Latest / Reformed Thinking / Freedom | J. C. Ryle

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Freedom | J. C. Ryle · Reformed Thinking

• 0:00
  Welcome to reformed thinking. You know, usually when we talk
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  about being secure, there is this expectation of visible
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  physical safety, like engineering, for example.
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  Right, visible safety. Yeah, you build a house, you put
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  a solid deadbolt on the front door.
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  You set up a high tech security system and then the contractor
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  points to the reinforced steel and says, well there it is.
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  Nobody's getting in. You have established a
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  perimeter. You have done everything society
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  tells you to do to protect yourself and your family from
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  external threats. Absolutely.
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  But then you imagine sitting in that perfectly fortified,
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  comfortable living room. You have the heavy curtains
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  drawn, the alarm is set and you feel completely isolated from
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  any danger outside, but there is a massive silent gas leak right
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  there inside the house with you. Oh, that is a terrifying
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  thought. It really is.
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  The walls are doing a spectacular job of keeping the
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  outside world out, but they're also locking you in with an
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  unseen, deadly threat. You feel entirely safe from the
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  outside world, but are you truly secure?
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  No, you are in incredible danger.
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  Right. And that unseen threat is the
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  core of our deep dive. Today we are looking at a 19th
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  century text by JC Rile from his work Practical Religion,
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  focusing specifically on his piece regarding freedom.
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  Our mission today is to unpack this text because Ryle is
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  speaking directly to you, the listener, about this specific
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  illusion of safety. He is addressing a very
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  particular blind squad, I mean one that is highly relevant
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  today. Yes, because we as a society are
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  obsessed with our physical liberties, our civil rights, our
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  visible security systems. But are we completely blind to
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  the invisible chains holding our souls?
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  What is fascinating here is the historical angle Ryle brings to
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  this discussion. He is addressing a British
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  audience during the Victorian era, a group of people
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  remarkably well acquainted with civil liberties.
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  These are people living in what he calls the cradle of freedom
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  they have. Quite a bit of freedom for that
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  time period, right? Oh, absolutely.
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  They have a Free Press, a constitutional government, the
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  right to personal property, and the ability to speak their minds
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  without fear of arbitrary the arrest.
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  And you know, Ryle does not dismiss these things.
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  He actually praises them highly. So he is not anti civil rights.
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  Not at all. But he uses their intense,
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  almost obsessive appreciation for civil rights to challenge
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  them. He wants them to look at the
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  superior spiritual emancipation. He is trying to show them a
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  liberation that no political leader, no act of parliament and
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  no human legislation could ever grant.
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  He takes the thing they prize most, I mean their British
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  liberty, and uses it as a mirror to show them a massive blind
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  spot. Before we look at the spiritual
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  side of things, we really must first analyze what we know best,
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  which is our physical and civil liberties.
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  Yes, we have to start where his audience started.
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  Right. And Ryle actually spends a
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  significant amount of ink detailing his appreciation for
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  temporal blessings. He does not take the aesthetic
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  route of pretending earthly comforts do not matter.
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  He lists them out methodically. He's very thorough about it.
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  He is. He talks about free bodies, free
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  consciences, a Free Press and free homes.
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  He talks about living in a land where, as long as you do not
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  hurt another person or their property, the poorest man's
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  house is his absolute castle. You can shut your door and the
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  state cannot simply barge in without 'cause.
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  He sets up a stark historical contrast to make his point Land
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  with real weight. He wants his readers to realize
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  how exceedingly rare this civil liberty has been throughout the
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  long span of human history. He brings up some pretty dark
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  historical examples to do that, does he not?
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  He does. To do this, he points out the
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  miseries of the Inquisition, the horrors of the transatlantic
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  slavery system, and the crushing way to foreign oppression.
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  He's not just listing bad things, he is illustrating what
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  the total absence of liberty looks like.
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  The Inquisition is a brutal example.
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  It is when he mentions the Inquisition he is evoking a
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  system where even your private thoughts and religious
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  convictions could result in torture and death.
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  When he mentions the transatlantic slave trade, he is
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  highlighting the absolute reduction of a human being to
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  property stripped of all agency. And he named specific rulers
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  too. Yes.
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  He specifically names historical figures like Pharaoh in Egypt
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  and Nero in Rome to illustrate the absolute devastation that
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  occurs when civil liberties erased.
