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Christian Liberty

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 14, 1872

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 39, No. 22.

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Christian Liberty.

THE Christian is free and master in all things. The Christian is in bondage, and a servant in all and to all. He is free and a master by faith; he is a servant and a slave by love.
Faith unites the soul to Christ, as a wife to her husband. All that Christ has, becomes the property of the believing soul; all that the soul has, becomes the property of Christ. Christ possesses every blessing and eternal salvation; they are henceforward the property of the soul. The soul possesses every vice and sin; they become henceforth the property of Christ.
It is then the blessed exchange commences. Christ who is God and man, Christ who has never sinned, and whose holiness is immaculate, Christ the Almighty and Everlasting, appropriating by his nuptial, that is, by faith, all the sins of the believer’s soul, these sins are swallowed up and lost in him; for there is no sin that can stand before his infinite righteousness. Thus, by means of faith, the soul is delivered from every sin, and clothed with the eternal righteousness of her husband, Jesus Christ. Blessed union! The rich, noble, and holy spouse, Jesus Christ, unites in marriage with that poor, guilty, and despised wife, delivers her from every ill, and adorns her with the most costly blessings. . . . Christ, a priest and king, shares this honor and glory with every Christian. The Christian is a king, and consequently possesses all things; he is a priest, and consequently possesses God. And it is faith and not works, that brings him to such honor. The Christian is free of all things, above all things, faith giving him abundantly of every thing.
Although the Christian is thus made free, he voluntarily becomes a slave to act toward his brethren as God has acted toward him through Jesus Christ. I desire to serve freely, joyfully, and gratuitously, a Father who has thus lavished upon me all the abundance of his blessings. I wish to become all things for my neighbor, as Christ has become all things for me. From faith proceeds the love of God; from love proceeds a life full of liberty, charity, and joy. Oh, how noble and elevated is the Christian’s life! By faith, the Christian ascends to God; by love, he descends even to man, and yet, he abides ever with God. This is true liberty—a liberty which surpasses all others as much as the heavens are above the earth.—Hist. of the Reformation.