Set Free

Set Free

The LORD is righteous; he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.

Psalm 129:4

IN WORD Israel rejoiced in the fact that despite years of oppression—despite slavery in Egypt, domination by foreign powers, captivities in Assyria and Babylon, and the threat of growing empires—it was a redeemed people with eternal promises. It could have let its collective psyche be absorbed with a sense of inferiority and futility, except for one thing: God kept delivering them. No one can feel inferior and futile when the sovereign Lord keeps intervening. A history of redemption allows people to define themselves not by their enslaved past but by their liberated future.

Like Israel, we too could be absorbed with our past, dwelling on our captivities and futility. We could remember the times we’ve been enslaved, the times we’ve been brutalized, and especially the times we’ve suffered self-inflicted wounds from our own disobedience. But our history isn’t defined by such failures. It’s defined by the God who redeemed us from them.

God has cut us free from the cords of the wicked. In fact, the wicked never mastered us (v. 2). We may have been dominated, oppressed, enslaved, and ridiculed in our sinful, fallen condition—the Bible reminds us often that we were bound by sin. But the wicked and their cords did not gain victory. Jesus did. A cross and an empty tomb are our assurance of that.

IN DEED If you’re like most human beings, you tend to regret aspects of your past and lament your failures. That’s normal, but it’s not how God defines us. The failures exist for one explicit purpose: to highlight the Redeemer. It’s the redemption that defines who we are.

Live by the promise of your future today. It’s a glorious future, signaled by cut cords and the fading wake of wickedness behind you. Whatever your past failures, you’ve been cut free from them. They don’t have any power over you, and they never will. The Redeemer trumps the oppressors every time.

Redemption does not only look back to Calvary. It looks forward to the freedom in which the redeemed stand.

—LEON MORRIS