In Galatians 5 the Apostle Paul starts with a declarative sentence:
It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.
So, what is freedom here? Do the Scriptures define or interpret this for us? What does the Spirit teach you about this? Do you follow any teachings or traditions from your Church concerning this? Is this freedom mindset in direct opposition to having rules and traditions forced upon us?
Actually the clue to answer this one is found in the previous chapter of Galatians, where he begins by differentiating between the servant and the heir:
1 Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;
2 But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.
3 Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:
4 But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
5 To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
7Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
8Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
9But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
....and continues on with the allegory of Abraham's sons:
21Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?
22For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
23But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
24Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
25For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
26But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
27For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
28Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.
29But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit,
even so it is now.
30 Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.
31So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.
To me, the law is the enslavement, or opposite of freedom. The law is of the Flesh. The promise is Christ, and fulfillment of the promise is salvation from the law of the flesh through Christ, that is freedom, the freedom of the spirit. We are set free from the Law by Christ who fulfilled the Law perfectly.
As he points out in v29, however, the Law continues to persecute the Free children of God, who are heirs through Christ. We are not to be enslaved to IT, but we are to live instead in the spirit of Christ (see Gal. 5).
