Emancipation Day and Easter

Today I find it fitting that it is both Emancipation Day and Easter Day. Both holidays are significant for their freedom.

Emancipation Day is in honor of President Abraham Lincoln signing the Compensation Emancipation Act on April 16, 1862, freeing slaves in the District of Columbia from their physical bonds of slavery and paving the way toward the Emancipation Proclamation which would end slavery once and for all in the U.S.

Easter (or Resurrection Day, as is more fitting) is in honor of our Savior Jesus Christ, who guaranteed our spiritual freedom, both of the bonds of sin in this world and of eternal damnation in the next.

John 8:34-36 says "Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."

Romans 6:20-23 also declares "For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Once we were enemies of God because of our sin. But through this freedom in Christ, once accepted, we can not only obtain (1) forgiveness and purification, as we are no longer slaves to sin, and (2) adoption into the family of God as sons of God (John 1:12; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:7) and heirs and joint heirs with Christ in His glory forevermore (Romans 8:17)