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  He categorizes history by looking at the individuals who
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  impacted human freedom. That is an interesting way to
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  view history. It really is.
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  Pharaoh represents state sanctioned systemic slavery
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  where an entire people group is viewed as industrial machinery.
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  Nero represents volatile, unpredictable tyranny where your
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  life depends on the daily mood of an absolute dictator.
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  He creates a very clear dividing line in history.
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  On one side you have the historical champions of liberty.
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  He lists figures like Moses, Martin Luther, George Washington
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  and the Puritans. Those are heavy hitters in the
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  freedom category. They really are.
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  He sees these individuals as massive benefactors to mankind
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  because they fought for freedom in their respective spheres,
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  whether that was physical liberation from Egypt,
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  theological liberation from institutional overreach, or
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  political liberation from a monarchy.
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  And then there's the other side of that line, right?
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  On the other side, he categorizes the enemies of
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  freedom as the absolute pests and nuisances of history.
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  People who suppress liberty are viewed with a lasting disgrace.
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  But I have to push back here for a moment.
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  OK, what is here? Let us unpack this.
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  Why does a theologian spend so much ink praising civil
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  structures? Is he just showing off his
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  patriotism? I mean, it feels a bit strange
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  for a religious text to spend pages applauding George
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  Washington and the Magna Carta. I get why you would say that,
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  but it might seem like a tangent.
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  But it is a highly calculated rhetorical foundation.
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  He is acknowledging the extreme value of earthly freedom so that
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  his later points carry significantly more weight.
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  He knows his audience. So he is reeling them in.
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  Precisely. If he started by minimizing
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  their civil rights, they would stop reading.
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  Instead, he agrees with them. Yes, civil liberty is
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  phenomenal, but then he issues a dual warning about these soul
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  rights. What is the first part of that
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  warning? The first warning is about
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  undervaluing them. He notes that people constantly
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  grumble about minor defects in their society.
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  He uses this brilliant analogy of new shoes that pinch.
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  Oh, the shoe analogy. I love this one.
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  It is so practical. People will buy a brand new pair
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  of shoes, and if they rub slightly on the heel they will
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  complain bitterly about the discomfort, but they completely
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  forget that having shoes at all is a massive privilege compared
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  to the barefoot slaves of antiquity.
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  That puts things in perspective quickly.
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  It does. He warns against running eagerly
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  after every sweeping political change, noting that changes are
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  not always improvements. People become so agitated by the
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  pinching shoe that they're willing to burn down the entire
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  factory, ignoring the unprecedented safety they
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  already possess. So the first danger is
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  undervaluing the freedom we have.
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  We complain about the pinching shoes while sitting in our
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  heavily fortified houses, but the second and far greater
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  danger is overvaluing those civil.
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  Rights. And this brings us right back to
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  the gas leak. Yes, right.
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  Back to the gas leak analogy. What good is living in a free
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  country with free speech and free thought if you are held
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  captive by unseen tyrants? Ryle asks a very pointed
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  question. What shall it profit you to be a
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  citizen of a free country, so long as your soul is not free?
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  That is a staggering question. It is.
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  You can vote in every election, you can publish whatever you
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  want in the newspaper, you can accumulate wealth.
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  But if you are entirely enslaved on the inside, all those
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  external liberties are just decorations on a prison cell.
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  That is the pivot point of his entire argument.
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  He says there are tyrants whom know eye can see and they are
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  just as destructive as Pharaoh or Nero.
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  There are chains no hands can touch and they are as heavy as
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  any physical shackle. Because earthly liberty has
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  severe limitations. Right.
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  Namely, it comes to a hard, unavoidable stop at the grave.
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  So we must look at the superior alternative he presents.
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  A Constitution cannot protect you after your heart stops
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  beating. That is a harsh reality to face.
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  It is, but he defines true liberty not as a political
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  status, but as a spiritual reality, and rather than keeping
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  it vague, he breaks this down into specific facets of
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  spiritual liberation that alter the human experience.
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  Let us look at the starting point Ryle identifies, which is
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  the sheer weight of guilt. The first facet of spiritual
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  freedom he defines is freedom from the guilt of sin.
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  He describes the heavy burden of unforgiven transgressions that
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  presses down on a person's conscience.
