A Christian is perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.What does that mean? The first phrase means that at the end of the day, you only have to answer to God. It doesn't matter what crabby ignorami have to say about your business, tattoos, what you do with your time or money - ultimately, it's between you and God, and they're putting words in God's mouth to say otherwise! It's called "personal piety." It's you living your faith according to your conscience, personal conviction, and relationship with others and with God.
A Christian is perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all. -Luther
As a Christian, you are saved by faith in Christ - which is trusting that Christ's work in the world has made you right with God - which has nothing to do with your good works, or even your sins! The long and short of it is that you'll be a sinner until you die - the difference is that if you have faith, you're saved despite your being a sinner. Therefore, as long as you have that faith in Christ - that He has lived, died, and rose again to make you a saved heir of God - you only have to be concerned about sin insofar as it hurts your faith, others' faith, or others in general!
That's what the second phrase does. It teaches us how we are supposed to live. St. Paul talks about this in his letter to the Romans:
Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.Because we are free from sin and its consequences, we are actually free to live the way we were created to live, which is "the law" in Christian circles. This starts getting into a lot of complicated theology I'll spare you, but what it boils down to is that you put others before yourself. It's the "Golden Rule." The Bible and Lutherans call this "loving your neighbor." Most alt folks do this already, and sometimes do it a lot better than many Christians!
Jesus explained it "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." (Luke 10:27)
It's pretty simple. And as you live it, you begin to realize that sin has more to do with hurting our relationship to God and hurting other people than it does with breaking apparently arbitrary rules.
Thus a Christian is both righteous and a sinner, holy and profane, an enemy of God and yet a child of God. -LutherAmen.
