“In saying this Jesus declared all foods clean”. Mk 7,19
“Jesus straightened up and said to her, "Where are they, women ? Is there no one left to condemn you ? “No one, Sir”, she answered. “Well, then,” Jesus said, “I do not condemn you either. You may leave, but do not sin again”.Jn 8,10-11
Christ liberated man from sin. He gave his life to redeem many people (Mt 20,28). He poured out his blood “for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mt 26,28). When Jesus was asked to explain what He meant by saying, “You will be made free'', He answered : “I tell you the truth : every one who sins is a slave of sin” (Jn 8,32-34). The freedom which Jesus brought is first and foremost a freedom from sin. It is in this sense that Jesus said : “If the Son will make you free, then you will be really free” (Jn 8,36). Real freedom means freedom from sin.
To liberate us from slavery to sin, Jesus had to demolish the prison walls of external law. Time and again He disregarded and transgressed the laws that the Jews were being told to follow. In this respect Jesus was a real rebel and a liberator. Frequently, He clashed with the Jewish authorities by doing or by making others do, what they had forbidden on the Sabbath (Jn 5,8-15). The woman caught in adultery had to be stoned to death according to the law (Dt 22,22). Jesus simply sends her away without punishment (Jn 8,11). When arguing with the scribes about the traditions of the elders (concering the washing of hands before taking meal), Jesus not only rejected those traditions (Mk 7,13, but revoked the Old Testament law according to which some foods were clean and others unclean (Dt 14,3-20). “Nothing that goes into a person from the outside can make him unclean” (Mk 7,18) Jesus' rejection of such external laws was the main reason why the scribes wanted to have Him killed (Mt 12,14)
It would be wrong to imagine that Jesus did no more than rearrange the laws, abolishing some an promulgating others. He did not substitute a new code of laws for the old one. Wherever Jesus spoke about law, He replaced external performance by interior sanctity. The law, “You shall not kill” should give way to genuine brotherly love that comes from within (Mt 5,21-24). The law against adultery was superseded by true inner chastity (Mt 5,27-30). In this sense, Jesus is much more demanding than the scribes were. By insisting on the spirit of the laws, He fulfilled rather than abolished them (Mt 5,17-19). The commandments which Jesus imposed were not external laws, but an interior life of love, an experience of the Blessed Trinity influencing our actions (Jn 14, 21-23). By keeping Jesus’ commandments of interior sanctity, we know God (1 Jn 2,3-6).
St. Paul elaborated the notion of freedom from law even more explicitly than Jesus had done. In the Old Testament,external law had played a part in salvation: it was supposed to prepare people for Christ (Gal 3,23-24). But like all external laws, these laws too, could not strengthen man interiorly. They only provided more opportunities for sin. “Law increased trespass” (Rom 5,20), “Sin was a dead thing apart from law. I myself was once alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprung to life, and I died. And the commandment was meant to bring life, in my case brought death” (Rom 7, 8-10). Mere external laws don’t make us better. They only provide more opportunity for sin!
Christ has liberated us from such a system. He has abolished all “law”. Christ replaced the written code by the interior life of the Holy Spirit in us. “Now we are free from the law ... No longer do we serve in the old way of a written law, but in the way of the spirit” (Rom 7,6). “The law of the spirit, which bring us life in union with Christ Jesus has set us free from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8,2). “Those who are led by God’s spirit are God’s sons” (Rom 1,14). “If you are led by the Spirit, no law can touch you” (Gal 5,18). “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom 5,5).
Freedom in the Spirit does not mean that we can simply do what we like. But it does mean that we are no longer slaves to thousands of small exterior prescriptions. It also means that for the Christian the ultimate law is his own enlightened conscience. The Holy Spirit in the heart of the Christian takes the place of the external law of the Old Testament. God had promised He would write his new law in the hearts of men (Jer 31,33). God has done this by writing not with ink “but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor 3,3). St. Thomas Aquinas after stating that the law of the Spirit is the law of the New Testament, comments : “Now the law of the Spirit is identified either with the person of the Holy Spirit or with the activity of that same Spirit in us”. It is the Holy Spirit himself who is the New Testament in as much as He works in us the love that is the fulness of the law. The finger of the Father’s hand wrote his law in the hearts of man. The code of the old law given on Sinai finds its counterpart not in a written code, but in the giving of the the Holy Spirit (Rom 8; Heb 3; 2 Cor 3, lect. 2)
Many leadership patterns in the secular world derive their controlling power from imposing external sanctions. The leader makes his will known by promulgating laws. He enforces their execution by attaching penalties to transgression. Psychologists call this the authoritarian model of influencing others, to distinguish it from the manipulation model (hand-led in diplomacy) or the counselling model (in which we influence others by making them adopt our own conviction or motivation). The authoritarian model ensures external discipline. The counselling model changes people while respecting their freedom.
For the sake of good order in the church external prescriptions may sometimes have to be imposed. Paul acted on this when he restrained the man living in concubinage (1 Cor 5,1-5). But external commands, legalistic rules and a written code may never be the normal way by which life is fostered in the individual Christian and in the church. This would, first of all, subject the Christian once more to everything from which Christ liberated him. “For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery” (Gal 5,1). Secondly, it is doubtful to what extent a leader, who always acts according to the authoritarian model, truly represents Christ. For Christ does not force from outside, but works through the Spirit. Speaking precisely in the context of contrasting the Old Testament written law with the interior life of the New Testament, Paul says, “The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor 3,17). Christ said : “Who hears you, hears Me” (Lk 10,16). Was Christ here only thinking of authoritative speech and not rather of speech with a manifestation of His Spirit? Was He not rather thinking of that radiance of the Lord “coming from the Lord, who is the Spirit, a radiance which changes us into His very likeness” (2 Cor 3,18) ?
Sociologists define freedom as neither a total absence of limitations nor as presence of limitations, but as “ the absence of limitations within mutually agreed boundaries”. Life in the church should breathe that true freedom with which Jesus has endowed us. Within the limits of his own responsibility every Christian should be encouraged to be himself and to fully develop his insights and talent. A climate of fear is far removed from what Christ envisaged for his church. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfect in love” (1 Jn 4,18)