One of the dominant notes in
the Gospel of Christ is not only that of peace, as we saw this
morning in our study of Ephesians 2 and verse 14 and following,
but also the note of liberty. Our Lord Himself said, If the
Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. Again, the Apostle in Galatians
5.1 commands the believers to stand fast in the liberty wherewith
Christ has made them free. This liberty was purchased at
the price of the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, and is therefore
a precious possession. And any Christian who is ignorant
of that liberty, or who fails to live in the light of that
liberty, is despising something dearly purchased. And therefore
it is our purpose for some Sunday nights to focus upon various
major strands of biblical teaching, touching what has commonly been
called the biblical doctrine of Christian liberty or liberty
of conscience. And in our study thus far, what
we've attempted to do is, number one, set this study in a historical
perspective. And we looked, first of all,
into New Testament or apostolic history. And we notice that the
major portions dealing with the subject of Christian liberty
arose out of the peculiar circumstances present in the Apostolic Church,
circumstances marked by transition from the Old Covenant to the
New, by expansion, the Church expanding from Jerusalem and
the area of Palestine out to the ends of the earth, the problem
of inclusion, bringing together these Jews and these Gentiles,
and then the problem of defection, the ever-present threat of heretics,
who would, on the one hand, seek to rob the Christians of their
liberty in Christ, and on the other hand, who would seek to
abuse liberty and make it an excuse for license. And the major
portions in the New Testament dealing with the subject of Christian
liberty arise out of historical circumstances characterized or
summarized in those four words, transition, expansion, inclusion,
and defection. Someone who's given to alliteration
and other little mental tricks told me after that study, they
said, well, if you rearrange them, you could have tide. And
he said, that's how you could remember it. You have a T-I and
a D-E. Well, I'm not about to rearrange
them for tide, but if that helps you, why, you may do the same.
And then we looked into our own contemporary situation which
demands a consideration of this doctrine. Having done that in
our last study, I attempted to give a broad biblical and theological
overview using the Westminster Confession of Faith as a guide
in our study of the scriptures. And we simply read through and
tried to organize the materials of the four paragraphs in Chapter
20 of the Westminster Confession of Faith dealing with Christian
liberty and liberty of conscience. proposed tonight to repeat what
we went over. I'll simply remind you of the
basic division of thought in the Westminster Confession. You
have, first of all, in paragraph one, a statement concerning the
nature or foundation of liberty. It stated negatively what we're
delivered from, positively the privileges we are brought to,
and then comparatively, the nature of this liberty under the Old
and the New Covenant. And then, secondly, we have the
fruits of Christian liberty, mentioned in paragraph 2. Two premises. God alone is Lord
of the conscience. God gives conscience guidance
by his word alone. Two deductions. To believe and
obey things that are not in the word is to give up our liberty. And to force things on people,
other than that which is in the word, is to destroy liberty. And then thirdly, paragraphs
3 and 4 of chapter 20 in the Confession are the qualifications
of Christian liberty. With reference to personal abuse,
Christian liberty is no license to sin. With reference to civil
and ecclesiastical abuse, Christian liberty is no license to anarchy,
either against the order established in the church or in the state.
Now from here, I want to go back over some of the most vital aspects
that were touched on in a very brief and in a very surface manner
to enlarge upon them, to emphasize some, to add detail that it was
not possible to include in the previous study. Now the method
I'm adopting is to use another human guide as far as my outline
is concerned, though we'll be looking more directly at the
scriptures than we did last week. Back in 1971, The Reverend Donald
MacLeod, pastor of a free church in Glasgow, some of you have
heard some of his tapes and heard him personally when he was at
the family conference. I had an article in the Banner
of Truth magazine in the July-August edition of that magazine in 1971
on this subject, in which I believe he brought together the leading
strands of biblical truth in a most helpful way, and as I
read and re-read over his article, I felt I could not organize the
material any better, and so I'm indebted to the structure of
the material tonight, I'm indebted to Mr. McLeod, as I will use
the format of his article as the basic guide. I'll have some
things there that he didn't have. I'll exclude some things that
he included. But basically, I'm indebted to
him. And if you read the article and
find great similarity, it's because that similarity was planned and
programmed. And what I wish to do as we seek
to go back over now some of the more fundamental points relative
to this whole doctrine of Christian liberty is to look more carefully
at the pivotal issues relative to the theological basis of our
liberty in Christ. As you sit here tonight as a
believer, if you are a believer, and ask yourself the question,
what are the real pillars upon which my liberty as a Christian
rests? Would you be able to identify
those pillars clearly? If someone comes to you and says,
why is it that you seem to live With such a sense of delight
in life and in the privileges that God has given to you, My
life seems to be trampled and crippled with all kinds of scruples
about this and that and the other. Could you articulate to someone
what it is that gives you the basis of enjoying your liberty
in Jesus Christ? Well, I hope after tonight's
study you would be able to do so. And let me suggest, using
basically Mr. McLeod plus an edition of my
own, that the theological basis of our liberty in Christ is fourfold. Number one, or pillar number
one, our liberty rests down upon the sonship that we possess as
believers. The sonship we possess as believers. When we are brought to embrace
the gospel, we are not only justified, and thank God for the biblical
doctrine of justification, we are not only declared righteous
in the sight of God, on the basis of the righteousness of Christ
imputed to us, put to our account, but the scripture says we are
also adopted. And whereas justification is
essentially a legal, a forensic, and those two words are synonymous,
term and concept, God's act of justification has to do with
his dealings with us primarily in his function as the judge
of the universe. whereas adoption has to do with
God's dealings with us as father and head of the household of
faith. And whenever God justifies a
sinner, He also adopts that sinner into His family. And some of
the key texts on this adoption of God of all believers are John
1 and verse 12. But to as many as received him,
to them gave he the right to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his name." All who believe on his name are
given the right, the title, to sonship. And then that classic
text in Galatians chapter 4, and I would like you to turn
to this passage and have it before you as we study together. Galatians
chapter 4. beginning with verse one. But
I say that so long as the heir is a child, he differs nothing
from a bondservant, though he is lord of all. Here is a man
who has not yet come of age. The inheritance is all his in
terms of legal title, but in terms of enjoying the privileges
of the inheritance, he's no better off than the bondservant, even
though legally he's lord of all. He's not yet come of age, and
therefore he has not come into the conscious enjoyment of all
the inheritance that is legally his. But, during this interim
period, he's under guardians and stewards until the day appointed
of the father. Maybe his 18th birthday, maybe
his 21st birthday, some other date. The father has appointed
such a day when the one who is son will come into the full enjoyment
of all the privileges of sonship. Now he's drawing a comparison.
