Critically evaluate the claim that Paul's teaching on Christian freedom is still relevant.

Critically evaluate the claim that Paul’s teaching on Christian freedom is still relevant.

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians he says ‘It is for freedom that Christ has set us free’. We are no longer under the tyranny of the law.  In Christ we are saved by faith.  Just as Abraham believed and was made righteous by God, we are also expected to believe so that we are made right with God.  

There is still a danger in today’s world of exploiting this freedom through sins of the flesh.  Paul taught that our freedom in Christ is freedom to do good.  It was not intended that freedom from the law means that Christians could live in any way they please.  The critic Stott is of the opinion that ‘In Paul’s letter to the Galatians one of the main themes is that of freedom of conscience’.  According to the Christian gospel no man is truly free until Jesus Christ had rid him of the burden of his guilt.  And Paul tells the Galatians that they had been called to this freedom.  Christ’s crucifixion has set us free from the burden of the law.  In chapter 5 of Galatians Paul emphasises that true Christian liberty expresses itself in self-control, loving service of our neighbour and obedience to the law of God.  ‘…I say walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh’.  Paul strives to get across in his epistle that Christian freedom should mean not freedom to indulge the lower side of human nature but freedom but freedom to walk in the life of the Spirit.