The Dangers of Too Much Liberty
A. W. Tozer
Freedom is liberty within bounds:
liberty to obey holy laws, liberty to keep the commandments of Christ,
to serve mankind, to develop to the full all the latent possibilities
within our redeemed natures. True Christian liberty never sets us free
to indulge our lusts or to follow our fallen impulses. The desire for
unqualified freedom caused the fall of Lucifer and wrought the
destruction of the angels that sinned. These sought freedom to do as
they willed, and to get it they threw away the beautiful liberty that
meant freedom to do the will of God. And the human race followed them in
their tragic moral blunder.
To anyone who bothers to think a bit it
should be evident that there is in the universe no such thing as
absolute freedom. Only God is free. It is inherent in creaturehood that
its freedom must be limited by the will of the Creator and the nature of
the thing created. The glory of heaven lies in the character of the
freedom enjoyed by those who dwell therein. That innumerable company of
angels, the general assembly and church of the first born and the
spirits of just men made perfect are at liberty to fulfill all the broad
purposes of God, and this liberty secures for them an infinitely
greater degree of happiness than unqualified freedom could do.
Unqualified freedom in any area of human
life is deadly. In government it is anarchy, in domestic life free
love, and in religion antinomianism. The freest cells in the body are
cancer cells, but they kill the organism where they grow. A healthy
society requires that its members accept a limited freedom. Each must
curtail his own liberty that all may be free, and this law runs
throughout all the created universe, including the kingdom of God.
Too much liberty weakens whatever it
touches. The corn of wheat can bring forth fruit only as it waives its
freedom and surrenders itself to the laws of nature. The robin may fly
about all summer enjoying her freedom, but if she wants a nest full of
fledglings she must sit for weeks a voluntary captive while the mystery
of life gestates beneath her soft feathers. She has her choice: be free
and barren or curtail her freedom and bring forth young. Every man in a
free society must decide whether he will exploit his liberty or curtail
it for intelligent and moral ends. The Christian cannot escape the peril
of too much liberty. He is indeed free, but his very freedom may prove a
source of temptation to him.
He is free from the chains of sin, free
from the moral consequences of evil acts now forgiven, and free from the
curse of the law. Grace has opened the prison doors for him, and like
Barabbas of old he walks at liberty because Another died in his stead.
All this the instructed Christians knows and will not permit false
teachers and misguided ‘religionists’ to rivet a yoke of bondage upon
his neck. But now what shall he do with his freedom?
Two possibilities off themselves. He may
accept his blood-won freedom as a cloak for the flesh, as the new
testament declares that some have done, or he may kneel like the camel
to receive his voluntary burden.
And what is this burden? The woes of his
fellowmen which he must do what he can to assuage; the debt which he
along with Paul owes to the lost world; the sound of hungry children
crying in the night; the church of Babylonian captivity; the swift
onrush of evil doctrines and the success of false prophets; and the slow
decay of the moral foundations. And whatever else demands
self-sacrifice: cross-carrying, long prayer vigils, and courageous
witness to alleviate and correct.
Christianity is the religion of freedom
and democracy is freedom in organized society. If we continue to
misunderstand this, we may soon have neither. When in danger the state
can conscript men to fight for her freedom, but there are no conscripts
in the army of the Lord. To bear a cross the Christian must take it up
of his own free will. No authority can compel us to feed the hungry,
evangelize the lost, pray for revival, or sacrifice ourselves for
Christ’s sake and the sake of suffering humanity. The ideal Christian is
one who knows he is free as he wills, and wills to be a servant.
GOD TELLS THE MAN WHO CARES, Christian Publications, chapter 36