So we also, referring particularly to those who are under the old
covenant, When we were children, we were held in bondage under
the rudiments of the world. But when the fullness of the
time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under
the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law,
that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons,
God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. so that thou art no longer a
bondservant, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God."
So he establishes the superiority of the privilege of a son in
distinction to, or in contrast with, that of a servant. Now the servant is in the household,
he shares the provisions, but The servant's position is nothing
compared to that of the Son, who is heir of all and has the
free run of the house. The servant may come and say,
O Master, but he cannot come and say, Daddy. And the apostle
says, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts
based upon the redemptive work of Christ. Christ has redeemed
us from the curse of the law and has sent His Spirit into
our hearts that we might cry, And it's a term of endearment,
a term of intimacy. It's daddy. May I say? Papa? Father. For many of us, father is a very
formal term. We never go, we never dress and say, Father,
I would like this. We'd say, Dad, may I have thus and thus?
And so dad would be the parallel of this. And no one says dad,
but the one who's conscious that he is a son who belongs to the
household. Now, what in the world does that
have to do with Christian liberty? Well, read down the next paragraph.
How be it at that time, not knowing God, ye were in bondage to them
that by nature are no gods? But now that you've come to know
God, or rather to be known by God, how turn ye back again to
weak and beggarly rudiments? Whereunto ye desire to be in
bondage over again, ye observe days and months and seasons and
years. I am afraid of you, lest by any
means I bestow labor upon you in vain." He said there were
these regulations that were a necessary discipline until the time of
your adoption. But now that you are sons, why
do you go back to these things that characterize that former
stage when you had not come into your inheritance? And so Paul
argues from the reality of their privileges as sons in order to
show them the folly of coming under bondage to ceremonial rules
and regulations. And now another key passage on
adoption and its relationship to our liberty. It was already
quoted tonight, a portion of this section, Romans chapter
8, or a verse in this section, Romans chapter 8, verses 15 through 17, for ye
receive not the spirit of bondage again unto fear, but ye receive
the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, that is, Father. Abba, being the Aramaic, the
Father, the Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit that
we are children of God, and if children, then heirs. Heirs of
God and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer with
him, that we may be also glorified with him. Here we are told in
language that I find difficult to believe at face value. We
are not only adopted as sons and daughters, But we are heirs
of God and joint heirs with Christ. Now, a joint heir is someone
who shares in the inheritance. And all that the Father has bequeathed
to His Son, Paul says, is bequeathed to us in a joint heirship with
His Son. We are joint heirs with Christ. And as adopted sons and daughters,
all the privileges of the household are ours. Now, what does that
mean in a practical way with reference to Christian liberty?
Well, it means that we learn to look upon all of God's gifts
as privileges that are ours to be used to God's glory, to our
profit, and to our delight. Notice how the apostle reasons
this way in 1 Timothy chapter 4. The Spirit says expressly
that in the later times some shall fall away from the faith,
giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons through
the hypocrisy of men that speak lies branded in their own consciences
with a hot iron, forbidding to marry. Marriage is beneath the
dignity of the spiritual life. Celibacy is more sacred. Commanding
to abstain from meats, if you want to be holy, You must be
holy in terms of not sitting down and enjoying all of God's
gifts, you see. Here's a doctrine of asceticism
which Paul says is authored by demons. Isn't that what he says? Doctrines of demons that have
their roots in hypocrisy, abstaining from forbidding to marry, commanding
to abstain from meat. Now notice, which God created
to be received with thanksgiving by them that believe and know
the truth. In other words, it is only those
who believe and know the truth who can rightly receive God's
gifts. But He has given them to be received
by those who know the truth, for every creature of God is
good, And nothing is to be rejected if it be received with thanksgiving,
for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer. As
a son and a daughter of God, all of the gifts of God's creation
are given to you by your loving Father. Now how do you feel when
you've put yourself out to make lavish provision for a guest
who comes to your home? And because of some kind of scruples,
some influence upon his mind or some other reason, he will
not receive what you have so lovingly provided for him. Doesn't
that pain you? It pains you. Well, how does
the Heavenly Father feel? who has given us all things richly
to enjoy in the language of 1 Timothy 6 and verse 17. And these gifts
are to be received with thanksgiving. And then by prayer we ask that
by receiving them and using them we may glorify God and be more
useful in his service. How does God feel? May I say
it reverently? How does God feel? And under
the influence of something other than the truth of God, we have
scruples about the gifts of God to us as His children. Furthermore,
we read an astounding statement in 1 Corinthians chapter 3. In
1 Corinthians chapter 3, the Apostle Paul is dealing in the
context with the problem of division among the people of God, division,
occasion. by God's goodness in sending
different preachers among them, instead of receiving these men
all as God's gifts, and thanking God for those gifts and benefiting
from them, they use those gifts as the occasion of division and
schism and party spirit, and Paul is trying to show them how
stupid this is. And he says in 1 Corinthians
3 and verse 21, Wherefore let no one glory in men, for all
things are yours. whether Paul, or Apollos, or
Cephas, and that would have served his purpose as far as the immediate
context, but then he launches beyond that and says, all things
are yours, Paul, Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life,
or death, or things present, or things to come, all are yours,
and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's. And he's saying, I
believe this is what he's saying, that God, in His gracious designs
and redemption, has brought everything in His creation subservient to
His redemptive goals. And if you are in Christ, all
things are yours. All the servants of God are yours,
all the gifts of God, life itself, and even death is now yours.