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  It is a massive psychological burden.
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  Think about the modern condition for a second.
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  We have people lying awake at 3:00 in the morning, staring at
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  the ceiling, replaying mistakes from 10 years ago.
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  They carry a massive invisible backpack of regrets, failures
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  and moral compromises. Everyone has that backpack to
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  some degree. They do.
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  To be free from this, according to Ryle, means looking back at
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  old transgressions, seeing the blackest marks on your record
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  and knowing with absolute certainty he cannot condemn me.
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  It is the total removal of that psychological and spiritual
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  crushing weight. The psychological relief of that
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  first facet is massive, as you pointed out.
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  Yeah, if that guilt is gone, it shifts the dynamic of control
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  entirely. That leads to his next point,
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  which is freedom from the control of sin.
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  This is where he gets very grounded in reality.
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  Yes, Ryle is highly realistic here, which makes his writing so
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  accessible. He does not claim that a person
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  suddenly becomes perfectly flawless or stops facing
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  temptation. He acknowledges that the flesh
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  will fight and the devil will tempt.
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  So it is not a magic wand that fixes all bad habits instantly.
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  No, not at all. But the defining characteristic
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  is that sin no longer reigns or conquers.
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  The individual is no longer a bond, slave to their appetites,
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  tempers or lusts. The grip is broken.
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  That is a crucial distinction. You might still stumble, but you
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  are no longer locked in the basement.
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  You have the ability to fight back, whereas before you were
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  simply taking orders from your own worst impulses.
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  This leads directly into how we view the creator.
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  If the guilt is removed and the control is broken, the entire
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  relationship changes. True freedom includes freedom
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  from the slavish fear of God. What does he mean by slavish
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  fear? Instead of looking at God with
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  dread and alarm, like a dreadful offended maker ready to strike
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  you down, the moment you step out of line, the perspective
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  completely shifts. Ryle talks about the spirit of
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  adoption. That sounds like heavy
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  theological jargon. Let us break that down.
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  Yeah, let me define that. The spirit of adoption means
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  moving from the status of a condemned prisoner standing
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  before a judge to the status of a legally adopted child sitting
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  at the dinner table with a father.
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  That is a massive status change. It is.
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  You no longer want to hide from him like Adam did among the
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  trees in the garden. You rejoice in his affection,
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  knowing the legal anger has passed away.
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  You stop viewing God as a warden and start seeing him as a
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  father. When you stop seeing God as a
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  threat, you stop fearing society.
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  If your relationship with the ultimate authority of the
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  universe is secure, your relationship with human society
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  changes drastically. That brings us to freedom from
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  the fear of man. This one feels extremely
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  relevant right now. Oh, heavily relevant.
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  When a person is completely secure in their standing before
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  God, it breaks the snare of caring about society's favor or
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  frowns. Ryle points out how incredibly
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  liberating it is to become indifferent to the shifting
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  opinions of the crowd. Because we live in an era where
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  people are terrified of being cancelled.
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  We are terrified of saying the wrong thing, of losing societal
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  approval, but Ryle says you no longer tremble at what people
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  might say or do because you are looking away from the visible
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  judgments of society to the unseen favor of Christ.
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  The crowds opinion becomes entirely secondary.
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  Which brings us to the final horizon, which is death.
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  Ryo claims that true spiritual freedom includes freedom from
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  the fear of death. He says you can look at the
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  grave and declare thou canst not harm me.
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  That is a bold declaration. You can stand by an open grave
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  without feeling completely cast down.
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  But hold on, I have to push back hard here.
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  It is incredibly easy for a comfortable 19th century writer
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  sitting in a cozy study with a cup of tea to say do not fear
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  the grave. I see where you're going with
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  this. Practically speaking, how does
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  that actually work? When a modern person gets a
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  terminal diagnosis from their doctor, the fear is deeply
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  physiological. It is terrifying.
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  Does Ryle address the gritty reality of that, or is he just
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  speaking in lofty theological ideals?
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  He is not dismissing the physiological reality of dying.
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  Ryle was a pastor who stood by countless deathbeds.
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  He knew first hand how ugly and painful the physical process of
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  dying could be. So he is not sugar coating it.
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  Not even little. When he talks about freedom from
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  the fear of death, he is talking about the removal of the sting.
