2 Corinthians 3:17 –
For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
This freedom Paul is talking about is freedom from the Old Covenant. As one goes back and forth, like we have, between the Old and New Testament we notice differences in the way we relate to God. In a nutshell, OT connection with God came through various sacrifices and adherence to the Law, while NT was accepting Jesus was the son of God and his death was the final sacrifice for our sins. The Holy Spirit now lives with us and guides us daily, hence we have more freedom.
At the same time this old saying comes to mind, “give a man enough rope and he’ll hang himself.” I often wonder if that’s what happening today and it had before? We look at how many times God’s wrath rained down on Israel for drifting so far away from God’s will in the OT and realize it’s due one more time in the NT. I have to wonder if it really matters that mankind is wiped clean? Unless God deals with our sin nature, we’ll just keep rolling back into needing a spanking!
You may ask, “How could that be?” But just think back to Satin and his fall. He was in true paradise and he was not happy, so what says Revelations will change anything? The Flood was going to do that and look how quickly the culture drifted back into debauchery. No matter which way it will end, it will be interesting to watch unfold.
Now the point I wanted to make on the scripture was freedom is not being able to do anything you want, but it give you freedom to live within guides. Galatians 5:13 makes sure we understand it’s not freedom to do what we want. Freedom is not the ability to do what one wants, but the capacity to do what one ought. Huge difference that we learn in life, no matter our salvation, since we find quickly doing as we want leads to a difficult life.