We as grace believers enjoy the liberty that was bought for us as the Cross of Christ.

“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free… If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:32, 36).

The true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ enjoys glorious liberty, and our Lord Himself said that there are no strings attached… “Ye shall be free indeed,” free even from the most oppressive of all slave masters: “Sin in the flesh.”

While “the Law” never saved one man from sin, the Lord Jesus, by His death on Calvary did, for we read that “Christ died for our sins.”

Therefore, the Apostle wrote by divine inspiration: “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Gal. 5:1). His letters thunder severe rebukes against believers who “desire to be under the law.”

Thus, to the Colossian Christians Paul wrote of our liberty from the externalities of religious performance under the law, seeing the spiritual reality of them “in Christ”:

“¹Let no man therefore judge you in meat [food], or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: ¹⁷ Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body [or the substantive reality of these shadows] is of Christ.” (Colossians 2:16-17 (KJV)

We are free of the several external religious requirements listed in the verse above. For us it is “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” that freed us from the externalities and regulates our live from the inside … our spirit.

But true liberty is to be used for good, otherwise it only reverts to bondage again, for whatever overcomes a man becomes his master (2 Pet. 2:19). Misusing our liberty is doing evil and this can only harm ourselves and others. Thus. the Apostle write further of the dangers of flaunting our liberty in such a way as to cause others to stumble:

“But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumblingblock to them that are weak [in their knowledge of Christian liberty]”. (1 Corinthians 8:9 (KJV)

“For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another.” (Galatians 5:13 (KJV)

“Hast thou faith [in the liberty Christ brought to you]? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.” (Romans 14:22 (KJV)