Set Them Free

Thus says God the LORD,

Who created the heavens and stretched them out,

Who spread out the earth and its offspring,

Who gives breath to the people on it

And spirit to those who walk in it,

“I am the LORD, I have called You in righteousness,

I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You,

And I will appoint You as a covenant to the people,

As a light to the nations,

To open blind eyes,

To bring out prisoners from the dungeon

And those who dwell in darkness from the prison.

“I am the LORD, that is My name;

I will not give My glory to another,

Nor My praise to graven images.

“Behold, the former things have come to pass,

Now I declare new things;

Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.” (Isaiah 42:5-9)

When God sets us free, no human being can ever enslave us again. God identified himself as the creator and promised his captive people that in their captivity, he was still there with them. Better, he promised them that they would come out of their captivity. A day would arrive when they would be free.

Certainly he released the Israelites from their place of exile and they returned home to their land during the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. Such physical freedom had been on the minds of those who had first heard Isaiah’s prophesy. But God was thinking of something far more precious than physical freedom. In fact, the nation of Israel was never again a free and independent people. When Cyrus allowed the captives to return to their homes, they were still part of his Persian Empire. When the Persians were conquered by Alexander the Great, the Israelites became part of a Greek Empire, and when the Romans took over, they remained part of the Roman Empire.

God’s goal was not to set them free from foreign domination—since that never happened. God hoped his people would understand what kind of freedom he meant when their physical situation remained unchanged. God intended to rescue them from their dungeon of sin: he intended to set them free from spiritual bondage, to set up his kingdom in their hearts. We’ve been set free from the real dungeon. We’ll stay free no matter what anyone does to us. No government, no problem, can ever take our real freedom away from us. The kingdom of Heaven is not of this world.

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