Death is that fatherly discipline by which we are ushered into
the presence of our God. Now, when we understand something
of our posture, our position as sons, you see how this will
radically affect the whole matter of our understanding of the liberty
that is ours in Christ Jesus? As His sons who love the Father,
we are free to receive His gifts with thanksgiving and to employ
them to His glory, whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye
do, to all to the glory of God. And as Mr. McLeod is so, I think,
what word shall I use? Well, he said it well. The Father's
will is normative for us, but only the Father's. For any outside
party, be it an individual or an institution, to attempt to
dictate to us would be an intolerable meddling with the domestic economy
of the Father, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. If
we are the Father's children, we are obligated in solemn bonds
of love and filial delight to obey our Father, but we are obligated
to obey no one else who would intrude into the household of
God and seek to bind our consciences. So the first pillar in this theological
framework that forms the basis of our liberty is the sonship
we possess as believers. Then secondly, and this is an
element Mr. McLeod omits as a second heading,
although he does include it under the first, but I think it warrants
a heading of its own, the second pillar forming the basis of our
liberty in Christ is the servitude. The servitude of believers. Not
only our sonship, but our servitude to Christ as believers. Now,
in Galatians 4, you'll remember that Paul is contrasting the
privilege of a son with the position of a servant. And in that particular
context, he is contrasting servant with son. And his concern is in that context
to emphasize the tremendous privilege of the son in contrast with the
limited privileges of the servant. So what is in mind in Galatians
4 is a contrast of privilege. The servant has a lesser degree
of privilege than does the son. But now when he wants to underscore
the extent of our loving submission to Christ, Paul delights to use
the term slave. In fact, it's one of his favorite
terms for himself. He says, identifying himself
in Romans one in verse one, Paul, a slave, a bond servant, of Jesus
Christ. Even before he talks about being
an apostle with special functions in the proclamation of the gospel,
he identifies himself, first of all, Paul, a doulos, a bondservant,
a slave of Jesus Christ. Now, is this a contradiction
of Galatians 4? No, it's a different focus of
emphasis. You get the point? In terms of
privilege, he says, I'm a son. I'm an heir of God and a joint
heir with Christ. I have the privileges, not of
the slave who cannot address the head of the house as father,
as daddy. I can call God my father in all
the intimacy of purchased privilege. But when I think of my loving
attachment to my Lord, when I think of the extent to which I am willingly
subject to His will, I must think of myself as a doulos, as a slave. And so he identifies himself
here and in Galatians and in a number of other passages in
the New Testament as a slave of Jesus Christ. And he identifies
all believers. as the slaves of Christ. In Romans
chapter 6, verses 16 and 17, and in chapter 6 and verse 22,
he speaks of this exchange of positions as slaves. He says,
in your former state you were slaves of sin. But now you've
obeyed from the heart the form of doctrine unto which you were
delivered, and being made free from sin, that is, from sin as
your master, you've become the slaves of righteousness, which
is identified in verse 22 as the slaves of God himself. And so another pillar of our
liberty in Jesus Christ is the recognition that we are no longer
sin's bondsman. Romans 6 and verse 14, sin shall
not lord it over you. Sin shall not have dominion over
you. Why? Because sin is no longer
my master. Righteousness personified there. Righteousness, God, Christ, these
are my new masters. And so a true Christian not only
must look upon himself as a son, as a daughter, adopted into the
family of God, with all the rights and privileges of joint heirship
with Christ, but he looks upon himself, and he's glad to do
so, as a born slave of Christ, knowing that he is, in the totality
of his redeemed humanity, the property of Jesus Christ. He is not his own. He's been
bought with a price, and he's glad that it's so. Now, if that's
not true of you, you're not a Christian. If you cannot say with some measure
of delight, putting your name first, John, Mary, Harriet, Pete,
whatever your name is, born slave of Jesus Christ, then my friend,
you don't need to hear a lecture on Christian liberty. You need
to hear the gospel proclaiming liberty to you in your terrible
bondage, for you're either a slave of Christ and glad it's so, or
you're a slave of your sin. There is no neutral relationship. Every person in this building
is the loving bond-slave of Jesus Christ, or you're the bond-slave
of your sin. And there is no neutral ground,
none whatsoever. Now, which are you? You see,
any discussion of Christian liberty that doesn't start here is doomed
to lead somewhere into Because you see, a bond slave
of Christ does not go around saying, How much can I do and
get away with and still maintain some respectability as a Christian?
