|
Christian
Liberty
Arthur
W. Pink
In
the opening article of this series, (“The Law and the Saint”)
we affirmed that the unregenerate sinner is, in heart and
practise, an Antinomian; that is, one who is opposed
to the Law of God. Proof of this is furnished by Rom. 8:7,
which tells us, “The carnal mind is enmity against God:
for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed
can be.” It needs to be remembered that the “carnal mind”
still remains in the believer. It is true that the Christian
has a new mind (2 Tim. 1:7), which is part of the new nature—a
mind which “serves the Law of God” (Rom. 7:25); and
it is this, alone, that explains the conflict waged daily
within every saint. But the presence of the carnal mind
within, reveals the urgent need there is for the “casting
down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself
against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity
every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor.
10:5). This can be accomplished only as the believer yields
his members (not only the members of his body, but every
“member” of his complex personality) “servants to righteousness
unto holiness” (Rom. 6:19).
But does not this expression “yielding
our members as servants to righteousness” savor of
legality, and is not that entirely at variance with
Christian liberty? [See the author’s booklets on
“The Law and the Saint” and “The Christian Sabbath.”] And
here we reach, perhaps, what has seemed a real difficulty
to many who have read the previous articles. Probably our
readers have felt the force of what has been set before
them. The various scriptures cited are so plain that their
meaning is not open to question. The binding obligations
of the Law of God upon every Christian has, we trust, been
unequivocally established. But now the question naturally
arises, What, then, of Christian liberty? Did not the Lord
Himself promise, “If the Son therefore shall make you free,
ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:36)? Did not the
apostle Paul, under the Holy Spirit, write, “Stand fast
therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,
and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Gal.
5:1)? How are we to understand these statements? Are they
to be evacuated of all meaning If not, how is it possible
to fairly and satisfactorily harmonize them with the affirmation
that Christians are under bonds to obey the Ten Commandments?
In seeking an answer to the above questions
several things need be borne in mind. First, we may be fully
assured that the Holy Scriptures contain no contradictions.
Second, we need to be very careful in defining our terms:
and to define them correctly we must make a patient and
thorough search of the Word. In the third place, whatever
true Christian liberty is, certainly, obedience to God
does not conflict with it. It was to men whom He had already
“made free” that the Son said, “If ye love Me, keep My commandments”
(John 14:15). And it was to those who were in the enjoyment
of Christian liberty that one of His Apostles was moved
to write, “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of Him, because
we keep His commandments” (I John 3:22). Thus, it
is evident that we must distinguish sharply between Christian
liberty and lawlessness.
The term “Christian liberty,” like many
another, is used very loosely by our moderns. We greatly
fear that to many, who though bearing the name of Christians
have never been born again, Christian liberty means license
to do as one pleases. We are far from affirming, or
even insinuating, that this is true of all those who deny
that believers are under obligations to “serve the Law of
God.” With many their hearts are better than their heads:
their lives superior to their creeds. But, nevertheless,
it cannot be gainsaid, that to the popular mind Law and
liberty are opposing terms. Many of the Lord’s own people
are being taught that legal restrictions are incompatible
with true Christian liberty, and this in the face of the
words of the Saviour— “teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20).
It is now being proclaimed on almost
every side that grace rules out all Law. Nor is this to
be wondered at, for Christ plainly foretold that lawlessness
should abound (Matt. 24:12). But though it is not
to be wondered at, it is to be deeply deplored that some,
whom we have good reasons to look upon as the Lord’s servants,
should be found lending themselves to forwarding this incoming
tide of spiritual anarchy. The Word of truth declares that
“grace reigns “through righteousness” (Rom 5:21),
not at the expense of it; and there can be no righteousness
apart from law. Righteousness is right doing; and right
doing is conformity to law. The only other alternative is
what the writer of the book of Judges speaks of, namely,
“Every man doing that which was right in his own eyes”
(21:25), which is a state of anarchy.
Liberty and license are as far apart
as the poles. True liberty is subjection to Law,
paradoxical as that may sound. To the unregenerate mind
the terms of Christian life must appear to abound in paradoxes.
“When I am weak, then am I strong” (2 Cor.
12:10), will seem a contradiction in terms to one who is
devoid of spiritual intelligence. But is it meaningless
to the real Christian? We trow not. Whether he understands
it or not, he knows full well that it is the inspired declaration
of God’s Word. Equally foolish must it appear to the unbeliever
to read, that, When a man becomes the slave of Christ,
then is he free! Nevertheless, that is what God’s
Word affirms, and it is what Christian experience confirms.
