p. 485 | CHRISTIAN LIBERTY by C. H. BLISS

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 31, 1900

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY.

By C. H. BLISS

C. H. BLISS.

(Decatur, Ill.)

When presenting the claims of the law of God, we are often met with the plea: “I believe in Christian liberty.” “I do not believe that the law is binding,” etc., etc. To this no intelligent Adventist can demur; for we read in the Word, “Ye have been called unto liberty;” and we are exhorted to “stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free;” and Christ says that he has come to “set at liberty them that are bruised;” and “if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

But what does he free us from?—Evidently from the thing by which we are bound. That thing is sin. See John 8:34. Also read Matt. 1:21: “He shall save his people from [not in] their sins.” And what is sin?—The transgression of the law. 1 John 3:4.

How, then, does he save us from the transgression of the law?—By giving us a new nature, which is in harmony with that law. Then, and not till then, can we do by nature the things contained in the law. When this new nature is given to us, a new spirit is within us, the Spirit of God; and “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” To us therefore there is nothing binding or compulsory about the law; for we delight in the law, and obey it because we delight in it. “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments;” and these commandments “are not grievous” to one who is redeemed from the bondage of sin.

This is true Christian liberty, and it is the only liberty that any true Christian desires, or can have.