Galatians 5:1
In Martin Luther’s Treatise on Christian Liberty (The Freedom of A Christian), he summarizes his argument at the very beginning. He writes:
To make the way smoother for the unlearned — for only them do I serve — I shall set down the following two propositions concerning the freedom and the bondage of the spirit:
A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.
A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.
While these may seem to contradict each other, they echo the verse for today: For freedom, Christ has set us free.
We Lutherans hear it every year on Reformation Sunday that we are saved by grace and not by good works. We know that. But, Luther would be quick to remind us that good works are only good if they are for the proper purpose. Good works are GOOD, BUT they are BAD it appears that good works are necessary to earn the love of God.
We can do nothing to make God love us more. Nothing we can do will make God love us less.
We are free from trying to save ourselves. This is God’s doing and not ours.
This is the good news we need to hear over and over and over again. The more we hear it, the more we trust in it. The more we trust in it, the more we are able to be set free from the bondage of trying to do what only God can do.
In response, God calls us to respond by caring for the neighbor, servant of all, subject to all.
Near the end of this treatise, Luther puts it this way (I apologize for the male pronouns):
“…the good things we have from God should flow from one to the other and be common to all, so that everyone should “put on” his neighbor and so conduct himself toward him as if he himself were in the other’s place. From Christ the good things have flowed and are flowing into us. He has so “put on” us and acted for us as if he had been what we are. From us they flow on to those who have need of them so that I should lay before God my faith and my righteousness that they may cover and intercede for the sins of my neighbor which I take upon myself and so labor and serve in them as if they were my very own. That is what Christ did for us. This is true love and the genuine rule of a Christian life. Love is true and genuine where there is true and genuine faith. Hence the Apostle says of love in I Corinthians 13:5 that “it does not seek its own.”
How is God calling YOU to love your neighbor?
For freedom, Christ has set us free.
Let us Pray: