Every year at the Passover season we are reminded of those momentous events so long ago when God reached down to break the pride and power of one of the greatest nations on earth and lifted a slave community from oppression and misery to the exalted status of “God’s own people”—governed, protected and blessed by the Creator Himself. Perhaps only those who have actually experienced slavery can fully understand the meaning of freedom. However, as the history both of ancient Israel and of mankind since that time also demonstrates, experience of slavery is no guarantee of an appreciation of freedom. History itself has often appeared to be little more than the endless cycle of the strong conquering the weak, and one dictator succeeding another. Novelist Charles Dickens cuttingly described the instigators of the French Revolution as “long ranks of the new oppressors risen on the destruction of the old ...”

“Then I returned and considered all the oppression that is done under the sun: And look! The tears of the oppressed, but they have no comforter—on the side of their oppressors there is power, but they have no comforter” (Ecclestiastes. 4:1).

Some years ago, on the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II, a newspaper carried a moving account of the day Allied tanks arrived at Belsen concentration camp, as related to the reporter by a survivor.

“‘The day before we were freed was Saturday and we heard distant guns and watched the S.S. abandon the camp,’ he said. Sunday afternoon the single-story military-style barrack blocks slowly began to empty of those who could still walk. They came out into the spring sunshine in striped robes, pajamas and ill-fitting civilian remnants. At the wire they peered south through starvation-weakened eyes along the track in the sun-dappled forest, hearing the diesel thunder of the British and Canadian armor rise and fall as the tracked giants crawled toward the hidden horror that was Bergen-Belsen. As the tank column neared the gate, the prisoners could feel the buildings tremble.” (Winnipeg Free Press, April 13, 1985). For the vast majority of us who have never experienced imprisonment, much less the brutal captivity of a concentration camp, it is impossible to imagine what this must have been like. We may tend to think of it as a moment of undiluted joy, but the reality is that joy may not be possible for those whose spirits have been broken.

“The first Sherman tank snarled and roared its way up the narrow, tree-shaded road and stopped at the brick guardhouse. The British commander climbed down from the turret, walked under the raised gate barrier, and stared in shock at the faces seeping hopeless tears on the other side of the wire. ‘You are free. You are no longer prisoners of Germany,’ he said. Then he cried. And the Canadian and British tank crews cried as they gave food and treats to the wraiths framed in the barbed wire that would become an ensign of Nazi brutality and massacre” (ibid.).

Some 1,900 years earlier, in a synagogue in Galilee, the Son of God had risen to His feet, opened the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and announced to the hushed congregation: “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound” (Isaiah 61:1 Revised Standard Version, also Luke 4:18).

In the prophecies of the end-time, God reveals a coming time of tribulation and captivity on Israel on a greater scale than even the horrifying events of World War II, “a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time” (Daniel 12:1), events so traumatic that if God did not promise to cut them short, there might be no survivors (Matthew 24:22). This time, only the direct intervention of Jesus Christ at the head of angelic armies will bring deliverance and repatriation to the survivors of this last great captivity (Revelations 19:11-14), and the new world government, with a resurrected King David having direct responsibility for Israel, will finally restore freedom to the earth.

“‘For it shall come to pass in that day,’ says the LORD of hosts, ‘that I will break his yoke from your neck, and will burst your bonds. Foreigners shall no more enslave them. But they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up for them” (Jeremiah 30:8-9).

But there are other, more subtle, forms of slavery than that perpetrated in prison camps. Millions are enslaved by false religions, others by substance addictions of various kinds. There are those we call “workaholics,” enslaved by their work and the pursuit of material wealth. And, throughout all history, and without exception, the human race has been enslaved by its own nature, the mind that is naturally hostile to God and His laws (Romans 8:7).

“And you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free,” Jesus told the Jews of His day (John 8:32). This was puzzling to them; surely they were already free? True, they lived under Roman domination, but it was not especially harsh for those who did not challenge Rome’s authority, and they were free to worship God according to the Scriptures. Jesus had to explain that He was referring to something far more important.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:34-36 RSV). Two thousand years ago, the Creator took on the form of man, engaged Satan and the world head-on in a titanic struggle that was to determine the destiny of humanity, and emerged victorious. In His parting words to the disciples, He said, “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). The inspiring account of the Exodus and Israel’s deliverance from Egypt is only a pale shadow of the real story of human history—the deliverance from sin that has already begun in the lives of Christians and will reach fulfillment at Christ’s Second Coming, when we will be freed for all time from the “bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).