Little as the mind of the flesh may be able to grasp it,
is it not nevertheless a fact that, when we are the most
elevated spiritually we take the lowest place
before God? that when we are the holiest we are most conscious
of our sinful defilements? Equally so is it true that we
enjoy the greatest spiritual freedom when we are most in
subjection to God’s Law. What saith the Scriptures? This:
“I will walk at liberty, for I seek Thy precepts”
(Psa. 119:45). The natural man imagines that to be subject
to God’s “precepts” is to be confined to a narrow place;
but the mind illumined by the Holy Spirit will acknowledge,
“Thy commandment is exceeding broad” (Psa. 119:96).
After these preliminary considerations
we shall now attempt to define the scriptural import of
Christian liberty. Not that we profess to give here
a complete or exhaustive definition, nevertheless, we believe
it will include the primary elements and aspects of it.
1. Christian liberty is deliverance
from the Wrath of God. The relation which
the Christian, before conversion, stood to God (because
of sin) was that of a condemned criminal. By nature he was
a child “of wrath, even as others” (Eph. 2:3). By birth
he belonged to a race which is under the curse of God. In
Adam he sinned, and upon him rested the righteous condemnation
of a sin-hating God (Psa. 58:3). Because of this he was
together with all others of Adam’s race, looked at as a
criminal in prison, awaiting execution. But, all praise
to His peerless name, it was to deliver just such that the
Son of God became incarnate. He was sent “to proclaim liberty
to the captives, and the opening of the prison,
to them that are bound” (Isa. 60: 1). This was His first
ministerial utterance (see Luke 4:16-18). Nor was this to
be confined to Jewish sinners. Of old the Lord declared,
I will “give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light
of the Gentiles. To open the blind eyes, to bring out
the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in
darkness out of the prison house” (Isa. 42:6, 7).
The Gospel, then, proclaims “liberty
to the captives” (Isa. 61:2), and the one who believes its
joyous message is immediately and forever freed from that
awful prison in which he lay as a culprit condemned. The
Gospel tells him how this could be righteously accomplished.
Another took his place; a Substitute suffered in his stead.
And of Him it is written, “He was taken from prison
and from judgment” (Isa. 53:8). He entered, for His
people, the place of condemnation, and from it He was taken
to judgment—that is one reason why He was crucified between
two “malefactors,” to show us the more plainly the place
He took! Only thus could we be liberated. When the Judge
delivers the culprit to the officer and he is “cast into
prison,” the Divine sentence is, “Thou shalt by no means
come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing”
(Matt. 5:25, 26). And because we had “nothing (with
which) to pay” (Luke 7:42), the Lord Jesus paid the full
redemption price for us, by suffering in our stead “the
whole of wrath Divine.” In consequence of this we are delivered.
No longer prisoners, but free men are we. No longer under
God’s righteous wrath, but delivered from all condemnation
(Rom. 8:1). Here, then, is the first aspect of Christian
liberty: deliverance from the wrath of God. The disobedient
are “spirits in prison” (I Pet 3:19); but those who have
obeyed God’s command to believe on His Son have been “made
free” (John 8:36), free from the sentence of condemnation.
2. Christian liberty is deliverance
from the Power of the Devil. Christians in
their unregenerate state, “walked according to the course
of this world, according to the Prince of the power of the
air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience”
(Eph. 2:2). The ungodly are the slaves of Satan. Said our
Lord to the Pharisees, “Ye are of your father the Devil,
and the lusts of your father ye will do” (John 8:44). Men
are “taken captive by him (the Devil) at his will”
(2 Tim. 2:26).
Now the Gospel is God’s appointed agency
for delivering men from their awful bondage to the Devil.
When the Lord commissioned the apostle Paul to go unto the
Gentiles, He sent him “to open their eyes, and to turn them
from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan
unto God” (Acts 26:18). Christians are a people who have
been delivered from “the Power of darkness (Satan) and translated
into the kingdom of God’s dear Son” (Col. 1:13). Heb. 2:14,
15 tells how this was made possible for us: “Forasmuch then
as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also
Himself likewise took part of the same; that He might destroy
him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil; and
deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime
subject to bondage.” Here, then, is the second aspect of
Christian liberty: believers in Christ have been delivered
from that bondage to which they had been, all their
lifetime, subject. Consequently, to them the promise now
is “Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you” (James
4:7).
