A hallmark of false teachers throughout history has been the promise of freedom. Indeed, every philosophy and teaching offers freedom of some sort. For the false teachers, this freedom
would most certainly have included a distortion of Paul’s teaching so that Christian liberty is seen as a pretext for vice. Paul also had to counter this tendency (Galatians 5:13) and he emphasized that the person freed from sin who again engages in vice becomes sin’s slave (Romans 6:15–23).1 Additionally it would have included freedom from fear of eschatological judgment seeing as this was the primary error of the false teachers.2
At the time when this letter was written, political freedom especially was considered one of the highest values. Societies at the time were also acutely aware of the difference between free men and slaves. In this context, the glory of the gospel was the claim that freedom comes from relationship with God and living in accordance with what he made us to be (see also John 8:31–36; Romans 6:5–23; 1 Corinthians 7:20–24; Galatians 5:13; 1 Peter 2:16).
19 They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.