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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
‘Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.’
Gal_5:1
I. The Church is the great witness to liberty in this world.—It was to set men free that her Master lived and died. He is the great emancipator of the spirit, and the conscience, and the intellect, and the heart of man. His Church exists to proclaim that truth which he declared should make men free. His Bible tells of human freedom from first to last; from God’s emancipation of Israel out of Egyptian bondage to the glory of that Jerusalem which is above, which is free. His service is described by our Prayer Book as ‘perfect freedom.’ Freedom is the very charter of the Church of Christ. She has often forgotten it; her highest princes have often worn the robes and rivetted the fetters of human tyranny, and allied themselves with crushing despotisms, to their own everlasting shame. But in spite of them, the Church is the witness to human liberty; and in England, at least, there has almost never been a great movement in the direction of the people’s freedom in which priests of the Church have not borne worthy part. But as there is a true and righteous liberty, so there is a false and degrading one. There is a liberty which claims that man shall be free to do what he likes, not what he ought; that he is independent of all law and above all self-restraint. Let us be careful, in our contest for the true, not to use the words and uphold the actions which lead to the false. Let us remember that no Church can be without law; no man, priest or layman, independent of rule. Just as every man has his own liberty of righteous conduct, but no right to do wrong, so neither Church nor community has any freedom to do that which is unlawful in God’s sight.
II. Is not baptism the most constant and ceaseless witness to equality?—Every child brought to the font, be it the child of prince or peasant, is treated exactly alike. The same words are spoken; the same water poured; the same dedication to the warfare of righteousness pronounced. And we, who as Churchmen maintain the baptism of infants, do not wait for conversion, or for years of discretion, before consecrating every human creature in the laver of the new birth. All alike, be they who they may, are claimed as equal members of Christ, admitted as equal soldiers in the army of the Most High. Every time the Baptismal Service is celebrated, the Gospel of Equality is preached, in action and in words. Yet is there a counterfeit equality, which loudly declares that a man has no ‘betters,’ refusing to recognise God’s hierarchy of goodness and genius, and reducing all characters to the same dead level. Take we heed that it find no place among us; that while we bless our Father for the equality to which our baptism bears witness, we give no place to that insolent self-assertion which has neither dignity nor reverence.
III. What witness to the brotherhood of men so expressive, so touching, as that other Sacrament, the Holy Communion, whose very name speaks of the uniting of men together in God? We rejoice to repeat St. Paul’s saying, which shows how keenly the great human-hearted Apostle felt that the Eucharist was the bond of brotherhood: ‘We being many are one bread, and one body: for we are all partakers of that one Bread.’ Beware of a brotherhood which assumes and mocks the sacred name. This is the spirit that makes much parade and show of fraternity, but chooses who shall be called its brothers, and who shall be treated as such. Take heed lest you grow unawares to think that only those within your own circle are brethren, and those who hold aloof are not; that those who do not think as you do, or that men like myself, who cannot always follow you, are outside the pale.
—
Rev. Professor H. C. Shuttleworth.
SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
I. Liberty from the past.—Every one has a past which fetters him. There are things in your life which you can scarcely dare to look back upon, and when you do they shackle you. You feel that so long as those things are there it is of little or no use to set about and try to live a better life. No future can undo them. Now, just to meet all this—the Cross of Christ having cancelled all the guilt and paid all the penalty—the moment a man really believes and accepts his pardon he is cut off from all his sinful past! It is placed ‘behind God’s back.’ It is ‘cast into the depths of the sea.’ It is as though it had never been. He may start quite afresh. No shadow, no fear, need come up from the years that are gone. He stands a liberated man! Now he can go—as Christ’s freedman—with a spring—to better things to come. The God of his fear has been turned into the God of his love! And that is ‘liberty’ from the past ‘wherewith Christ hath made us free’—the purchase of His cross, the gift of His throne.
II. Liberty from the present.—Now look to the ‘liberty’ from the present. If I have received Christ into my heart I am a pardoned man, I am a happy man, and I know and feel that I owe all my happiness to Him—therefore I love Him; I cannot choose but love Him; and my first desire is to please Him, to follow Him, to be like Him, to be with Him. And all the while there is a power working in me which is a great Liberator. He breaks chains for me. He open doors for me. He emancipates me from the thraldom of the world—its habits, its opinions, its sneers, its judgments. He gives me an independence and a manliness which is my strength. And I know no other bond but His, which is the dearest to me in all the world, and that is liberty! And then see to what I am admitted. I can go into the presence of God. I can consult Him in every difficulty and confess to Him every thought, and know it is forgiven then and there. I am free to His mercy-seat. I am free to His court. All the promises are mine. Oh, what a ‘liberty’ is this! What is all this earth can give by the side of that blessed feeling? This is the present liberty wherewith Christ has made His people free.
III. Liberty from the future.—And what of the future? A vista running up to glory! But are there no dark places? Chiefly in the anticipation. When they come they will bring their own escapes and their own balances. But my future—be it what it may—is all covenanted. Christ has told me not to be anxious about it. And I can never doubt Him. He has undertaken for me in everything. He will never leave me. He will be at my side all the way, and my path and my heart are both quite free! I am quite free from all my future. To die will be a very little thing. The grave cannot hold me. He has been through and opened the door the other side. It is only a very short passage! quite light! all safe!
What a ‘liberty’ is here! The past—gone; the present—safety, peace, love; the future—sure!
—
Rev. James Vaughan.
Illustration‘What is “liberty”? Obedience to oneself; obedience to a law which is written in a man’s own heart. If I obey myself, and myself is not a right self, it is, indeed, “liberty,” but, being a bad liberty, it becomes “licentiousness.” If I obey a law outside me and the law within me is opposed to that outer law which I obey, the act I do may be quite right, and the only right one, but my obedience is not “liberty,” it is compulsion; it is bondage. Liberty is when the outer law and the inner law are the same, and both are good. Christ made that agreement possible by His Cross. The Holy Ghost makes that agreement a fact by his operation in the heart. Self is never liberty, because self and God are two principles which must unite before a person can be free; and a sinful life never combines the two.’