3. Christian liberty is deliverance
from the Bondage of Sin. The unregenerate
are the slaves of sin: “Whosoever committeth sin is the
bondslave of sin” (John 8:34). So completely are the wicked
under the dominion of sin they cannot of themselves
think a godly thought, beget a godly aspiration, or perform
a godly deed. They cannot come to Christ (John 6:44).
They cannot hear His Word (John 8:43). They cannot
believe (John 12:39). They cannot receive the Holy
Spirit (John 14: 17). They cannot please God (Rom.
8:8). And in each case the reason why they cannot is because
they are the bondslaves of sin. And in that condition they
will remain unless the Son shall “make them free.”
That the natural man is ignorant of this
bondage only evidences how completely he is under the dominion
of sin. His understanding is darkened. That he boasts of
being a free-agent only demonstrates the derangement of
his mind. The same men who call darkness light, and light
darkness; who term wisdom, folly, and deem folly to be wisdom;
also regard true freedom as bondage; and consider their
own bondage, freedom. Ever since man drank in that deadly
poison, “Ye shall be as God” (Gen. 3:5), his descendants
have affected a dominion over themselves, and have disregarded
the Lordship of their Maker. Their boast is, “With our tongue
will we prevail; our lips are our own: who is lord
over us?” (Psa. 12:4). They suppose that the only true liberty
is to be at the command and under the control of none above
themselves. They think that to live according to their own
heart’s desire is to assert their free- agency. But that
is bondage and thraldom of the worst kind.
The natural man may cherish the delusion
that he is not hampered by the bonds which restrict
the liberty of the saints. He may think himself free to
go where he wills, and free to do as he pleases, untrammeled
by Divine restraints. But this only proves that the god
of this world (Satan) has “blinded his mind” (2 Cor.
4:4)). Instead of being free he “serves divers lusts”
(Titus 3:3). Instead of carving his own career, he is simply
walking “according to the Prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience”
(Eph. 2:2). Instead of being master of himself, he is doing
the desires of his father, the Devil (John 8:44). And little
as he knows it, God Himself “restrains” him (Psa.
76:10). The truth is, that the most awful punishment which
God ever inflicts upon men in this world is to abandon them
to themselves. “So I gave them up unto their own
hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels” (Psa.
81:12).
But believers have been delivered
from the dominion of sin: “Being then made free from sin”
(Rom. 6:18). Christians have been emancipated from their
former bondage: “Sin shall not have dominion over
you” (Rom. 6:14) is now the Divine promise to them. It is
not that the sinful nature has been removed from them, but
that its sovereign power has been broken. Sin may harass
them but they are no more its slaves. Believers may fall
but they shall not be utterly cast down (Psa. 37:24). Here,
then, is the third aspect of Christian liberty: believers
have been delivered from the bondage of sin, and if they
will but avail themselves of God’s all-sufficient grace,
they will find that full provision has been made for them
to enjoy complete deliverance from the servitude
of sin. That we do not enjoy this is entirely our own fault.
4. Christian liberty is deliverance
from the Authority of Man. The Christian belongs
to Christ. He has been bought with a price. He is “the Lord’s
freeman” (I Cor. 7:22). Consequently no man and no set of
men have any right to impose any restraints on his conscience.
No man and no set of men have any right to tell the Christian
what he must believe or what he must do (his civic life
excepted). For the State to interfere in connection with
spiritual things is iniquitous tyranny. If the State were
to demand my subscription to a man-made creed, that would
be an attack upon my Christian freedom. If the State were
to demand that my children should be baptized and join some
church, that would be an unlawful infringement of my Christian
liberty. The Lord’s people in the United States cannot be
sufficiently thankful to God for the religious liberty which
is granted them in this favored land. And the least they
can do in return is to earnestly pray the Lord for His blessing
to rest on the President and the members of Congress, that
such privileges may be continued.
It is this particular aspect of Christian
freedom which the apostle pressed upon the Galatian saints.
They had been harassed by certain Judaizers who demanded
that they be circumcised; and it was in view of this
(and of this alone) that the apostle said to them, “Stand
fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made
us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage”
(5:1). He hereby reminds them that to submit to the demand
of the Judaizers would be to repudiate the liberty wherewith
Christ had made them free. Mark that Paul is not here addressing
Jewish believers, but Gentile believers. Proof of this is
found in the very next verse: “If ye be circumcised.”
From what, then, had the Galatian
believers been “made free” by Christ? The answer is, from
the requirements and commandments, from the rites and ceremonies
of man-made religions. “When ye knew not God,” said the
apostle, “ye did service (“ye were in bondage,” Bagster’s
Interlinear) unto them which by nature are no gods” (4:8).