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  The fear he is addressing is the dread of what comes after.
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  It is the fear of facing absolute justice with a dirty
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  record. That makes a lot of sense.
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  It ties back to the guilt. Yes, If the guilt is gone, as we
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  discussed in the first facet, then death ceases to be an
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  executioner, dragging you to a tribunal.
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  Instead, death is reduced to a transition.
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  It might be a painful, terrifying transition
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  physically, but it is no longer a penal judgement.
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  Here is where it gets really interesting, because when you
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  look at all these facets together, you see the big
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  picture. Right, you see the whole
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  framework. Freedom from guilt, from the
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  control of sin, from the slatish fear of God, from the fear of
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  man, and from the pair of final judgement.
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  You realize Ryle's definition is an entirely present tense
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  reality. It drastically alters how a
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  person operates day-to-day. It fundamentally changes human
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  operation, but this raises a massive logistical question.
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  Yes, the cost. Freedom is never free.
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  It requires a ransom. Someone has to pay for it.
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  Great bondage requires a great price to break it.
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  You cannot just declare A prisoner free without satisfying
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  the demands of the law that put him in prison in the first
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  place. So how is this massive spiritual
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  liberation secured? Ryle shifts his focus to the
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  mechanics of this liberation, pointing directly to Christ as
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  the champion who secured it. The mechanics of substitution
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  are laid out with absolute precision.
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  He does not leave any room for ambiguity here.
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  No, he describes a specific legal and financial transaction.
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  He positions Christ as the divine substitute who stepped in
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  to pay a debt and not just pay it, but pay it 1000 times over
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  to ensure the account was permanently settled.
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  He uses terms like imputation, which we should clearly define
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  to understand how this transaction actually.
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  Works. Yeah, let us breakdown
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  imputation. Think of it like a massive,
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  catastrophic financial collapse. Let us say you run a business
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  and through terrible mismanagement you have
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  accumulated a billion dollars in debt.
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  The creditors are at the door, the authorities are ready to
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  seize everything you own, and you are facing a lifetime in a
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  debtor's prison. And you have 0 resources.
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  You have exactly $0.00 in your bank account.
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  Imputation is what happens when a billionaire steps into the
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  courtroom, takes your entire Ledger of debt and transfers it
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  onto his own account. The court legally views him as
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  the one who owes the billion dollars.
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  That takes care of the debt, but it goes further.
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  It goes both ways. He then takes his massive
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  limitless wealth and transfers it into your empty bank account.
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  The court now views you as the billionaire that is imputation.
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  The debt is credited to him and his perfect credit is credited
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  to you. That financial analogy is a
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  brilliant way to describe the vicarious substitutionary death
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  of Christ. Vicarious just means acting or
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  suffering on behalf of someone else.
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  It is a complete swap of standing.
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  Ryle asserts that Christ redeemed his people from the
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  curse of the law by literally becoming a curse for them.
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  He cleared the imputation of sin by becoming sin.
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  He took the massive Ledger of debt, accepted full liability
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  for it, and then suffer the exact penalty that the law
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  demanded. So the law was not ignored, it
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  was fulfilled. Every single demand of justice
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  was satisfied on the cross as their champion Christ spoiled
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  principalities and authorities, stripping them of their legal
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  right to accuse and making an open show of them.
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  On Calvary. The transaction was completely
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  absolute. So there are no loopholes for
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  the prosecution to use later. None at all.
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  The justice of God was met with total finality, providing full,
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  unquestionable redemption. The legal Ledger was wiped
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  clean. If we connect this to the bigger
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  picture, Ryle makes a very bold claim about why so many
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  Christians struggle with their faith.
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  He argues that ignorance of the specific transaction, this
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  detailed legal transfer of debt and substitutionary death is the
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  root cause of Christians having faint hopes and ceaseless
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  doubts. They do not know the details of
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  their own rescue. He says too many people are
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  content with a vague, blurry idea that Christ will somehow
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  save sinners because God is generally nice, but they do not
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  know how it works or why it is legally binding.
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  And because they do not understand the mechanics, their
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  faith is constantly shaking. A vague idea is entirely useless
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  for producing real peace. When your conscience attacked
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  you at 3:00 in the morning, or when you face the brutal reality
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  of death, a vague notion of a generic nice salvation will not
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  hold you up. Because the accusations of the
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  conscience are highly detailed. Yes, the accusations are very
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  specific, so the remedy must be equally specific.
