Where the Spirit of the Lord is, There is Liberty!
I believe it was Patrick Henry who uttered those famous words, “Give me liberty or give me death”. The dictionary defines liberty as: “freedom from control, interference, obligation, restriction, hampering conditions, etc.; the power or right of doing, thinking, speaking, etc., according to choice”. And the United States Declaration of Independence tells us that “Liberty” is one of the unalienable rights we human beings are endowed with by our creator (the others being “Life… and the pursuit of happiness”).
It is logical to conclude then, that the “United” States owes its unity to the two documents which declared and defined this idea of liberty, the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. And although there was a brief period in history when some states fought to separate from the others, our unity was preserved and continues undivided to this day.
There is another document that declares the importance of liberty. The quote I’ve used for my title, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”, is a quote from II Corinthians 3 in the Bible. I am drawing a parallel between our desire for liberty as a unifying force within the United States and our call to liberty as a unifying force within the body of Christ. The bible tells us the “body of Christ” is the true Church, it is NOT a building but a living body of people from all walks of life (even including some within the denominations) with Jesus as its head.
Paul the Apostle told the Galatians, “For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another”. And Jesus told us our unity is directly tied to our ability to love one another too: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know you are my disciples, if you have love one to another” (John 13:34). And later on, in chapter 17 and verses 20-21, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe you have sent me.”
The one major characteristic of this “body of Christ”, which distinguishes it from the world, is the example of our sacrificial love one to the other. At least, that’s the ideal, an ideal based on Jesus Christ’s call to obey his command to “love one another as I have loved you”. When Jesus left this earth, he provided his Holy Spirit as comforter, guide and empowering agent. And so it is that those who have the Spirit of God are both united by that Spirit and liberated by it. Liberty is the soil in which love and unity grow. Without it there is no real love, and therefore no unity.
This can lead to only one conclusion. The disunity we see all around us, the divisions that have given rise to denominations, is not Godly, but fleshly (carnal). When there is an obligation to believe a certain set of doctrines concerning Jesus and his teachings, when the focus is on the letter and we wrangle endlessly about what a certain Greek word really means, then we kill the Spirit. For the Spirit is only present in power where there is liberty. Paul the Apostle made this abundantly clear when he said, “The letter kills but the Spirit gives life” (II Cor. 3). There is no middle ground here. Either we put the Spirit first, and the written word (the Bible) second, or we continue as we are, divided and striving against one another. Paul stated this clearly when he wrote in I Corinthians 3:3, “For whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