They had been slaves to human traditions and authority.
In principle, then, these Judaizers, un-authorized by God,
were seeking to drag them back again into that from which
they had been delivered. Hence, continues the apostle, “after
that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how
turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements,
whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?” (Gal. 4:9).
To submit to circumcision at the hands of men, was not better
than a return to their heathen rites. Therefore said the
apostle, “stand fast in the liberty where with Christ hath
made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke
of bondage.” Disdain these Judaizers. Refuse to heed them.
Do not allow them to rob you of your Christian liberty.
They have no right to issue commandments nor impose
ordinances. You belong to Christ: heed His commandments
and submit to His ordinances.
Our comments above on Gal. 5:1 are confirmed
by what we read of in 5:11-13: “And I, brethren, if I yet
preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution?
Then is the offence of the Cross ceased. I would they
were even cut off which trouble you. For, brethren,
ye have been called unto liberty.” Thus it is clear that
the “liberty” of which the apostle treats in this epistle
is emancipation from all human authority in religious matters,
for it was not the moral Law but circumcision that
these Judaistic “troublers” were pressing upon these Galatian
saints.
It is this particular aspect of Christian
freedom which the apostle also pressed on the Colossian
saints. The Colossian church had been troubled by Gnostics,
who sought to impose their system of asceticism upon the
Lord’s people. They had drawn up a series of prohibitions
which the apostle summarizes in the words, “Touch not; taste
not; handle not, which are all to perish with the using”
(Col. 2:21, 22). With these saints the apostle expostulates:
“Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments
of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye
subject to ordinances, after the commandments and doctrines
of men?” (vv. 20, 22). His argument here is parallel
with the one he used with the Galatians. You belong to Christ,
he reminds them (“dead with Him”), why then descend from
this privileged place and heed the rules of men. Such rules,
admits the apostle, “have indeed a show of wisdom
in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body,”
etc. But a “show” is all they have, for they are
“to perish with the using.” Well would it be if many of
our moderns would study these verses, for there are not
a few today who are seeking to impose their own “commandments
and doctrines” of “touch not, taste not, handle not.” Insofar
as Christians heed them they are robbed of their liberty.
When a man believes the Gospel, with enlightened faith,
he accepts Christ as the alone Lord of his conscience, faith
and conduct. “One is your Master, even Christ” (Matt. 23:8),
therefore, should he refuse to allow any man (or any woman)
to dictate to him what he should touch or taste or handle.
Let him give himself, unreservedly, to learning the mind
of Christ and responding to it, and leave others
to be brought into bondage to “the commandments and doctrines
of men” if they are so determined. Let others “neglect”
their “bodies” if they wish to; for our part, we believe
that “Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused,
if it be received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim. 4:4); and we
desire grace to use them all to God’s glory.
5. Christian liberty is deliverance
unto the Service of God. Thus far we have considered
only the negative side — what Christians have been delivered
from. Now we take up the positive—what Christians are delivered
unto. True liberty is not the right to live as we please,
but the power to live as we ought. It is being delivered
from the bondage of condemnation, Satan, sin, and men, so
that the Christian is now free to serve God. Regeneration
effects a change of masters. The one who before was
the captive of Satan and the slave of sin is now free to
serve God. The lawless rebel has become a loyal subject.
This is the central truth in the second half of Rom. 6.
We confine ourself now to vv. 16-18 and 22, and as these
are so pertinent we give a brief, but clause by clause,
exposition:
Verse 16. “Know ye not”: I appeal to
a common fact of observation. “That to whom ye yield yourselves
servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey”.
If I see a number of laborers working in a field, I at once
conclude they are the servants of the proprietor of that
field. This illustrates the principle which the apostle
here develops and applies. If men are doing the work of
Satan, they must be his servants; if they are engaged in
the work of God, they must be His servants. Sin is
here personified, and sinners are termed its “slaves”. “Whether
of’ sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness”.
Death is the wages which sin pays its servants. “Obedience”
is also personified here.
V. 17. “But God be thanked, that ye were
the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that
form of doctrine whereto ye were delivered.” Those who had
formerly been the slaves of sin were now the servants of
righteousness, and for this the apostle returns thanks to
God. They had obeyed “from the heart,” for Christian obedience
is spontaneous and cordial, not constrained by fear or produced
by force. “That form of doctrine whereto ye were delivered.”
