Title: The Fenced-In Freedom: Why the Son Alone Sets You Free Indeed
The evening traffic on the N4 is a snarling beast. I sat in it yesterday, crawling past the Bon Accord Dam turn-off, watching the sun sink behind the hazy silhouette of the Magaliesberg. In the car next to me, a young executive in a designer suit gripped his steering wheel, his jaw tight with frustration. In the lane on my other side, a kombi taxi, packed to the brim, weaved impatiently, its driver chasing one more fare before the load-shedding schedule plunged the city into darkness. We were all rushing home. We were all, in some way, desperate to be free from the gridlock.
But as I sat there, in my own metal cage, a deeper question rattled in my soul. Are we any freer once we get there?
My name is Harold Mawela. From my study here in Akasia, a suburb that sits quietly between the Pretoria CBD and the sprawling, vibrant expanse of Soshanguve, I watch a nation obsessed with freedom. We fought for political freedom. We march for economic freedom. We die for the freedom to live as we please. The airwaves buzz with it, the Parliament buildings in Tshwane echo with it, and the street corners in Marabastad are plastered with posters promising it.
Yet, the suicide rates climb. Substance abuse ravages our townships. Families crumble under the weight of individual "self-discovery." We are a people clutching the keys to our own prison cells, celebrating the jingle of metal, unaware we are still incarcerated.
There is a paradox here, a divine contradiction that the world cannot solve. And Jesus, in John 8:36, drops a truth bomb that detonates all our modern assumptions: "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."
The Grand Illusion of "My Will"
Let us define our terms, lest we build our houses on the sand of misunderstanding.
What does modernity call freedom? It calls it autonomy. The absolute right to self-determination. The power to say, "I will do what I want, when I want, with whom I want." It is the freedom of the un-fenced field.
But is that true freedom, or is it just sophisticated loneliness?
Imagine, if you will, a fish. A beautiful, silver fish. One day, it looks at the boundaries of the water and declares, "This river is a prison! These banks constrain me! I demand freedom!" So, with a great leap of faith (or so it thinks), it launches itself onto the green grass of the bank. It flaps and flops, gasping for air. It shouts, "I am free! No more currents pulling me where I don't want to go!" But we who watch from above know the terrible truth. The fish is not free. It is dying. Its "freedom" is a slow, suffocating suicide.
The will of the fish was never meant to be exercised outside of the water. Similarly, the human will was never designed to function outside of the will of God. The modernist anthem of "my will be done" is not the path to freedom; it is the original sin of Eden replayed every single day.
Jesus confronts this illusion head-on in John 8:34. He shatters our polite religious notions and gives us a clinical diagnosis: "Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin."
We are not free because we are addicted. We are not free because we are bound by the fear of missing out. We are not free because we are chained to the opinions of others, the validation of social media likes, or the endless pursuit of more money to fill a God-shaped void. As the philosophical observation notes, "You are free to do whatever you desire. But you are not free to choose your desires" . Our desires have been corrupted. We want the wrong things. And wanting the wrong things is the most sophisticated form of slavery there is.
The Akasia Test Case: Load-Shedding and the Soul
Let me bring this home to us here in Tshwane. We are currently living through the great load-shedding saga. Eskom turns off the lights. We scramble. We buy generators, inverters, solar panels. We spend fortunes trying to achieve one thing: independence from the grid.
We want to be free. We want to be the masters of our own power supply. We want to be "off-grid." That is the dream of modern South Africa.
But here is the spiritual parallel. In trying to be independent from the failing grid of Eskom, we often become slaves to the maintenance of the generator, the cost of diesel, and the anxiety of the battery dying. We traded one dependency for another, more expensive one.
The world tells you to get "off God's grid." It tells you that His moral laws, His Sabbath rest, His commandments are the old, failing infrastructure of a bygone era. "Generate your own power!" the world shouts. "Be your own light!"
But Jesus stands in the temple courts, just as He stood in the woman's defense, and declares, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (John 8:12) . He does not offer you independence from the grid; He offers you connection to the source. He doesn't give you a noisy, fume-spewing generator; He gives you the sun itself.
