Freedom from sin and the Law culminates in freedom from death. Here,
too, we shall consult the ἐλευθερία passages in answer to our question as to the concrete fulfilment of
this freedom. Works done in freedom aim intrinsically at ζωὴ αἰώνιος (R. 6:22). As earthly, human works they
produce in themselves that which underlies and creates them, namely, the
eternity disclosed in the event of the love of Jesus Christ. As they are
performed, they thus give knowledge of eternal life. The existence which by the
work of the Spirit through word and sacrament is liberated from self-seeking in
faith, expresses this freedom in works which make possible for one’s neighbour
the life which one enjoys oneself, namely, the life which is assured by the
love of God in Christ. The man who is no longer fallen, but who rests on the
will of God in Christ, brings in the future of God in his works and makes it
available to his neighbour in the believing work of love. It is true that this
freedom from death is enacted only within an existence which is still given up
to death. Existence is still fallen of itself. It knows freedom from death only
in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, in which the will of God accomplished this
freedom. This freedom, as it is accomplished in the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, has taken place for it in the word of the Gospel, and has
been made present to it by the action of the sacrament, as that on the basis of
which there can be life in self-forgetful dying. Even in its works existence
has it only as that in relation to which it can be. Freedom from death is thus
disclosed to it, even in its action, as the future enacted in Jesus Christ. In
this ruined existence it will thus be known only as a sign of itself. The works
of freedom will manifest eternity as that which is still to come to us in Jesus
Christ, But in this way they do manifest it. Thus those who have the Spirit
working freedom within them sigh expectantly that they may become the children
of God, which will take place only when they are released from the carnal
existence which in its bondage seeks to play the lord. Similarly the creation
ruined by man cries out with longing that it may be delivered from the
deceptive instinct of life and the bondage of death. This liberation will take
place with the manifestation of the glory of the children of God revealed in
Jesus Christ. (Heinrich Schlier, “Ἐλεύθερος, Ἐλευθερόω, Ἐλευθερία, Ἀπελεύθερος,”
in TDNT 2:502)