His concern is to please his master. His concern is to honor
his master, to have a maximum productivity in bringing a revenue
of praise to his master. That's his concern. There's also another implication
of this concept of servitude to Jesus Christ, I must allow
the intrusion of no other Lord over my conscience. 1 Corinthians
7, verses 22 and 23, the Apostle Paul underscores this principle
very clearly. 1 Corinthians 7, verses 22 and
23, For he that was called in the Lord being a bondservant,
that is, after the flesh, some men were saved, God laid hold
of them while they were the slaves of others. He that was called
in the Lord, that is, converted, saved, being a bondservant, that
is, a slave, a literal slave, is the Lord's freed man. He says,
if you're a slave, just remember, Christ has freed you from a greater
slavery. That's what he's saying. He's
using a play on words. Likewise, he that was called being free,
this man was no slave, he says, hey, Instead of going around
saying, man, I'm a slave. He says, you are a slave. Is
Christ bond-servant? Now, what's the implication of
that? Verse 23, ye were bought with a price. Become not bond-servants
of men. Christ purchased you to be His
slave. Don't you let anyone else bind
your conscience. Your conscience is bound to your
Master in loving bonds of glad submission. You've gone to the
door of the household of God and you've asked God to pierce
through your ear. You would willingly give yourself
up to be His bondservant, even as the slave at the time of his
appointed emancipation could turn in the old covenant to his
Master and say, I like the house, I like the Master. I choose to
live. And his ear would be bored through.
and he would be his bond-slave forever. So when we have come
to the discovery of God's mercy to us in Jesus Christ, we say
in the words of that well-known hymn, Hear, Lord, I give myself
to you, tis all that I can do. And Christian liberty must always
be discussed in the context of this biblical doctrine of the
servitude of every believer to Jesus Christ, a willing And I will exercise my privileges
as a son only so far as is consistent with my posture as a servant
of Christ and of righteousness. Now, if you never get beyond
the servant concept, there'll be an element of halting all
your days. If you only view yourself as
a son and not a servant, you will probably have areas where
there is license that there ought not to be. But if you bring together
these two concepts, I am son and I am servant, I believe you
have the fusion of that which under the blessing of the Spirit
of God will help you on the one hand to appreciate all of the
gifts of God that are yours as a member of the household, and
yet all of the solemn responsibilities that are laid upon you as a bond
slave of the Lord Jesus. And now the third pillar upon
which the doctrine of Christian liberty rests. We've looked at
the sonship of believers, the servitude of believers. Now,
thirdly, the sovereignty of God over the conscience. The sovereignty
of God over the conscience. And here I want to pause briefly,
first of all, to define in a practical way the function of conscience.
I think the best way to do it is to turn to a key passage on
conscience in the New Testament, Romans chapter two. I was going
to say first Romans. Well, it is first and it's also
last. Romans chapter two. Paul is describing the condition
of all men before God. particularly thinking of God
as the moral judge of the universe. His concern is to show that all
men, regardless of what privileges they may have or what privileges
they may not have, are guilty and stand in need of the one
gospel that is the means of God's salvation. And he's dealing now
with a class of people who do not have the written law of God.
They do not have the Old Testament revelation as the Jews had it.
And he says in verse 12 of Romans 2, for as many as have sinned
without the law shall also perish without the law. And as many
as have sinned under the law shall be judged by the law. For
not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers
of the law shall be justified. For when Gentiles that have not
the law do by nature the things of the law, these not having
the law, the written law, are a law unto themselves, in that
they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their
conscience bearing witness therewith, that is, with the law written
in their hearts, and their thoughts one with another, accusing or
else excusing them, in the day when God shall judge the secrets
of men according to my gospel by Jesus Christ. Now, what is
the apostle saying? Well, he's saying many things,
but one of the things he's saying that serves the purpose of our
study tonight is this. Here are people who cannot look
to a written revelation. They have no tables of stone.
They have no scrolls upon which are written the moral demands
of God, the ten words of Moses, the other revelations of his
precepts and his commandments to men. But, he says, there is
something peculiar about these people. Though they have no written
law, they reveal something by their own inner psychology. And
what do they reveal? They show the work of the law
written in their hearts, and here's how they do it. Their
conscience bearing witness therewith, and their thoughts accusing or
excusing them. He said, how do you explain the
fact that a man who has never seen the written word of God
saying, thou shalt do no murder, thou shalt not commit adultery,
thou shalt not steal, how do you explain that even though
he has not received that written law, when he indulges in such
activity, there is an accusation of thought? He says they show
that they are not totally devoid of the revelation of God's law.
They show the work of the law written in the heart, and conscience,
that little moral monitor, that little moral arbiter, who either
smiles or frowns, either claps or sticks his tongue out at us,
either says yes, says no, says right or wrong, conscience, that
little moral arbiter, always looks to the existing standard
and then says good or bad. Yes or no? Right or wrong? He said, how do you explain the
fact that conscience has got a standard to look to? It has
no revealed standard. They don't have the written law.
But conscience is still active. And conscience cannot be active
in a beast. Conscience is active in man.
And he's not active simply because this is a cultural conditioning.
We would have conditioned conscience clear out of the human race a
long time ago if we could have. Every one of us would have done
it. You know that as well as I do. What a pain in the neck
he was, the first lie you told. It was awful hard to go off to
sleep that night, wasn't it? When you kissed your mother,
you felt terrible. The first time you cheated in school, you
were scared to death. It took all the joy out of the
good grades you got because you cheated. You were scared to death.