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  Ryle insists that understanding the vicarious death is the
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  absolute key to solid assurance. You must grasp that Christ stood
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  in your exact place, suffered in your exact place, and paid your
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  specific debts. Once you grasp that, the fear
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  loses its grip. When you understand the legal
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  finality of that transaction, the doubts begin to dissolve.
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  You realize your freedom rests on an objective, completed
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  historical work, not in your fluctuating subjective emotions.
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  Your feelings might change daily, but the cleared Ledger
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  remains completely static. And contrast the result of that
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  permanent transaction with the earthly nations we discussed
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  earlier. Think about those civil
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  liberties. National freedom lasts perhaps a
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  few centuries if a country is incredibly lucky.
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  Empires rise and fall constantly.
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  They do. Constitutions are rewritten,
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  overthrown, or ignored. The greatest republics in
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  history eventually crumble. But the franchise of Christ
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  outlives the solid world itself. The privileges of this world's
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  freedom endure only for a lifetime.
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  Because eventually, everyone has to face the grave, right?
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  Eventually, the freest citizen on earth must submit to death,
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  lose his voting rights, lose his property, and lose his
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  franchise. But the spiritual franchise Ryle
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  describes is entirely eternal. You carry it down to the grave,
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  and it continues to live. It is a citizenship that death
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  cannot touch. So we know what this freedom is,
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  and we know the extreme infinite cost paid by the divine
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  substitute to secure it. But there is a missing link
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  here. How does an individual actually
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  obtain it? That is the practical question,
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  is it not? It is entirely useless to know
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  that a massive ransom was paid if you do not know how the fruit
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  of that ransom becomes your own personal property.
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  A billion dollars sitting in a vault does you no good if you do
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  not have the key to access it. This is where Ryle addresses the
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  application of redemption. So what does this all mean for
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  the individual listener? Ryle begins his explanation by
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  aggressively stripping away false hopes.
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  He explicitly rejects several methods that people
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  instinctively rely on to feel secure.
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  He knocks out the props 1 by 1. First, he states plainly that we
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  are not Born Free. Unlike the Apostle Paul, who
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  could proudly say to a Roman commander that he was freeborn
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  in Tarsus and therefore possessed Roman citizenship by
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  birthright, we have no spiritual birthright.
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  We cannot ride on our families coattails.
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  We do not inherit spiritual freedom from our parents.
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  We are born as children of wrath, naturally enslaved to our
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  own desires. Good breeding or growing up in a
• 19:46
  moral household does not equal spiritual freedom.
• 19:49
  Second, he forcefully rejects the idea that we obtained this
• 19:52
  freedom simply through the ritual of baptism.
• 19:55
  He knows that myriads of people are brought to the baptismal
• 19:58
  fund every single year. And what happens to them?
• 20:02
  They go through the ceremony, water is applied, prayers are
• 20:05
  said, yet they grow up to live as absolute slaves to vice and
• 20:09
  neglect Christ completely in their daily lives.
• 20:12
  The outward physical ritual does not automatically confer the
• 20:15
  inward spiritual reality. It is a sign, but it's not the
• 20:20
  substance itself. And third, he rejects the idea
• 20:24
  of mere church membership as a ticket to freedom.
• 20:26
  He uses a fantastic comparison there.
• 20:28
  He points out that earthly companies and corporations grant
• 20:31
  privileges to anyone whose name is on the registry, regardless
• 20:35
  of their personal character. Right, if you own stock in the
• 20:37
  company, you get the dividend even if you are a terrible
• 20:40
  person. But Christ's Kingdom is not a
• 20:42
  corporate registry that ignores personal character.
• 20:45
  You cannot claim spiritual freedom simply because your name
• 20:48
  is written to Church Roll Book or because you attend services
• 20:51
  every Sunday. Let us bring back that gas leak
• 20:53
  analogy from the beginning of our deep dive.
• 20:56
  Ryle is basically saying that relying on your birth or relying
• 21:00
  on baptism or pointing to your church membership is like
• 21:04
  putting a fresh coat of paint on the walls of that house with the
• 21:06
  gas leak. That is a great way to look at
• 21:08
  it. It might look much nicer to the
• 21:10
  neighbors, and it might make you feel productive, but the
• 21:12
  invisible lethal threat on the inside remains entirely
• 21:16
  untouched. The paint does not stop the
• 21:19
  poison. Having stripped away those false
• 21:21
  assurances, the fresh paint, so to speak, he points to the
• 21:25
  single, solitary path of acquisition, which is simple
• 21:28
  faith. He insists that no complicated
• 21:30
  theology is required to obtain this freedom.
• 21:33
  You do not need a master's degree in divinity.
• 21:35
  You do not need to understand Greek and Hebrew.
• 21:37
  It is obtained by receiving, trusting and reposing your whole
• 21:40
  weight on Christ as a Savior. Let me explain that idea of
• 21:44
  reposing your weight. Please do.
• 21:45
  That is a great phrase. Imagine Stan standing on the
• 21:48
  edge of a Cliff and there is a massive solid iron bridge
• 21:52
  spanning the chasm. You can know all about the
• 21:55
  metallurgy of the bridge. You can agree that it was built
• 21:57
  by a genius engineer, but you do not experience the safety of the
• 22:01
  bridge until you actually step onto it and let it hold your
• 22:04
  weight. Do you have to actually walk on
• 22:06
  it? That is simple faith.
• 22:07
  It is stepping onto the work of Christ and trusting it to hold
• 22:10
  you. That simple act of trust is what
• 22:13
  makes the spiritual liberty your own personal property.
• 22:16
  The extreme accessibility of this is striking.
• 22:19
  It is almost offensive to human pride because we want to earn
• 22:22
  it. Ryle gives these vivid,
• 22:25
  beautiful examples to show just how accessible it is to anyone,
• 22:28
  regardless of their background. He paints a very clear picture
• 22:31
  of this accessibility. He says a visitor can go to the
• 22:34
  poorest cottager in the land, someone who cannot read a single
• 22:37
  word, who cannot repeat a doctrinal creed, who knows
• 22:40
  absolutely nothing of high theology or church history, and
• 22:43
  the visitor can boldly promise full liberation upon the single
• 22:47
  condition of trust in Christ. The intellectual barrier to
• 22:50
  entry is 0. He applies the same logic to the
• 22:53
  dying, which is perhaps the most extreme test of his theology.
• 22:58
  You can stand by the bed of a dying center, someone who has
• 23:01
  wasted their entire life in rebellion.
• 23:04
  Someone who has burned every bridge and ruined every
• 23:06
  relationship. The person who has no time left
• 23:08
  to fix things. Yes, when death is drawing near,
• 23:12
  when they have no time left to do any good works or fix their
• 23:14
  mistakes, you can lovingly tell them there is still hope.
• 23:18
  You can assure them that Christ has done all, paid all, and
• 23:21
  performed all of this legally necessary.
• 23:24
  Even at the very end. Even at the final hour, with
• 23:26
  their last breath, they can be freed at once from all their
• 23:29
  accumulated guilt, if they will only believe and repose their
• 23:32
  weight on that bridge. The extreme simplicity of the
• 23:35
  offer is what makes it so brilliant and so robust.
• 23:38
  It works in the study of a scholar, and it works in the
• 23:40
  gutter. This leads right into his highly
• 23:43
  practical advice for the listener.
• 23:44
  Today, Ryle urges people to stop wasting time speculating on
• 23:48
  invisible decrees. People get tied up in terrible
• 23:51
  theological knots wondering am I part of the elect?
• 23:54
  It is a common source of anxiety.
• 23:56
  Am IA chosen vessel of grace? Did Christ actually die for me
• 23:59
  specifically, or am I excluded by some divine decree made
• 24:03
  before time began? Ryle says those questions are
• 24:06
  completely unprofitable starting points.
• 24:08
  You cannot read the hidden Ledger of heaven.
• 24:10
  You should not pour over secret things you cannot see.
• 24:14
  Instead, he says to settle your thoughts on one very simple,
• 24:17
  immediate inquiry. Do I believe, Do I cast myself
• 24:20
  on him as a humble Sinner? That is the only question that
• 24:23
  matters. If the answer is yes, then all
• 24:26
  the secret decrees of heaven are demonstrably in your favor.
