Freedom and Discipline

Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).

Today we are discussing the Christian understanding of freedom, and to understand and apply the Christian understanding of freedom, discipline inevitably comes into the picture.

First off, let’s define what we are talking about for clarity:

Freedom basically means (as defined today) to be in control of your own life with no one forcing you to do anything. We will see another definition below, the more appropriate one.

Discipline means to live by some type of rules.

Moving on we will discuss the origin of freedom, how it is misunderstood, and how to use freedom to glorify God.

Freedom’s origin is God; God gave us freedom because He created us in His Image. We are free because God is free, and an image must reflect its source. This is why we also as humans have many other capabilities which animals do not have such as language and speech which allow us to share our thoughts with each other, animals have no such faculty; their form of communication is limited, not like language and speech.

To be free allows us to do so many things which we might not think of at first, such as love. Unless one is free, one cannot love, because love requires the person to act in a selfless way toward one another. As Pope Shenouda III, current Pope of the Coptic Orthodox Church, observes, “Love is always giving.” We cannot give if we aren’t free, therefore we can’t love if we aren’t free.

This also allows us to enjoy our relationship with God. He didn’t just create us to worship Him, He doesn’t need our worship, He is God and has glory whether or not we choose to glorify Him. He created us out of love, and just as when we love others we want the best for them, He also wants the best for us. He wants us to enjoy our relationship with Him. But we can’t do that if we aren’t free, kind of how if you pull out a woman from society today and you tell her that she is going to marry a man she doesn’t really know against her will, it will not be as enjoyable (if at all), as if she willingly entered into the marriage relationship. The same with God, in fact this analogy of marriage is used quite a few times in the Bible to signify God’s relationship with humanity.

Real Love is always shared, and God created us to worship Him so we could also share in love. His love toward us is always perfect and complete, but our love toward Him is always struggling toward perfection, not really quite there, but this is why He condescends to our level, while we are always ascending. His condescension ultimately manifested itself in the Incarnation of the Son who united His divinity with our humanity taking it to Heaven as He ascended. God is love, and when we love Him by first loving those who are around us created in His Image, we become in union with Him and start sharing in the grace of His divinity. This is known as deification (theosis in Greek). This doesn’t mean that we become gods, but rather that we share in His nature through the grace of the Son’s Incarnation (because He united His divinity to our humanity in the Son).

Today, however, some people reject this idea of God giving us freewill, but the greatest evidence that we have been given freewill by God is the fact that most of humanity has rejected Him.

The world confuses freedom with shameless behavior.

The world defines freedom as doing ANYTHING you want to do. However this definition is very seductive and misleading.

The real definition of freedom, in addition to above, is being able to say NO to anything. That is the very essence of freedom, that nothing is controlling you.

If the world would apply that definition to their actions, they would really find that they are under the control of so many things, and in essence they are enslaved by the things they think they want to do.

You see, how is it freedom when you aren’t able to control what you are doing?

Jesus applied this to sin (that which separates one from God), “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:35-36).

Here Jesus is telling us about the Church, the house that is mentioned. After we were baptized we become a part of the Church, but not all even after Baptism follow God. Some follow their sins, those become enslaved to sin, and those cannot abide forever, meaning the full realization of the Church’s goal, that is to be with God in Heaven. However we should understand that there is a difference between occasionally sinning, and walking in sin. Occasional sins are covered by Jesus’ blood which He shed on the Cross. Walking in sin is different, because it becomes an outright rejection of Christ, and is what St. Paul refers to as trampling “the Son of God underfoot,” and “counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing” (Hebrews 10:29).

The latter part of this passage says, “A son abides forever.” If we follow God and Christ, we become sons of God by grace, not by nature like Jesus Christ, but by adoption by God. Just like every family has rules set up by the parents of the house, and the children should obey them to show their parents that they indeed love them, God (Our Father), sets up some rules for us, as well as the Church (Our Mother).

This is where discipline comes into the picture. Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32). Here Jesus connects for us freedom with discipline.

Freedom by itself is very, very dangerous. A while ago, I was having a discussion with someone, and this person said that there should be no government, and the world should be an anarchy. So I said, “Suppose for one day all government was suspended, and you got your wish, that this world would be an anarchy,” I told him, “This city that we are in would not be left standing by nightfall, it would have burned down to the ground.” Now the reason this person was saying all this stuff was probably not because of malicious intent but because this person thought that the world was really good (this person at this time had some type of Christian belief, but not Orthodoxy). But the truth is, this world is not really good, in fact it is quite the opposite, it is really evil. People are malicious, they don’t care about each other, they want revenge, they don’t forgive, and all this because they are far away from God. If the world was granted to be an anarchy for even just one day, I am convinced that most of it would be burned down to the ground.

This is why the Christian understanding of freedom is inseparable from discipline, and this is exactly why Jesus has them connected when He talks about them.

So what type of rules should we follow to keep our freedom?

They are mentioned in 1 Corinthians, “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any” (1 Cor 6:12), “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful; All things are lawful for me, but not all things edify” (1 Cor. 10:23).

So unless these things build edify (build us up) in the faith, we should keep away from them. Now this doesn’t always happen, but God’s grace is upon us. But this should be our guide, that’s what discipline essentially is, a guide. Also this verse too, “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13).

These things we should keep in mind because we are free: are we being controlled by anything, does it build other people up, and are we showing love to others and to God?

Our freedom should be used to glorify God.

Here is an example, if someone attends an Orthodox school, and on Wednesdays and Fridays except in the Holy Fifty Days, only fasting food (vegetarian) is served in the Cafeteria, so everybody, including this person, is essentially “forced” to eat that type of food. But someone else not attending an Orthodox school is in the school cafeteria and they offer him hamburgers and chicken wings, and he does not eat from that food and only eats the acceptable food for fasts, this person has glorified God and used his freedom in the correct way, in that he said “NO” to the non-fasting type foods from his own will.

So how do we acquire this discipline?

Well, of course we have to ask God in prayer, if we don’t have it, and if we do have it we should thank God for giving it to us. But we should force ourselves (self-control as mentioned in Galatians 5:22, the fruit of the Spirit). Self-control is not passive (a reaction), but it is active (you actually doing things), such as fasting.

The Psalm says this concerning spiritual progress, “I have kept back my feet from every evil way, that I might keep Your words” (Psalm 119:101)

What are the benefits of discipline?

We can actually get things done!

As it says in the Psalm, “You word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my paths” (Psalm 119:105). Without light one virtually cannot do anything. Our spiritual life is likened to a walk along a road, and unless we see the road, we will not be able to follow it easily, if at all. So we should always remember to read the word of God for guidance.

What should we do to ease the way to discipline?

“Turn away from me, you evil-doers; for I shall search out the commandments of my God” (Psalm 119:115).

This is Bible language for saying “Get away from me!” to those who are always hindering us in being close to God, whether it be friends at school, or co-workers, we should be cautious because their influence might rub off on us.

So, looking back, freedom without discipline is a path to destruction, this is why in the Bible freedom and discipline are connected. God gave us freedom so we could enjoy our relationship with Him, just as a man and woman mutually entering into a marriage relationship enjoy it.

So we should pray, and practice our discipline so we can use our freedom in the right way. In the Bible, read Galatians 5, it talks about freedom, I cited a verse from that chapter above, and it ends with the famous fruits of the Spirit.

And remember, the word disciple comes from discipline, so if we want to be good disciples of Christ, we should have discipline in our lives.

Glory be to God both now and ever and unto the age of all ages. Amen.