wishes to speak in terms of personal or national existence, what remains questionable is the degree to which individuals—and Christians in particular—are truly free in the ontological sense proposed in this essay. Based on experience both within and outside the church/Church, we would answer No, such freedom is foreign to members of the church/Church, and to people in general! For those who would respond, Of course I am free to do whatever I please, and to make choices for myself and at my own discretion, we would reply by advocating that such is not the deeper form of evangelical graced freedom extended to us in, with, and for Christ Jesus, but is in reality merely another manifestation of liberty in the socio-political realm.
True graced freedom, as advocated in this essay, must come from beyond us, it cannot be a reality we can secure or achieve for ourselves or through the machinations of human culture or society, simply because it is of a far higher, and at the same time deeper, reality than that which is readily at hand. The origin of such ontological freedom is transcendent and comes to us purely as a gift of grace from a loving God. Such freedom is not devoid of authority; rather such freedom perceives a transcendent authority to be an essential aspect of and necessary to the maintenance and sustainability of graced freedom.
Free obedience is given to such authority because the recipient acknowledges how, in faith and a priori, this genuine freedom has come to him or her as a gift of grace, maintained under the direct supervision of the Holy Spirit of the triune God. It is free as a manifestation of relational existence in, with, and for Christ, and obedience is a manifestation of love and gratitude for the graced freedom received. The presence of such graced freedom necessitates a continuing and maturing relationship with God in Christ; otherwise, this freedom will soon wither, leaving the formally freed person more susceptible to the bondage of sin as manifest in the numerous machinations of the principalities and powers. As actuality that must be constantly nurtured and nourished in the ekklēsia, this graced freedom is, in and of itself, an event in both outward and inward realities.
We learn of this ontological freedom from the evangelical witness of both Old and New Testaments, and acknowledge it to be supremely revealed in the person and work of Christ Jesus. And as we cannot speak of the person and work of Christ in isolation one from the other, neither can we speak of this graced freedom in terms other then ontological and manifest as event-full action(s). We refer to this gracious reality as graced freedom in order to differentiate it from all other expressions of freedom—for example, human freedom or political freedom. While such orders have their own intrinsic value, the ontological freedom of which we speak is born in an engagement with the Christ who incarnates and brings such freedom from the Father and in the power of the Holy Spirit, and confers the same on humanity; such engagement is made possible through the ekklēsia in both the reading and hearing of Holy Scripture, in proclamation as the Word of God, in the worship life of the ekklēsia, and in her fundamental configuration of the missio Dei.
Therefore, we cannot speak of such freedom in the absence of grace and faith in both the origin and continuance of such freedom in both the individual believer and the ekklēsia. From beginning to end (telos) this freedom is the act of God in Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. The reality of this ontological freedom, as the redemption, renewal, and re-establishment of the true anthropos (in Christ, the New Adam), is also and at the widest dimension imaginable, what makes this an evangelical theology of freedom for humanity.
It is more than appropriate, even at this introductory level, to raise the question as to why this particular form of freedom should be vital for us today. What is it about our contemporary cultural, social, and spiritual matrix that necessitates an exploration of and proposal for this form of freedom? In brief, we contend that while our world is awash in select forms of liberty that have, perhaps, provided latitude for self-expression, self-enrichment, and self-assertion, we are not free in the deepest and most reflective sense of the term. In fact we would argue there is a growing sense in which more and more people are struggling to overcome a very real and very frightening form of bondage; despite all protestations to the contrary, people are not living lives that demonstrate the contentment, sense of fulfillment, and beauty of ontological freedom.
Tentatively we can list some forms of such bondage as New Age spiritualities, fashion, sports of all kinds, entertainment, reality TV, casinos, overindulgence, all pornographic materials, texting, cell phone addiction, abuse of drugs and overuse of alcohol; the list could be extended to include far more lethal manifestations of this same bondage. The essence of this bondage will be explored and discussed in a later chapter of this essay as having both internal and external dimensions; in the more traditional language of theology, such bondage could be considered under the rubric of sinful existential reality and temptation to sin. And yet, what is central to the diagnosis of the essence of the dilemma this proposal will address is the far larger issue of the loss of humanity, or better said, the loss of human dignity as imago Dei; a loss that is so prevalent in the world today its manifestations need not be detailed.
As a generality it can be said that pastors are concerned with the humanity of those they have been called and charged to serve in Christ; that is to say, even at the level of the individual member, pastors are serving, providing care, and offering counsel with the desire to enrich the integrity of the individual, as representative of anthropos (as imago Dei and as a new creation in Christ), which is so often brought into question and/or injured in a culture and society that can be and often is de-humanizing in so many ways and at so many levels. Beyond the individual, the pastor is concerned to preach and teach the evangelical word that will provide his or her people with the proper biblical-theological perspective on the essential nature of human dignity and how they are—as ekklēsia—called to actively preserve such dignity, or to call for the reclamation of human dignity, wherever it has been brought into question or perhaps even threatened with extinction. This, then, is a disclosure of graced freedom as freedom for humanity!
However, it is incumbent upon one who holds the pastoral office to preach and teach the evangelical word for purposes that exceed mere attainment of knowledge of Holy Scripture and parádosis (i.e., tradition); in reliance upon the event of the Holy Spirit, the pastor preaches and teaches for transformation and, as we want to contend, the renewal and reaffirmation of freedom for humanity in the presence of God. This transformation is also an event in that it can only be attributed to the active presence and engagement of the Holy Spirit and is processive; this is the axis point at which we encounter the dialectic spoken of in a previous paragraph. The renewal and reaffirmation of humanity (as imago Dei) must be a process, not only by virtue of the active engagement (i.e., event) of the Holy Spirit, but also because this individual (and ekklēsia) is subject to the paradox of existence in faith (that which the Protestant reformers referred to as simul justus et peccator).
Should this proposal hold, it will place the ekklēsia in one of the most significant roles it could possibly have in relation to the socio-political and cultural orders; it could herald the reestablishment of the essential nature of the ekklēsia as she relates to both (and more) of these orders. Actually, it should be historically evident that this has been the role to which the ekklēsia has been called to serve her Savior and Lord, and therefore the world, from the exact moment of her birth in the event of Pentecost and under the dominion of the Holy Spirit as her Lord. From the beginning, the ekklēsia has been called to proclaim a glorious freedom for humanity revealed and given to and for the world in the incarnation, life, ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ, which is the substance of the evangelical word. This freedom for humanity established the ekklēsia as essential to the proclamation and promotion of justice (as defined by Christ and his gospel); it was and remains this mandate that also and often places the ekklēsia in a paradoxical position vis-à-vis those orders we have already mentioned, and others as well. An acculturated church/Church has, unfortunately, been compromised by virtue of her dependence upon something—some ideological or sociological mandate—other than the proclamation and promotion of that form of graced freedom which has been her birthright (by grace) and is demanded of her as free obedience in the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit.
Graced freedom is freedom from captivity to sin so that it might be freedom
