Christian Liberty
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.
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).
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: whois 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.
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.
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.
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).
~ Arthur Pink, "Christian Liberty"
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