What Does Liberty Look Like: The Source of Liberty

This is the second post in the ongoing What Does Liberty Look Like series.

When Jesus began His ministry as recorded in Luke, this is what He read from Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18–19).

Jesus stops quoting Isaiah 61:1-4 where He does because at that point in His ministry only those words of Scripture had “been fulfilled in [the] hearing” of his audience. But there was more to come.

The “the day of vengeance of our God” in v. 2 was only 40 years or so away from being fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem, the final judgment against the city that had repeatedly rebelled against Him and failed to repent (Matthew 23:37-39).

The rest of the Isaiah passage is about Christ’s calling “to comfort all who mourn.” Of course, the primary means of this comfort is Christ’s work of reconciling man with God, His “planting” of His people (those that mourn) so “that they may be called oaks of righteousness.” This was fulfilled through His life, death, and resurrection. But part of this comfort also comes through and is exhibited in how Christ’s people respond to His work in them: “They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations” (v.4).

Calvin says that this passage describes “the restoration of the church,” in which “the Jews [and Christians] may entertain confident hope of deliverance,” even though “those promises appeared to be altogether incredible.” Calvin explains that “Isaiah employs the designations of ‘deserts of the age, ancient wildernesses, cities of desolation, wildernesses of many ages,’ in order to show that all this cannot prevent the Lord from restoring the city to be inhabited by his elect at the proper time.”

The prophecy of the restoration of the church was fulfilled as the church was (and is still being) restored from the ashes of Jerusalem:

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. (Revelation 21:2–3 ESV)

While there is much debate around this passage from Revelation, John tells us specifically that the new Jerusalem is “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” And Scripture makes it very clear that the church is the bride of Christ: “the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready (Revelation 19:7; see also John 3:29, Romans 7:4, Corinthians 11:2, and Ephesians 5:25-33).

What John saw in His vision was the descent of the restored church around the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. It is true that the consummation of the church’s restoration is yet to come, yet it is also true that Christ’s liberty has come to “earth as it is in heaven.” While we must not conflate spiritual liberty with earthly liberty, neither should we deny the real world effects of the spread of earthly liberty through the Gospel as the church carries out its mission under the Great Commission.

To best understand what Christian liberty means in the context of today’s world, it is best to start at the beginning. Which is what we will take up next.