• 24:29
  Moving from the individual application to the brighter
• 24:31
  society, we have to look at the present day reality surrounding
• 24:34
  us. If the offer of complete eternal
• 24:37
  freedom is so incredibly accessible, just simple faith,
• 24:41
  why do so many reject it? And what should the people who
• 24:44
  been liberated do about the world around them?
• 24:45
  Ryle delivers a very harsh, unsparing critique of modern
• 24:49
  society regarding this exact issue.
• 24:51
  He looks at a society that prides itself on being
• 24:53
  enlightened and sees utter delusion.
• 24:56
  He highlights the terrifying reality of invisible slavery.
• 24:59
  People boast endlessly of their liberty.
• 25:02
  They talk constantly about political freedom, free trade,
• 25:05
  the right to protest and freedom of speech.
• 25:07
  But what is happening behind the scenes?
• 25:09
  Yet while they are shouting about their rights in the public
• 25:12
  square, they are bound hand and foot by lust, ambition, the love
• 25:16
  of money, gambling, or an uncontrollable temper.
• 25:19
  They are entirely governed by these unseen masters.
• 25:22
  Ryle says they go down to destruction with a lie in their
• 25:24
  right hand. They firmly believe they are
• 25:26
  autonomous free individuals while operating as thorough
• 25:30
  slaves to their own internal corruption.
• 25:32
  The modern psychology of addiction and ambitions
• 25:35
  perfectly mirrors the slavery Ryle describes.
• 25:39
  Think about a person obsessed of accumulating money, or someone
• 25:42
  driven by a furious reactive temper.
• 25:44
  They are not actually in control of their own actions.
• 25:47
  They are reacting to an internal drive.
• 25:49
  They are compelled by a force outside their rational will.
• 25:52
  They will destroy their marriages, alien either
• 25:54
  children, and ruin their health to serve these invisible
• 25:57
  masters. Yet because no one has placed
• 26:00
  physical iron handcuffs on their wrists, they probably proclaim
• 26:04
  their independence. Recognizing this invisible
• 26:07
  psychological and spiritual slavery leads directly to Rile's
• 26:11
  call to action for those who are actually free.
• 26:14
  It is a highly challenging, uncomfortable question for
• 26:16
  anyone who claims to hold the spiritual freedom.
• 26:19
  He does not let the comfortable reader off the hook.
• 26:22
  If politicians, labor night and day for free trade agreements
• 26:25
  and activists spend their entire lives fighting for civil rights
• 26:28
  and temporal freedoms that will end at the grave, how can those
• 26:31
  who hold the secret to eternal spiritual freedom do nothing?
• 26:35
  How can they sit back in silence while the house fills with gas?
• 26:38
  Ryle outlines a clear, urgent mandate to share this message
• 26:42
  and to understand his call to action, we have to look
• 26:45
  objectively through his 19th century Protestant lens.
• 26:49
  For Ryle, global evangelism was not just a polite suggestion.
• 26:52
  It was an absolute necessity for him.
• 26:54
  It was an urgent rescue mission aimed at anyone outside his
• 26:58
  theological framework. Maintaining an objective look at
• 27:02
  his historical context, Ryle specifically targets several
• 27:06
  groups for evangelism. He calls for Christians to bring
• 27:09
  this message of freedom to the unreached populations across the
• 27:12
  globe. And he had a few other specific
• 27:14
  groups in mind, right? He did.
• 27:16
  He pointed to the scattered Jewish communities who have not
• 27:18
  recognized the Messiah and to those he views as captive under
• 27:22
  the institutional system of the Roman Catholic Church.
• 27:25
  For a 19th century English Protestant like Ryle, these
• 27:29
  groups represented people trapped in varying degrees of
• 27:31
  theological or spiritual bondage.
• 27:33
  We are just reporting his historical arguments here, but
• 27:36
  that was a major part of his worldview.
• 27:38
  It is a sweeping call to prioritize spiritual
• 27:40
  emancipation with the exact same zeal, or even greater zeal, than
• 27:45
  the secular world applies to political emancipation.
• 27:48
  And as we apply this reality to our present lives, there is an
• 27:52
  unavoidable, painful tension that we have to address.