The Greek words here refer to the moulding of metal. When
the melted metal is transferred to a mould, it obeys or
conforms to its form. So believers respond to and take their
form of character from the mould of Divine doctrine.
V. 18. “Being then made free from sin.”
In their unregenerate state, God’s saints were the slaves
of sin; but the Gospel has emancipated them. This emancipation
is an intrinsic part of their freedom, though it is far
from signifying a state of sinless perfection, or even entire
deliverance from the influence of sin. “Ye became the servants
of righteousness.” Servants of righteousness are men obedient
to righteousness.
V. 22. “But now being made free from
sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto
holiness, and the end everlasting life.” Believers have
been emancipated from the state of sin’s slavery, and have
become the bond-slaves of God. There has been a complete
change of masters. The subjection of a slave is absolute
and continuous. The slave does not obey his own will, but
that of his master. He is under an influence which secures
obedience. This is true in spiritual as in natural and external
relations. But there is this vital difference: the slaves
of sin are in the most direful bondage; whereas the bond-slaves
of God enjoy true liberty. The slave of sin is the helpless
victim of his depraved nature; but the bond-slave of God
serves freely — his obedience is from the heart!
[In this brief exposition we have given a digest of Mr.
R. Haldane’s.]
“Christians are free in reference to
God. They are ‘the Lord’s freeman’ (1 Cor. 7:22). By this
we do not mean that they are not under the strongest obligations
to conform their minds and wills to the mind and will of
God, and to regulate the whole of their temper and conduct
according to the revelation of that mind and will revealed
in His Word. They are not free in the sense of being without
law to God; to be so, would be the reverse of a privilege;
they are ‘under the law to Christ’ (1 Cor. 9:21)” (Dr. John
Brown).
In a word, then, Christian liberty is
the freedom of children in contrast from the bondage
of prisoners, and just as children are (normally)
subject to the government of their parents, so are God’s
children subject to His government; and the Law is for the
regulation of their conduct.
But one more question needs to be faced
ere we conclude, namely, If we are under the Law
as a rule of life, are we not then subject to its curse?
If we break it, must not its curse, necessarily, come upon
us? Decidedly not, is our answer. And why? Because Christ
suffered its “curse” in the stead of His people (Gal. 3:13).
David, Elijah, Daniel were “under the Law” (not for salvation,
but governmentally), and they broke it. Were they,
then, under its curse? Surely not. On what principle, then
(governmental principle) does God act toward His children
who break the Law? A pertinent question, and one to which
a clear scriptural answer may be returned. Let the reader
turn to Psalm 89 and there he will read, “If his children
forsake My Law and walk not in My judgments; if they break
My statues, and keep not My commandments; Then will I visit
their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with
stripes, Nevertheless My lovingkindness will I not utterly
take from him, nor suffer My faithfulness to fail” vv. 30-33)!
In closing, let us repeat, that Christian
liberty is not only emancipation from sin and Satan, but
it is deliverance unto the service of God: “Circumcision
is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the
keeping of the commandments of God * * he that is
called, being free, is Christ’s servant,” that is, “bond-slave”
(1 Cor. 7:19- 22). Freedom that does not issue in “keeping
the commandments of God” is a delusion. “As free, and not
using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness, but as
the bondslaves of God” (1 Pet. 2:16). The greatest
freedom is enjoyed by him who is most subject to the Law
of God which is “holy and just and good.” That is why God’s
Law is termed “the Law of liberty” (James 2:12),
an expression which must be utterly unintelligible to the
carnal mind, but one that is perfectly simple to the man
who is controlled by the Holy Spirit. Anything short of
this complete subjection to the Law is bondage. Let us not
be deceived, then, by those who promise a spurious
liberty, for “they themselves are the slaves of corruption”
(2 Pet. 2:19). Let us not be found “turning the grace of
our God into lasciviousness” (Jude 4). Rather let us heed
that word of the apostle Paul, “For, brethren, ye have been
called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion
to the flesh, but by love serve one another” (Gal. 5:13).
Be these the breathings of our soul: Lord, my sweetest liberty
is obedience to Thee; my highest freedom wearing Thy yoke;
my greatest rest bearing Thy burden. O, how love I Thy Law
after the inward man! I delight to do Thy will, O my God!
The Lord grant unto us that we “being delivered out
of the hand of our enemies might serve Him without
fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the
days of our life” (Luke 1:74, 75).
Return to the Main Highway
Return to Calvinism and the
Reformed Faith
:-) <—— |