Theological Basis

Introduction to Christian Liberty and Historical Context

0:04 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.

0:38 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's 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.

1:18 And in our study thus far, what we've attempted to do is, number one, set this study in a historical perspective. And we look, first of all, into New Testament. 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.

2:38 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. And 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.

Review of Westminster Confession on Christian Liberty

2:56 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. And I don't propose tonight to repeat what we went over.

3:36 I'll simply remind you of the basic division of thought in the Westminster Confession. You have, first of all, in paragraph 1, 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.

4:07 Two premises. God alone is Lord of the conscience. God gives conscience guidance by His Word alone. Two deductions.

4:17 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, we have the fruits of Christian liberty. We have the fruits of Christian liberty. We have the fruits of Christian liberty.

4:25 And 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.

The Four Pillars of Christian Liberty: An Overview

4:52 Now from here, I want to go back over some of the most vital and important things 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, now the Reverend Donald McLeod, 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, 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, uh, 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.

6:07 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, uh, 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?

7:08 Uh, my life seems to be, uh, trammeled and crippled with, uh, 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, we're going to find out a little bit more of that. 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

Pillar 1: The Sonship of Believers

8:10 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

9:21 like you to turn to this passage and have it before you as we study together. Galatians chapter 4, beginning with verse 1. 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 is no better off than the bondservant, even though legally he is lord of all. He has 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 is 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 is drawing a comparison.

10:29 And 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.

11:09 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.

11:59 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.

12:14 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, How be it at that time, not knowing God, ye were in bondage to them that by nature are no gods, 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?

12:40 Whereunto ye desire to be in bondage over again? Ye observe days and months and seasons and years. I'm afraid of you, lest by any means I bestowed labor upon you in vain. He said there were these regulations that were a necessary discipline until the time of your adoption.

12:59 But now that you are sons, why do you not know God? Why do you not know God? But now that you are sons, why do you not know God? Why do you go back to these things that characterize that former stage when you had not come into your inheritance?

13:08 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. It was already quoted tonight.

13:30 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. 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...

14:25 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.

14:51 And as adopted sons and daughters, all the... Privileges of the household are ours.

14:59 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.

15:26 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.

15:44 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...

15:59 God's gifts, you see. Here's a doctrine of asceticism, which Paul says is authored by demons.

16:07 Isn't that what he says? Doctrines of demons that have their roots in hypocrisy. Abstaining from forbidding to marry. Commanding to abstain from meats.

16:19 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.

16:49 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?

17:25 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.

17:39 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 when under the influence of something other than the truth of God we have scruples about the gifts of God to us as His children?

18:02 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 occasioned by God's goodness in sending different preachers among them and 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 partiality. And Paul is trying to show them how stupid this is.

18:38 And he says in 1 Corinthians 3 in 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 in redemption has brought everything in His creation subservient to His redemptive goals.

19:23 And if you're 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, do you see how this will radically affect the whole matter of our understanding of the liberty that is ours in Christ Jesus?

19:58 As His sons who love the Father, we're 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. MacLeod is so, I think, what word shall I use? Well, he said it well.

20:22 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 God. The Father, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. If we're the Father's children, we are obligated in solemn bonds of love and filial delight to obey our Father.

20:52 But we're 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 salvation, the sonship we possess as believers. Then secondly, and this is an element Mr. MacLeod omits as a second heading, although he does include it under the first, but I think it warrants a heading of its own.

Pillar 2: The Servitude of Believers to Christ

21:21 The second pillar forming the basis of our liberty in Christ is the servitude,

21:28 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.

21:46 And in that particular context, he is contrasting servant with son.

21:54 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.

22:31 In fact, it's one of his favorite terms for himself. He says, identifying himself in Romans 1 in verse 1, Paul, a slave, a bondservant, a slave 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?

23:05 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 in a joint heir, with God.

23:14 I'm an 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, he said, I must think of myself as a doulos, as a slave.

23:42 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 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.

24:11 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 bondservants. Romans 6 and verse 14, sin shall not lord it over you. Sin shall not have dominion over you.

24:47 Why? Because sin is no longer my master. Righteousness personified there. Righteousness, God, Christ, these are my new masters.

25:00 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 as a slave of God. He's a slave of God. He looks upon himself and he's glad to do so as a bond slave of Christ, knowing that he is in the totality of his redeemed humanity the property of Jesus Christ. He is not his own.

25:27 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 Christian. If you cannot say with some measure of delight, putting your name first, John, Mary, Harriet, Pete, whatever your name is, you're a slave of Jesus Christ. Then my friend, you don't need to hear a lecture on Christian liberty.

25:54 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. There is no neutral ground, none whatsoever.

26:21 Now which are you? You see, any discussion of Christian liberty that doesn't start here is doomed to lead somewhere into license. 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.

26:45 His concern is to honor his master, to have a maximum productivity. 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.

27:04 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.

27:21 For he that was called in the Lord, being a bond servant, 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 bond servant, 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 slave. That's what he's saying. He's using a play on words.

27:49 Likewise, he that was called, being free, this man was no slave. He says, hey, said to go around and say, man, I'm a...

27:56 He says, you are a slave. Hey? Is Christ bond servant? Now, what's the implication of that?

28:04 Verse 23. Ye were bought with a price. Become the servants of men. Purchase you to be his slave.

28:17 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 bondslave forever. However, 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 bondservant. 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.

Pillar 3: The Sovereignty of God Over the Conscience

29:35 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 bondslave 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, 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.