The teacher was going to find out. You knew it was wrong. Conscience,
accusing. Well, Paul says, their conscience
bearing witness and their thoughts accusing or excusing one another. Now, what does this tell us?
This tells us something not only about the state of the heathen,
but the peculiar function of conscience. Conscience looks
to the existing standard of right or wrong and answers right, wrong,
yes, no, good or evil. Now, having said that about conscience,
The point we're making with reference to Christian liberty is that
God exercises sovereign rights over the conscience. It is God
alone who has the right to dictate the standard to which conscience
looks. Now, every Christian is concerned
with keeping a clear conscience. He ought to be. Paul said in
Acts 24, 16, Herein do I exercise myself to have always a conscience
void of offense to God and to man. He said, I want to look
up at any moment in the face of my God without accusation.
You can't do that apart from the mediation of Jesus Christ.
And he says, I want to look out in the face of all my fellow
men without accusation. And you can't do that without
humbling yourself many, many times to fess up where you've
wronged people. keeping short accounts with wife
and children and friends and fellow members in the family
of God. You see how vital was a good conscience? Paul warns
in 1 Timothy 1, he says, these heretics, you know, when they
started down the road to their heresy, they cast off faith and
a good conscience. They've made shipwreck concerning
the faith. You see, when you start playing tricks on your
conscience, the moment you start doing what conscience says you
ought not to do, then you begin to try to find a reason to justify
it. And truth will never justify an accusing conscience, only
error. Only error. And almost every heresy is an
attempt to pacify a screaming conscience. So you see, every
Christian has his wits about him, his concern to keep a conscience
void of offense, an uncondemned conscience, a conscience purged
again and again in the blood of Jesus Christ or purged once
for all would be more accurate and continually sprinkled in
the blood of Christ in the language of Hebrews. But now, then, the
great problem is what is the standard to which conscience
should look in order to say, good or bad. Now see, here's
the key issue. Who should write the standard
of right and wrong? Who should dictate it? Well,
the third pillar upon which the doctrine of Christian liberty
rests is this fundamental fact of the sovereignty of God over
the conscience. In other words, God alone has
a right to tell us the standard to which conscience should look.
And we must not allow man to intrude into the prerogatives
of God. This is essentially Paul's argument
in Romans 14. Let's look at it for a moment,
this great chapter on Christian liberty. We're going to go back to this
in some detail in future studies. But for our purposes tonight,
just Paul's emphasis. Here are people who have a differing
dictate of conscience on certain matters. Before he even deals
with maybe adjusting some of the elements of that differing
dictate of conscience in these believers, he wants to establish
their primary responsibility to each other. And what is it?
Verse three, let not him that eateth said it not him that eateth
not. Let not him that eateth not judge
him that eateth, for God hath received him. Who art thou that
judgest a servant of another? To his own Lord he standeth or
falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand,
for the Lord hath power to make him stand. To his own Lord, to
his own Master, he stands or he falls. In other words, God
alone is to be Lord of the conscience, as God alone is judge of his
servants. Now, by way of application, do
you see how this, like the concepts of servitude and sonship, has
both positive and negative implications? If he is lord of the conscience,
then We can never justify violation
of God's law and say, well, my conscience didn't bother me.
This has a positive demand upon it. If he is lord of the conscience,
then my conscience is under obligation to be sensitive to the expressions
of his lordship. And that is his holy law, his
precepts. I am obligated. to know what
he has revealed, so that my conscience will be sensitive to the standard
which alone is the valid standard, the revealed will of God. For
sin is affected conscience, and the table to which I look is
blurred. The book has pages torn out and
crumpled and all the rest, so that I cannot judge my conduct
simply on the basis of what I feel like. Now, when the Spirit of
God comes to indwell us, and in the imagery of Ezekiel 36,
we are given a new heart, and the law of God is written upon
our hearts. There is both a quickening of the faculty of conscience,
and there is the indwelling ministry of the Spirit through the Word.
bringing us more and more into an almost instinctual response
to what is of God. But we are never divorced from
necessity of the objective written word of God. David said, By word
is a lamp to my feet and a light unto my pathway. And so we are
on the one hand under solemn obligations to do as David did,
to search the scriptures, to cry to God for light upon the
path of duty, to pray that more and more our consciences will
be conformed to the revealed standard of God's Word, so that
conscience will smite us where it ought to smite us, and that
we'll not be at peace where we ought not to be at peace. But
then there's the other side of this principle. If he is Lord
of the conscience, then nobody else has a right to bully my
conscience. If God has not forbidden anything, nobody has a right
to go in and say, God, your standard in the scriptures is inadequate
for the conscience of that son and that servant. I think he
can serve you better if I write in a few rules of my own. And
this is the folly. Of religious tradition and religious
legislation, which seeks to go beyond the scriptures in its
standards of conduct, forbidding things God has never forbidden,
demanding things that God has never demanded. God alone is
Lord of the conscience that has its positive and its almost frightening
aspects. I'm solemnly obligated to know
what he's commanded. I cannot claim ignorance of the
law. And on the other hand, it has a wonderfully liberating
aspect. No one can dictate to my conscience,
but he who is Lord of that conscience. And then the fourth pillar upon
which our liberty in Christ rests is the supremacy and the sufficiency
of the Scriptures. We've already hinted at this,
and we'll just articulate it now. The supremacy and the sufficiency
of Scripture, and I shall quote directly from Mr. McLeod. It
is here that the Heavenly Father reveals His will and that the
Lord of the conscience expresses His authority. All that is revealed
in Scripture is mandatory. We must believe it and obey it.
