FREE!

The infamous words Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Makes Free) are forged on its gates. This was what the prisoners first saw as they were marched in to Dachau, one of the most ignoble of the Nazi concentration camps. The model and prototype for all such other detention centers, Dachau, it is estimated, interned about a quarter of a million prisoners. About 30,000 of them did not survive.

Work makes free?

When the 42nd Infantry Division of the US Army liberated Dachau on 29 April, 1945, there were about 30,000 prisoners in the camp, packed into 20 barracks, not to mention 40 railroad cars, each with more than a 100 corpses.

It is said that when General Patton saw the conditions at Dachau, he vomited. Work makes free?

That year, the Orthodox Church’s Easter fell a few days after the liberation of Dachau. And so, in a cell block at the camp, priests wearing makeshift vestments fashioned from the towels of the SS guard, celebrated the Resurrection of Christ. It is said that in the entire history of the Orthodox Church, there has probably never been an Easter service like that one in 1945.

Today, quite appropriately, an Orthodox chapel at Dachau has an acclaimed icon: Christ leading the prisoners out of camp gates.

Word does not make free. Christ does!

The Spirit of the Lord GOD
is upon me [Christ],
because the LORD
has anointed me
to bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up
the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to captives
and freedom to prisoners.
Isaiah 61:1

Christ makes free!

So if the Son makes you free,
you will be free indeed.
John 8:36

When Christ took upon Himself our sin, we were liberated from the consequences of that heavy burden. No longer are believers enslaved to sin and under the sentence of eternal separation from God. Christ, having paid the penalty, had set us free. Free indeed!

For the wages of sin is death,
but the free gift of God
is eternal life
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23

For the one who has placed his or her trust in Christ, freedom—eternal freedom—has been accomplished.

He breaks the power of canceled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.
Charles Wesley, 1739

Death vanquished. Sin atoned. Burden lifted. Freed!

Therefore, since the children
share in flesh and blood,
He [Jesus Christ] Himself
likewise also partook of the same,
that through death
He might render powerless
him who had the power of death,
that is, the devil,
and might free those
who through fear of death
were subject to slavery
all their lives.
Hebrews 2:14–15

Slavery abolished; no longer are believers captive to the prince of sin, Satan, the instrument of sin, the flesh, and the system of sin in the world. Instead, the believer is now “enslaved” to live a life of righteousness.

… having been freed from sin,
you became slaves of righteousness.
Romans 6:18

We have a calling and a responsibility to live unto God, in the power of the Holy Spirit, leading lives that are Christlike. For now we are citizens of a different kingdom, subjects of a different King, serfs in thrall to a different Lord ...

… Jesus Christ,
the faithful witness,
the firstborn of the dead,
and the ruler
of the kings of the earth.
To Him who loves us
and released us from our sins
by His blood …
to Him be the glory
and the dominion
forever and ever. Amen.

Revelation 1:5–6