30:44 And I think the best way to do it is to turn to a key passage on conscience in the New Testament, Romans chapter 2. I was going to say first Romans.

30:56 Well, it is first, and it's also last. Romans chapter 2.

31:06 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, 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.

31:47 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.

32:33 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.

32:46 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?

33:10 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's never seen the written word of God saying, thou shall do no murder, thou shall not commit adultery, thou shall not steal, how do you explain that even though he's not received that written law, when he indulges in such activity, there is an accusation of thought.

33:47 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.

34:16 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 is still active and conscience cannot be active in a beast.

34:34 Conscience is active in man simply because this is a cultural condition. 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.

34:53 What a pain in the neck. He was the first lie. You're told it's awful hard to go off to sleep that night. Wasn't it?

34:59 When you kissed your mother, you felt terrible.

35:02 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're scared to death.

35:08 The teacher is 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.

35:20 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.

35:36 Now, having said that about conscience,

35:40 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.

36:02 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.

36:22 And he says, I want to look out into 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.

36:39 Paul warns in first Timothy one. 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.

36:51 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.

37:06 Only error. And almost every heresy is an attempt to pacify a screaming conscience.

37:13 So you see, every Christian has his wits about him is concerned to keep a conscience void of offense and. Condemned 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.

37:35 But now then the great problem is what is the standard to which conscience should look in order to say good or bad? I see. Here's the key issue.

37:47 Who should write the standard of right and wrong? Who should dictate it? Well, the third pillar upon which the doctrine of Christian Liberty rest 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.

38:20 This is essentially Paul's argument in Romans 14. Let's look at it for a moment. This great chapter on Christian Liberty.

38:33 We're going to go back to this in some detail in future studies, but for our purposes tonight, just Paul's emphasis.

38:42 Here are people who have a differing dictate of conscience on certain matters before 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. Each other. And what is it?

39:01 Verse 3. 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 judges the servant of another to his own Lord. He standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be made to stand for the Lord has power to make him stand to his own Lord to his own master.

39:26 He stands or he falls.

39:30 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 us is he is Lord of the conscience.

40:03 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. I've been crumpled and all the rest so that I cannot judge my conduct simply on the basis of what I feel like.

40:40 Now, when the Spirit of God comes to indwell us and in the imagery of Ezekiel 36, we're 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.

41:07 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 will not be at peace where we ought not to be at peace.

41:39 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.

42:02 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 it's almost frightening aspects. I'm solemnly obligated to know what he's commanded.

42:31 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 rest is the Supreme.

Pillar 4: The Supremacy and Sufficiency of Scripture

42:52 I'm sorry, 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.

43:07 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.

43:21 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.

43:37 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.

44:06 In other words, the kernel of Puritanism was the issue. Whether or not in worshiping 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?

44:34 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. Now, frankly, this is where I have a great problem with the whole issue of fetal baptism, 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.

45:02 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.

45:17 That'd really be out of place, wouldn't an Anglican here in the States. But anyway, I feel that that needs to be said, and Mr. McCloud is rightly articulating that principle. The church must have positive biblical warrant for all that it prescribes in the realm of faith and worship.

45:34 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 has power to institute or appoint anything or ceremony belonging to the worship of God, either as a matter or 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.

46:49 End quote. 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.

47:13 And you see, if we say, well, the word of God is not complete, we're 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.

Practical Implications of Christian Liberty

47:45 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.

48:15 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.

48:47 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.

49:21 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. Mr. 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.

50:40 And I have never felt it my responsibility to go to them and say, look, when you're among us, you better sing. 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.

51:04 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.

51:31 But if someone's conscience is sensitive in that area, in obedience to God, we dare not to see in the matter of worship for some 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.

52:08 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?

52:46 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?

53:02 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.

53:40 You know what a labyrinth is. Your kids sometimes have those puzzles and you see them start here, and you're supposed to get out. You get out there and you go down. Well, he says, you enter an inextricable.

53:48 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 towel. In fine, he'll come to this, that he will deem it criminal to trample on a straw lying in his way.

The Danger of Christian Liberty and God's Wisdom

54:14 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, it 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.

55:18 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.

56:02 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.

56:21 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.

56:35 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.

56:50 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.

57:03 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, 1 Peter 2, 16, yet not using your freedom as a cloak of maliciousness.

57:18 Paul says, Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has 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.

57:33 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, this is the real issue, dear friends.

57:47 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 it all...

57:59 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.

58:11 Do you? Oh, but if you begin to let in then...

58:15 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.

58:28 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 anise and cumin, 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, bond slaves of Christ,

59:55 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. And 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.

61:13 The exercise of that liberty is an external thing that has relationship to the world and to men. 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.

61:39 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. And 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.

62:44 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 shall be able, under the blessing of the Spirit of God, to be kept in the way of God.

Conclusion and Prayer

63:04 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, to be given to us, to be given to us, to be given to us and to be given to us.

63:33 All of these things are our principles. And I can 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 the 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, the Word of God and adjust all of our inner thought and reaction to His own eternal truth. Let us pray.

64:13 Our Father,

64:16 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 has 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 of doctrine, of worship, of practice, keep us from the tyranny of men. And then, Lord,

65:33 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.

66:08 Now we thank You for this day. We 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.

66:24 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. O Lord, we call upon You this night. We bring to You our praise.

66:45 Receive both our praise and our petitions as we offer them through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.