• 27:56
  Ryle admits that believers, even those who have stepped onto the
• 27:59
  bridge of simple faith and secured this massive liberation,
• 28:02
  still face a harsh reality. It is not a walk in the park.
• 28:05
  They still shed peers. They still have weak, failing
• 28:08
  hearts. They still face intense daily
• 28:11
  temptation, chronic physical sickness, financial ruin and
• 28:14
  betrayal. If we are completely legally
• 28:17
  free and the debt is paid, why does life still hurt so
• 28:21
  incredibly much? Why does the house still feel
• 28:23
  like it is falling apart? He introduces this
• 28:26
  eschatological hope to answer that tension.
• 28:28
  Eschatological hope is a theological term that basically
• 28:31
  means the ultimate end game resolution of the universe,
• 28:33
  where all this temporary suffering finally makes sense
• 28:36
  and is permanently resolved. How does he frame that tension
• 28:39
  in the text? He addresses the tension of
• 28:41
  living in the present broken world by using a brilliant
• 28:43
  analogy. He says our redemption has
• 28:45
  begun. The legal paperwork is signed,
• 28:48
  but the physical reality is not yet completed.
• 28:51
  He stays. We have redemption now in the
• 28:52
  root, but we have it not in the flower.
• 28:55
  That is a fascinating way to phrase it because the root
• 28:58
  versus the flower analogy perfectly captures the human
• 29:01
  experience. Let us really look at how a
• 29:03
  plant grows. The root of a plant is hidden
• 29:06
  completely under the dirt. It is not pretty to look at.
• 29:09
  It is dirty. It is obscured, it is covered in
• 29:12
  mud. It does not look beautiful,
• 29:14
  colorful, or glorious in any way.
• 29:17
  But that ugly root contains the absolute guarantee of life.
• 29:21
  It holds the complete DNA of the eventual spectacular blossom.
• 29:25
  That is the guarantee he's talking about.
• 29:27
  Right now, living in this broken world, believers have the root.
• 29:30
  The legal transaction is done. The imputation of righteousness
• 29:33
  is complete, the freedom from the eternal guilt of sin is
• 29:36
  totally secure, but we are still surrounded by dirt.
• 29:40
  We are still in the mud. We are still waiting for the
• 29:42
  flower to bloom. We are still waiting to see the
• 29:44
  visible, glorious manifestation of that freedom, where the
• 29:48
  physical pain, the mental illness and the grief are
• 29:50
  actually finally gone. He concludes his entire analysis
• 29:55
  by anticipating what he calls the Great Jubilee.
• 29:59
  He looks forward to the eschatological horizon, the
• 30:01
  second coming of Christ. He says that when that
• 30:04
  cataclysmic event happens, the physical reality will finally
• 30:07
  catch up to the legal reality. The root finally breaks the
• 30:11
  surface, yes. The dead will be raised, the
• 30:13
  living will be changed, and then, and not till then, we
• 30:17
  shall be completely free in every possible sense of the
• 30:20
  word. The liberty which we enjoyed by
• 30:23
  faith, trusting the unseen Ledger, will be changed into the
• 30:26
  undeniable liberty of sight. So the waiting finally ends.
• 30:30
  The freedom of hope will become the freedom of absolute
• 30:33
  certainty. The Dirty, obscured root will
• 30:35
  finally burst into the magnificent eternal flower.
• 30:38
  All the promises will materialize into physical
• 30:40
  reality. And that brings us to a final
• 30:42
  thought for you, the listener to Mull over today is as you go
• 30:45
  back to your daily routine, think about Ryle's concept of
• 30:48
  having redemption in the root but not in the flower.
• 30:51
  It is a perspective shift. When you look at the lingering
• 30:54
  anxieties that keep you up at night, the bad habits you have
• 30:57
  to fight against every single day, or the chronic physical
• 31:00
  pains in your own life, how does viewing them as temporary
• 31:03
  conditions change the way you face tomorrow's challenges?
• 31:06
  It changes how you handle the dirt.
• 31:08
  It really does. It means the pain is not the end
• 31:10
  of the story, it is just the soil where the seed is planted.
• 31:14
  Thank you for joining us on this deep dive.
• 31:17
  Take some time this week to examine your own unseen chains,
• 31:20
  check the house for invisible threats, and ask yourself where
• 31:23
  your true, lasting freedom actually lies.