Pastor Note #139: Learning to Live without Chains in Christ’s Victory

Here’s a truth that is very dear to me.  When Jesus went to the cross, he did not merely take my guilt with him.  He took my sin.  He died not merely to gain forgiveness for me but to set me free from the power of sin.  In his resurrection from death, he demonstrated not merely that he had overcome my guilt and bought for me the verdict of “not guilty,” but also that he had overcome the power and corruption of sin and set me on the path of freedom from my slavery.

I strive to cling to that truth even as the tatters of defeated sin still cling to me (Hebrews 12:1).  Or is it not also the truth that I still cling closely to my sin?  Is it not true that, through years of habit and persistence, I have woven deep into my being all sorts of patterns of sin and deviation from the way of freedom?  Of course, it’s true, true in ways so deep and complex that I cannot really comprehend them, recognize them, or resist them.  The chains of my slavery to my fallenness are strong, tangled, and deep-rooted.

Christ’s death and resurrection have set me free, but even decades after receiving the gift of faith, I still don’t really know how to live out that freedom.  I find that I can’t seem to shake off the chains of my sin-sickness, my deeply ingrained habits of living in chains.  The writer of Hebrews is right, of course, sin (not guilt but fallenness) does cling to me.  But isn’t it also true that I still cling to sin?  I am still so habituated to sin that I continue to cling to it like a smoker who longs to quit and yet clings to the cigarette pack.  Every time I think I’ve thrown it away, I find it’s still in my hand.  Every time I throw away my cigarettes, I find a can of snuff that I have secretly slipped into my pocket.  Every time I throw away the snuff, I find a cigar that I have carefully tucked securely behind my ear.

And it’s not just my own slavery.  I live in a world still enslaved to fallenness and sin.  The whole creation around me still groans under the weight of our human sin (Romans 8:22).  Everywhere I turn, I find opportunities and enticements that draw me back to strange, familiar comforts of my old chains.  The well-known chains of my captivity seem somehow so much easier and more natural to me than the new and foreign life of freedom that is mine to have in Jesus.  The “flesh pots” of Egypt call me back (Exodus 16:3).  “Wretched man that I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24)

But do you hear my cry, Jesus?  I know, deep in my bones, I know that I am not meant for a life in chains.  Deep down in my very being, I know that a life of slavery is a life of wretchedness.  I and all of us bearers of your image are made for something more than wretchedness.  Rescue us!  Set us free!

Every day, I find that I need a new rescue.  Every day, I need to learn anew how to live without my chains.  Every day, I have to live into the strangeness of my freedom.  Every day, I need a refreshing of the victory that Jesus has won for me over the power of fallenness, slavery, sin, and death.  Yes, my sin still clings to me, and, truth be told, I still cling to it.  It’s what I know and have known all my life long.  But it isn’t what I’m made for.  I’m made for something new.  And day by day, I’m learning, by the help of the Holy Spirit, to live a new way of life.  “Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:4  We may walk in newness of life, but it may take a while—a lifetime?—to learn it.

Years ago I had something torn in my left knee.  Over time, it more and more limited what I could do.  I had to learn not to do certain otherwise normal activities because doing them caused my knee to lock up and hurt . . . a lot!  I changed the way I moved.  I changed the way I went about life.  I adopted a limited, constricted way of living that adjusted my life to the damage in my left knee.  My brokenness shaped the way I lived.

Then a surgeon repaired my left knee.  It was no longer damaged.  After the surgery, I had a lot of pain, but it was a pain of healing, not a new brokenness.  Before long, the pain of the healing went away, and my left knee was new and strong and healthy.  But strangely, it took me a long time to learn to live like someone with a healthy left knee.  For a long time, I still favored it.  I still lived as if it were damaged and limited and broken.  A broken left knee was all I had known for a long time.  It took a long time to learn to live like someone with a healthy left knee.

We are set free, and we are being set free.  We are made new, and we are being made new.  In the meantime, Christ has most certainly won the victory.  “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” 1 Corinthians 15:57  Day by day, he gives us new victory in him.  Live more and more into that victory in Jesus.

© Gary A. Chorpenning 2024

photos by GAC