As popularly defined, freedom is not a concept found in the Bible. In fact, the Bible repudiates the notion that men should be able to live as they please without external coercion, with their needs and wants provided by a paternalistic state, and with the choice of whatever religious and moral, irreligious and immoral, lifestyle they deem will best promote their individual interests. Thus, this or any culture that defines freedom in terms of man’s desire to be as God, determining good and evil for himself, makes itself an enemy of God. Confronted with so much bluster about preserving the “American way of life,” we do well to remember this. We may think of ourselves as the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” and men from other nations may wish to share in our bacchanalia, but what we really have to celebrate is slavery and degradation rather than liberty and honor.
This is not to say that it has always been like this. Nor is it an embracing of anti-Americanism. It is simply a recognition that all the fundamental planks of a legitimate definition of freedom and the path to preserve it are missing from the American government and political scene. In fact, all the pieces are in place and moving toward total statism.
We have a sleeping populace. While many are suffering under the self-inflicted economic juggernaut, scarce few are concerned about anything beyond their personal economic situation. Most still think that there will be a recovery, a government initiated one, of course. Self-absorbed and fearful citizens are easy prey for slick promises and smiling politicians, which take the form of bailouts, heavier taxation upon the upper class, and sweeping government jobs programs.
State governments are collapsing economically, as evidenced by radically cut programs, even the sacred cows of education and health services, laid off employees, and underfunded pension programs. Of course, states cannot really declare bankruptcy, but they can be forced to accept a deeper cell in the dungeon of dependence upon the federal government.
Then, when one hears calls for a “global solution,” especially economically, he may be certain that local control and government will be gladly handed over to find security under the shade of a yet larger federal government. He may also be sure that he is hearing an admission of defeat on the part of his own state or national government. Governments only give up a portion of their own sovereignty to others governments when they feel their stability is uncertain or that the best way to enhance their own power is to consolidate it into yet larger economic and judicial schemes.
By far, however, the greatest evidence of our descent into statism is the spiritual blindness of our people and their leaders, whether liberal or conservative. Men run to government to solve their problems only when unbelief has taken firm root in their souls. Unbelief in what, you ask? When men no longer believe in the providence and sovereignty of God over history, when they reject his word as the sufficient guide and the only reliable standard for men and nations, and when they reject the Lordship of Jesus Christ, they have already declared a revolution against the living God and his Christ. Any social revolutions that follow – and they always have and will – are not a return to God’s law but a vain attempt at self-preservation and recasting of the characters that promise to captain the ship of revolution against God into safer waters. Unbelief always breeds statism, for above all, unbelief wants to escape from God. Such unbelief will choose statism – as all ancient world empires did, as Germany did under Hitler, as Russia did under Stalin – as a seemingly sufficient stronghold against the living God and his Christ. Lest we leave ourselves out of this equation, our own War between the States was also a choice of statism over Christ, a revolution which has been consistently consolidated through each regime since, for each has carried forward the Enlightenment flag of rebellion against God to build a “better society,” one whitewashed of any vestige of our God-fearing and liberty-loving past.
Where has the church been in this conflict? For many professing believers, the church has nothing to do with this conflict, for the Bible they ostensibly read only speaks of spiritual matters. The Christ they follow is only a King-in-waiting. The God they serve takes second fiddle to the devil in history, at least until the church can be raptured out of history. As a result, the church has not spoken to these matters. It has forgotten her best human legislator, Moses, whose laws remain largely untried in western history, her prophets, whose message still sizzles with warnings against statism and political intrigue with supposed friends, and the apostles, whose confession, “We ought to obey God rather than men,” would sweep away our participation in those social programs that seek to replace God’s word with man’s wisdom and God’s promise of provision with man’s money machine. In those churches where there has been something of a “political awakening” to the lifewide implications of the Bible, it has too often been compromise with whichever political party offered the least resistance to our unwelcome intrusion, the party that is only ninety-percent opposed to God’s word and reign rather than ninety-nine percent. Yet, the problem is far deeper than this. Wholly lacking has been any systematic evaluation of our system itself in the light of Scripture, any recognition of the origin and cost of true liberty, and any cross-centered view of political liberty.
The only men in history who have ever enjoyed political liberty are those who have bowed before the cross of Jesus Christ. Only at the cross are we released from the shackles that are incomparably heavier than any political tyranny. Only at the cross are we given a new nature where we have God’s law written on our hearts and are able to serve God with courage and independence that do not degenerate into arrogance and libertinism. Only at the cross does our Father lift up our head to see that the purpose of religious and civil liberty is not to live as we please but to serve our precious Savior with adoring, grateful, and obedient hearts. Only at the cross is our curse consumed and our charter of earthly blessing restored to us through submission to his reign. Only at the cross are we empowered by God’s Spirit to build civilizations and cultures – this is hubristic; I would be content with a neighborhood – that are dedicated to God’s glory and the honor of his Christ. Thus, the cross of Jesus Christ is in every way the only charter of political liberty in the world. All other political stands we take, even when they are necessary to stymie evil and unmask evil doers, both of which are important functions of political involvement and of civil government, will not bring true and lasting liberty. Let us not deceive ourselves on this point. Let us not, in our desire to “get involved” and “make a difference,” lose sight of the cross as the only sign of liberty in the world. Bring men to Jesus Christ, and they will eventually have civil and religious liberty – because it is the fruit of his reign, because it is a blessing he gives only to his faithful and confessing children, because he alone is the rightful King of the nations. All others are usurpers, squatters, builders of the city of man, wolves even if they wear sheep’s clothing, satanic diversions to keep us from confessing that “Jesus is Lord” – over you, over me, over this nation, over every living soul on this planet, over the fortunes of men and nations. Only in submission to the Prince of the kings of the earth is there and will there ever be true liberty.
Toward this end, see liberty for what it is: the fruit and blessing of submission to Messiah the Prince. When others complain about government, point them to Jesus Christ. When others look to government, point them to the higher and yet more immediate government of Jesus Christ, for the various crises, judgments, and calamities we are facing as a nation are nothing other than the King afflicting and judging his enemies. When others scratch their heads, utterly perplexed and fearful, speak to them lovingly of the King who died for us. Beseech him to awaken his church to her divinely empowered calling and weapons, to defend his own name and kingdom, to bless his gospel. Understand that continued unbelief will breed deeper revolution against God, more statism, more calamity. Expect for our Savior to build and defend his church in the midst of this ongoing revolution against his Father, as well as humble her until she recognizes that her chief glory and primary responsibility in history is to bear witness to his reign at the Father’s right hand. When we confess before all, in high places and low, when our only boast is, “Jesus is Lord,” he will cause all the nations to flow into his church, topple statism, and bless us with true liberty. When the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. Come quickly, O glorious Son of God! Turn us, and we shall be turned.