We live in a day and age when men are seeking liberation
and so are women. And there's a new one. I don't know if you've seen it.
Children's lib. Freedom is the word today. Liberation is the cry. Do you own
thing is the manifesto of the freedom movement. All authority is flaunted, torn
down. Everybody is supposed to be able to respond only to one thing and that's
the desire of his own heart. Everybody should be able to do exactly what he
wants to do and self-centered is, as always, the motivating factor.But I
mean, let's be honest, this is not really freedom not in terms of a biblical
definition, because Jesus said in John
8:34, "The man who does wrong is a slave to sin." And datsun doesn't
set you free. And women's lib and children's lib and whatever other lib doesn't
do it, but Jesus said this. "If the Son shall make you free, you shall be
free for real." Freedom comes in Jesus Christ. This is the manifesto of
Christianity. And Christianity is freedom. Christianity is liberation. I
supposed that the reason that it's so very difficult for Christians to
understand current liberation movements is because we can't really relate to
bondage. Not if we're truly expressing our liberty in Christ. Now in the book
of Galatians, we have already been told several times that we're free. And of
course, what Paul is showing here is that there's no need to be circumscribed
any more to the codes and rituals and ceremonies of legalistic Judaism. We have
been set free from all of that in Christ.
Let us consider this three principles of Christian liberty;
Principle
1: Christian
liberty does not mean that you welcome fellow Christians only when you have
sorted out their views on X or Y (or with a view to doing that). God has
welcomed them in Christ, as they are; so should we (Rom. 14:1, 3). True, the Lord will
not leave them as they are. But He does not make their pattern of conduct the
basis of His welcome. Neither should we. We have
many responsibilities for our fellow Christians, but being their judge is not
one of them.
Principle 2: Christian liberty ought never to be used in
such a way that you become a stumbling block to another Christian (Rom. 14:13). When Paul states this principle, it is
not a spur-of-the-moment reaction, but a settled principle he has thought out
and to which he has very deliberately committed himself (see 1 Cor. 8:13). When that
commitment is made, it eventually becomes so much a part of our thinking that
it directs our behaviour instinctively. We are given liberty in Christ in order
to be the servants of others, not in order to indulge our own preferences.
Principle 3: Christian liberty requires grasping the
principle that will produce this true biblical balance: “We … ought … not to
please ourselves…. For even Christ did not please himself” (Rom. 15:1-3). There is something devastatingly simple
about this. It reduces the issue to the basic questions of love for the Lord
Jesus Christ and a desire to imitate Him since His Spirit indwells us to make
us more like Him.
Only when
we recognize that we do not deserve our “rights” can we properly exercise them
as privileges. Sensitivity to others in the church, especially weaker others,
depends on this sense of our own unworthiness. If we assume that we have
liberties to be exercised at all costs, we become potentially lethal weapons in
a fellowship, all too capable of destroying someone for whom Christ has died. That
does not mean that I must become the slave of another’s conscience.
For now, as Martin Luther wrote, “A Christian man is the most free
lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant
of all, and subject to everyone.”
As it was with the Master, so it is with the servant.
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