The Prophetic Confrontation: The Politics of "My Truth"
We must sound the alarm against a popular heresy sweeping our nation, from the stages of Sandton conferences to the shebeens of Soweto. It is the heresy of "my truth."
You hear it everywhere: "You must live your truth." "That is your truth, this is my truth." It sounds humble, tolerant, and deeply free.
But let us apply rigorous logic to this proposition.
1. If "truth" is individual and subjective—simply a matter of personal perspective—then it ceases to be truth about reality and becomes merely an expression of personal preference.
2. If truth is just preference, then it has no binding authority on anyone else, and ultimately, on myself.
3. Therefore, if I am bound by nothing but my own preference, I am not a free man; I am a slave to the shifting sands of my own moods, hormones, and cultural brainwashing.
This is not freedom. This is the prison of the self. As the Psalmist says, "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God'" (Psalm 14:1). The fool is not stupid; the fool is someone who lives as if there is no objective reality outside of his own head. He is trapped in the solitary confinement of his own ego.
True liberation is found only in submitting to a reality greater than yourself. When you submit to the truth of God—that He is holy, that you are sinful, that Christ is the only cure—you are no longer bouncing around the padded cell of your own opinions. You are anchored to the Rock of Ages.
The Son's Strategy: The Cross-Shaped Freedom
How does the Son set us free? He does not simply open the cell door and say, "Good luck!" He does not remove the law and say, "Do as you please!" That would be like telling the fish it can live on the moon if it just tries hard enough.
No. He sets us free by changing us inside the cell.
Think of the woman caught in adultery, dragged before Jesus in John 8 . The law of Moses, the good and holy law, demanded her execution. That was her cell. The accusers, the religious hypocrites, were the guards with the keys. They had the power to stone her. They had the "freedom" to condemn.
But Jesus, the Son, steps into the courtroom of her life. He does not deny the law. He does not say the law is invalid. He simply turns the spotlight on the accusers: "Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her" (John 8:7).
What did He do? He exposed their bondage. They were slaves to their own hypocrisy, their own self-righteousness, their own hidden sins. They wanted freedom to kill, but they were chained by their secrets.
When the last stone drops and the last accuser slinks away, Jesus speaks the words of liberation: "Then neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin" (John 8:11).
Notice the two-part freedom.
1. Freedom from Condemnation: "Neither do I condemn you." The past is dealt with. The debt is paid. The guilt is gone.
2. Freedom to Obey: "Leave your life of sin." The future is redirected. The chains of habit are broken.
This is the paradox. He frees her from the penalty of the law so that she can finally be free to keep the law out of love. He puts the water back around the fish.
The Practical Law of the Fence
I have a friend who lives in a complex in Montana. He has two young sons, full of energy and wonder. Their little yard has a high, strong wall around it. To a passerby, that wall looks like a prison. It confines the boys. It blocks the view.
But my friend knows the truth. That wall is not a prison; it is the very condition of their freedom. Because that wall is there, the gate can stay open. Because the boundary is secure, the boys can run, shout, play soccer, and chase the dog without fear. They are free to be boys because the fence protects them from the busy road and the stranger danger beyond.
God's law is that fence. His commandments are not the denial of joy; they are the definition of its boundaries. He tells us not to covet because coveting is a fire that will burn down the house of our contentment. He tells us to forgive because unforgiveness is a poison that will kill the soul of the one who drinks it.
You will never possess what you are unwilling to pursue. And you will never experience the freedom of the sons of God until you are willing to submit to the authority of the Father.
A Prayer for the Gridlocked Heart
Lord Jesus, Son of the Living God,
We confess that we have chased a counterfeit freedom. We have beaten our fists against the walls of Your love, demanding to be let out, not realizing that outside those walls is only the wasteland of our own destruction.
Break our bondage to the approval of others, the addiction to our devices, the tyranny of our unchecked desires.
Teach us, by Your Spirit, that Your service is perfect freedom. Let us find our flourishing, not in the absence of boundaries, but in the presence of Your faithful love. Anchor us in Akasia, in Pretoria, in South Africa, to the unshakeable truth of Your Word.
Make us free indeed. Free from guilt. Free from fear. Free to love. Free to obey. Free to be Your children.
In the name of the One who set us free, Jesus Christ our Lord,
Amen.
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