Our consciences are bound, but nothing that is contrary to Scripture
can bind us. And where church or state violate
this principle, the Christian believer has no choice but to
state emphatically, I must obey God rather than men. We must
even go further. The Christian is free not only
from precepts contrary to scripture, but also from precepts which
are beside scripture in matters of faith and worship. This is
the so-called Puritan principle. Certainly it was the kernel of
Puritanism. which was primarily not a theological or a doctrinal,
or I guess Mr. McLeod would have said when he
wrote this doctrinal tendency, but a very definite ecclesiological
standpoint. In other words, the kernel of
Puritanism was the issue whether or not, in worshipping God, ministers
had a right to demand of the people of God what was not expressly
taught in Scripture. And this descended to certain
forms of worship, to the use of the prayer book, to the use
of vestments, to kneeling, certain postures. And their cry was,
if God has not commanded it, who am I to require it? Now,
others who took the differing posture said, if God has not
forbidden it, then we are allowed the indulgence of it. The Puritan
said no. It is not enough that God has not said no to it. We
must see if God has said yes to it. This is where I have a
great problem with the whole issue of pedobaptism, because
the Puritans who cried loudest for this, when we apply it to
the New Testament ordinance and say, unless we have positive
command to sprinkle infants, we dare not, they say, ah, yes,
but God does not forbid it. Well, you see, I can't have the
principle in worship and then give it up in the sacraments.
I must hold the Puritan principle all the way through or relinquish
it, and I believe I'd end up an Anglican. Well, that's just
a little aside. That'd really be out of place,
wouldn't it, an Anglican here in the States? But anyway, I
feel that that needs to be said, and Mr. McLeod is rightly articulating
that principle. The Church must have positive
biblical warrant for all that it prescribes in the realm of
faith and worship. It cannot bind the consciences
of its members by saying, you must do this because it is not
forbidden in Scripture. It must be able to say, you must
do this because it is commanded in Scripture. We may not feel
as strongly on this matter as did John Owen, who once wrote,
quote, That principle that the church hath power to institute
or appoint anything or ceremony belonging to the worship of God,
either as to matter or manner, lies at the bottom of all the
horrible superstition and idolatry of all the confusion, blood,
persecution, and wars that have for so long a season spread themselves
over the face of the Christian world. Now that's no young, wild-eyed
fanatic. That's the learned, judicious,
wise prince of the Puritan expositors, John Owen. He says, this principle,
that we can go ahead and demand anything as long as it's not
expressly forbidden in Scripture, this lies at the bottom of the
horrible superstition and idolatry, confusion, blood, persecution,
and wars that have for so long a season spread themselves over
the face of the Christian world. We may not feel quite as strongly
as this, But the principle is the very essence of Puritanism
and of first-rate importance. The Church must not lay down,
as a principle of Christian conduct or as a condition of Church membership,
anything that is not revealed in the Word of God. The absolute
sufficiency and supremacy of the Word of God. And you see,
if we say, well, the Word of God is not complete, we are casting
aspersions as to its sufficiency. If we say it is complete, but
we'll add something of our own, then we're saying it is not supreme
above all human authority. And therefore our liberty rests
down upon this fourth pillar, the supremacy and the sufficiency
of the Scriptures. So I would submit to you these
are the four pillars upon which our liberty in Christ rests.
our sonship as believers, our servitude to Christ as believers,
the sovereignty of God over the conscience, the supremacy and
sufficiency of Scripture. Now, in closing, I want to do
two things very briefly. And I do them following the clue
from Mr. McLeod. And the first is, in the light
of this, to mention three implications, and I shall only mention them,
and then to focus on one great danger. In the light of the doctrine
of Christian liberty as expounded in terms of these four pillars,
there are three directions of practical implication. Number
one, these principles apply to the realm of doctrine. The Church
cannot impose as an article of faith anything contrary to the
word of God or anything not revealed in the word of God. Now, of course,
the violation of this is obvious in the Church of Rome. Rome proposes
her dogmas, pronounced by her popes and her councils of bishop,
and makes them binding upon the consciences of her people. She
has no right so to do, but at least when Rome does it, she
has a little bit of seniority. It's a tragedy to see people
running from the traditions of 1,500 years' duration into bondage to traditions that
are only 50 years old. If I'm going to be bound by tradition,
I'd rather have a little seniority about it, have a little bit of
the worth of antiquity about the traditions. And so we are
called upon as individuals and as a church continually to make
sure that we are not imposing upon the consciences of men any
doctrine that is not explicitly taught in the Word of God. with
reference to church order, with reference to function and doctrine,
and all that pertains to what we receive as truth. We must
recognize this principle that the Father alone, through the
Word alone, has the right to direct the minds of His people,
and any intrusion into that realm of God's right is an insult to
God and can only cripple His people. It applies in the second
place to the realm of worship. The McLeod states, the power
of the church is abused when it insists on the use of such
things as vestments, that's fancy clerical garb, instrumental music,
when it insists upon it. You see, he is not saying that
we may be at liberty to use such as an expedient, but if we insist
upon it, bind consciences to it. We've had people in this
assembly with reference to the matter of whether or not God
is pleased in the singing of uninspired hymns, that is, anything
other than the Psalms. And I have never felt it my responsibility
to go to them and say, look, when you're among us, you better
sing. No, no. There are people who feel God is not to be publicly
worshipped in any other way than in the singing of the Psalms.
