expresses his sentiments, not with too much liberty, but with too much

freedom' (Lloyd's Encyclopaedic Dictionary).

The Greek words translated 'free', 'freedom' or 'liberty' in the New

Testament are:

Eleutheros, the adjective describing one who can go where he

Eleutheroo, the verb, to free, set at liberty.

Apeleutheros, the noun, an emancipated slave.

Eleutheria, translated 'liberty'.

Anesis, a letting loose, relaxation, as of cords.

Aphesis, remission, deliverance, forgiveness.

Exousia, authority, the right to do anything.

Parrhesia, freeness of speech, frankness.

Apoluo, to let loose, unbind, set at liberty.

Dikaioo, to set forth as righteous, to justify.

Politeia, the relation and rights of citizenship.

Dorean, freely, gratis, as a free gift.

We shall not attempt to examine in extenso every one of these

references, we set them out in order that the reader may see the range of the

As the words 'freedom' and 'liberty' have a fairly

wide connotation, we will note next the background, the alternatives provided

by the Scriptures to this blessed state.

'Whether ... bond or free'; 'There is neither bond nor free';

'Barbarian, Scythian, bond (nor) free' (1 Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11).

The great type of deliverance, the Passover and the Exodus, had as its

background 'bondage' (Exod. 1:14; 6:6), and Egypt is referred to again and

again as 'the house of bondage'.  In the New Testament there is not only

mentioned the literal and physical bondage of slavery, but the bondage of sin

(Rom. 6:20); of the fear of death (Heb. 2:15); of subjection to a ceremonial

system (Gal. 2:4; 4:3).  The fact that the word 'slave' does not occur in the

A.V. and that doulos is nearly always translated 'servant' instead of 'bond -

servant' or 'slave', has robbed the reader of much valuable help to the true

understanding both of the condition of sin, and of its most blessed

deliverance, namely:

'The metaphor of our redemption by Christ from the slavery of sin, the

law and idols -- a metaphor influenced by the customs and technical

formulae of sacred manumissions of antiquity' (Deissmann, Light from

the Ancient East).

Manumission is from manu, 'from the hand' and mitto, 'to send',

'Manumission is properly when the lord makes a deed to his villeine to

enfranchise him by this word, manumittere' (Coke).

This is the pronouncement of Sir Edward Coke, a celebrated judge (a.d.

1549 -1634).  Behind the references to freedom in the New Testament lies the

practice of manumission that was in force during the lifetime of the apostle

Paul, and it is to the evidences available of that custom we again turn our

attention, even though the matter has been dealt with earlier (pp. 54 and

215) :