Spirit to empower you to live according to your new identity as a freed slave of righteousness.

If this devotional on the gift of freedom encouraged you and you’d like to go deeper, consider exploring “what comes next” in your daily walk with Christ – growing and producing the Fruit of the Spirit ->