Now, I think there are flaws in their argument, although it
is not a silly position. Good, godly, sober men have held
it. In fact, it was the universal
position of the Reformed churches for a number of years. And I'm
fully aware of the historical weight behind the position. I'm
aware of the exegetical weight behind the position. I have tried
honestly to examine it, convinced that if it was taught in the
Word and it were so, then just as you as a people have followed
wherever the Scriptures led you and many other things that you
would follow, but I cannot lead you where I myself have not gone.
But if someone's conscience is sensitive in that area, in obedience
to God, we dare not to see in the matter of worship force a
man's conscience beyond what is revealed in Scripture. And
then it applies, thirdly, and this is perhaps the most sensitive
area in evangelicalism today, in the realm of conduct. There are many rules and prohibitions
which have no biblical authority but are so firmly embedded, I'm
quoting Mr. McLeod, in the evangelical tradition
that many Christians are emotionally unable to distinguish these prohibitions
from the will of God. They forbid, not to mention a
few examples, the use of alcoholic liquor, participation in many
forms of recreation, certain modes of dress, and even membership
in political parties. Stern, negative attitudes on
these and associated questions are too often almost constitutive
of evangelicalism. In other words, take those away
and you no longer have evangelicalism in the realm of conduct. We must
therefore remind ourselves we are not servants but sons. and
school ourselves in the habit of asking, these doctrines, these
offices, these forms of worship, these rules and prohibitions,
are they from Scripture? Are they from our Father? Are
they from the Lord of our conscience? And if not, by what authority
do men impose these things upon those whom Christ has redeemed
by His blood? Why do they make sad the hearts
of those whom the Lord has not made sad? This is not something
peripheral, that is secondary. It's not something that's way
out at the side issue. It is from one side interference
with an inalienable and fundamental right of the Christian believer,
and from another side it is an irreverent intermeddling with
the household of God and an affront to His sovereignty. And then
he quotes a very, very choice quote from Calvin, who writing
on the subject of Christian liberty says, when once the conscience
is entangled in the net, he calls the net of men's rules, It enters
a long and inextricable. That's just a big word for saying
you can't get out of it. Labyrinth. You know what a labyrinth
is. You kids sometimes have those puzzles and you see them start
here and you're supposed to get out there and you go down. Well,
he says you enter an inextricable. It's just it's hopeless. You
get in it. You can't get out from which it is afterwards most
difficult to escape. When a man begins to doubt whether
it's lawful to use linen for sheets, shirts, napkins and handkerchiefs,
he will not long be secure as to hemp. and at last will have
doubts as to tau. In fine, he'll come to this,
that he will deem it criminal to trample on a straw lying in
his way." You see what he's saying? If you once begin to give up
your conscience to the rules and scruples of men and take
it seriously, and some of us have done that, it will lead
you into bondage that is the most crippling thing in all the
world. I know something of that bondage,
so crippled that I could not with liberty open the refrigerator
door before I went to bed at night and take a glass of milk. Standing there paralyzed to make
a decision, because I had a conscience that wanted to be void of offense
to God, but had allowed a whole flood of man's rules and regulations
to take their place in that conscience. These are the three practical
implications of the doctrine, and I close now with a great
practical danger. Someone says, but Pastor, isn't
this a dangerous doctrine? Yes, it is. There is no fundamental
doctrine in the Word of God that isn't dangerous. It's dangerous
to tell sinners that every sin they've ever committed through
all their lifetime, both actual and original, is wholly blotted
out by the merit of another. It's dangerous to tell sinners
that all of their sins are forgiven on the grounds of the activity
of another, and that there's nothing they can do to scrub
away one of them. But there's something someone
has done to scrub away all of them, and more than that, to
give them a positive acceptance as though they had fully kept
the law of God. That's a dangerous doctrine.
It surely is. But I'm not about to give up
the grand doctrine of justification by faith. Justification by imputed
righteousness. Now, some people will take that
doctrine and apply the devil's logic to it. If we're saved by
the doings of another, what I do doesn't matter. Let us sin that
grace may abound. And when Paul In Romans 6 mentions
the devil's logic. How does he answer? He doesn't
say, oh, I'm sorry, you misunderstood me. We do have something to do
to form the basis of our acceptance. No, he doesn't. He says, you've
understood me rightly. In other words, if forgiveness
and acceptance with God on the part of sinners is not preached
in such a way that someone objects, that's dangerous doctrine. You're
not preaching free grace. You're not preaching the Bible
doctrine of justification. The unstable and the ignorant
will always rest the scriptures to their own destruction. The
doctrine of Christian liberty is a dangerous doctrine. Yes,
it is. And the Bible recognizes that danger. And we'll look at
some of those texts in the subsequent study. I just want to quote them
now. Peter says, as free first Peter to 60, yet not using your
freedom as a cloak of maliciousness. Paul says, stand fast in the
liberty where with Christ it made you free. Yes. But he says,
don't abuse that freedom, Galatians 5, 13, but by love serve one
another. Sure, it's a dangerous doctrine.
But the question is, is it the doctrine of the word of God?
If so, will you accuse God of being ignorant of the inherent
danger of the doctrine? Will you be wiser than God? You
see, and this is the real issue, dear friends. When people look
at the biblical doctrine of Christian liberty and say, but that'll
just open the door. You mean if a church doesn't have a church
covenant in which people vow not to do this and that, why,
that'll let in all kinds of... Will it? What you're saying is
God has not hedged up his church with sufficient barriers in his
word. Now, you want to tell God that tonight? I don't. Do you? Oh, but if you begin to let in,
then Does God know the human heart better than you, yes or
no? Is scripture sufficient to make
the man of God perfect, thoroughly furnished unto every good work?
No, no, my friend, listen, listen. Here's the subtlety of it. When
you begin to substitute man-made rules for the sufficiency of
scripture in this area, it's only a matter of time before
you've pushed people into a pharisaic externalism, that though it has
a list of regulations that touch the external, allow for a whole
sea of internal pollution and iniquity. So that Jesus said
to the Pharisees, look, you've gone far beyond what God said
through Moses, and you do this and this and this, and you may
clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but within you're
full. of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. He said, You tithe mint and anderson,
come in, but you've left undone the weightier matters of the
law, justice and mercy. And that's always the tendency.
Whereas a body of believers who lay hold of and live in the present
enjoyment of the reality of their sonship, adopted, joined heirs
with Christ, who consciously delight in the relationship of
servitude. They gladly embrace the title,
and the reality the title conveys bonds slaves of Christ, believing
that He is Lord of the conscience. And they want Him to exercise
the Lordship, flooding in the light of His law day after day,
refusing to let sinful man bring the darkness of his own opinions.
They want the blazing light of the law of God upon the conscience.
Believing in the absolute supremacy and sufficiency of scripture,
those things, my friend, under the blessing of the Spirit of
God, will produce true godliness. You will see in such a person
all the liberty and joy and freedom of a son, but all the solicitous,
sensitive desire to know the will of the master. and a careful,
careful honing of the conscience by the Word of God day after
day, and a loving submission to the Scriptures. And my friends,
if that isn't sufficient to produce true godliness, then you'd better
hang up, pack up, and call the whole thing a farce. No, it doesn't
let the bars down. As we shall see in our subsequent
studies, Christian liberty is basically a matter of inward
perspective in relationship to God and his world and things.
The exercise of that liberty is an external thing that has
relationship to the world and to man. And there may be many,
many strictures under which I voluntarily place myself as a son and a servant
in my posture before the world. It'll make me far more strict
than if I had 10,000 regulations placed upon me by men. But the
difference is, in the midst of my strictness, I'll be free as
a bird. I'm a son. And I'll have liberty
of spirit in the midst of the most arduous task and most stringent
demands of self-denial. But the other produces a hard,
wooden, inflexible, stiff, dry, juiceless, flavorless kind of
Christianity that just doesn't smell of reality. So I plead
with you, if you're one of these who's allowed your conscience
to be dictated to by men and tradition, and you feared whenever
you've seen this doctrine in the Word or heard anyone about
to preach it, oh, go home tonight and ask God to purge from your
conscience. Everything but the standard of
His Holy Word. That won't happen overnight.
And until God corrects your conscience, don't violate it. Paul says in
Romans 14, even if your conscience is sending out wrong signals,
don't make a moral choice in the direction of what you believe
to be evil. Let's go to work on getting the standard corrected,
but let's not toy with conscience, he says. It's a dangerous doctrine,
as all the doctrines of the Word of God are dangerous, but by
the grace of God, We should be able, under the blessing of the
Spirit of God, to be kept in the way of God. Lord willing,
next week our study will focus on what we would call the qualifications
or the limitations in the exercise of our liberty, what things are
to guide us now in our actual life and conduct before God and
the world, seeing our liberty. All of His gifts are ours. All
things are ours in Christ. All of His gifts are to be received
with thanksgiving. As I actually live and work and
think in my home, in my school, in my church, what I eat, what
I shall not eat, where I'll go, what I shall not go to, what
entertainment I will indulge in and won't, and all of these
things are their principles to guide me. Yes, the Word of God
is sufficient to give us the principles. Not a checklist,
but a set of principles that we can carry in our hearts, in
the presence of God wherever we go, guiding us in the exercise
of our lives. Well, I trust that the Spirit
of God will take the word of God and adjust all of our inner
thought and reaction to his own eternal truth. Let us pray. Our Father, how we praise you
this night for the position into which you have brought us in
your grace. We thank you that your dear son
has redeemed us from the curse of the law. He's delivered us
from bondage to the law as a covenant of works and has brought us into
the glorious liberty of the sons of God. We thank you for the
spirit of adoption who enables us to cry, Abba, that is father. And, O Lord, we ask that these
fundamental biblical principles will be etched upon our minds
and hearts by the power of the Spirit. We pray, Lord, that you
will give to us a new sight of what it is to be your adopted
sons and daughters, what it is to be your loving bondservants. Teach us what it means to have
you and you alone as Lord of our consciences. and to have
the Scriptures alone in their supremacy and sufficiency as
the guide to our conscience. O Lord, in every realm, doctrine
of worship, of practice, keep us from the tyranny of men. And
then, Lord, keep us from the abuse of this doctrine, which
our own remaining corruption would create. O Father, do help
us. And have mercy upon those who
sit among us tonight who are still slaves of sin, who cannot
say that they are the loving bondservants of Jesus. O Lord,
have mercy upon them and draw them, we pray, until they fall
at the feet of Christ in true brokenness and self-abandonment
and give themselves up to him. Now we thank you for this day.
Thank you for your presence with us. We thank you for the privilege
of meeting in order to sing your praises and to hear your voice.
Be with those who leave some distance to travel tonight. Fill
their hearts with joy and with the Holy Spirit as they travel
back to their schools, to their homes, to their places of responsibility. We pray that you will help us
to be light and salt in the place in which we seek to carry out
our witness. Oh, Lord, we call upon you this
night. We bring to you our praise. Receive
both our praise and our petitions as we offer them through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.