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Lessons in Liberty

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Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 21, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 8.

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Lessons in Liberty

By W. M. Healey

VIII. God's Law a Law of Liberty

So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. James 2: 12.
VERSES 10-12 of this chapter teach that this "law of liberty" is the law by which we "shall be judged." It is also said to be the law forbidding murder, adultery, etc.; from which we know that the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, is the law referred to as the "law of liberty."
How can the Ten Commandments be a "law of liberty"? No law could be more positive in its declarations, or more authoritative in its commands, its language being "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not." While the law thus strongly requires obedience, there is nothing in the law compelling any one to observe it.
The purpose of civil government is to make and enforce laws securing and protecting the rights of its subjects. To accomplish this it must compel obedience, which is done by means of a penalty for the violation of the law. The strength and force of human government is not in the law itself, but in the penalty that is attached to the law, to be enforced upon the violator of the law. It may be a fine, or imprisonment, or any means of inflicting suffering; but its object is to secure obedience, and if possible prevent disobedience.
The law of the divine government has no penalty attached by which to compel the would-be transgressor to be law-abiding, and prevent his disobedience. The fifth commandment requires that we shall honor our parents if we would possess long life. The second commandment states that God visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children of them that hate Him, unto the third and fourth generation. These are in the nature of consequences which follow certain acts, but they allow perfect freedom to do or not to do.
God says, "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, . . . and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." Eccl. 11: 9. Notice that the utmost liberty is given to choose and to act in harmony with or contrary to God's law. The young man may begin in his youth to disregard God and His law, and the Lord does not interfere with his course. He has his own way, in matters of obedience or disobedience, all through his life; after which there is a judgment. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." Heb. 9: 27.
This judgment is not for the purpose of inflicting some penalty to compel or even to induce obedience; because the person is dead, and no longer capable of obedience or disobedience. The work of the judgment is to determine what the future shall be, by what the past has been. God will choose the future according to the choice the person has made in the past. The reaping will be according to the seed sown.
In providing penalties to compel obedience, the civil government shows that it expects some of its subjects will desire to disobey, that they will not choose to keep the law, and therefore must be compelled to do so, for the protection of others.
Civil law may give liberty of choice, but not of action; a man may choose to kill his neighbor, but the law of any civilized government would call out the forces of the government to prevent the act.
The law of God presumes that all the subjects of the kingdom are obedient, and it forbids disobedience.
All the subjects of God's kingdom do obey Him. To disobey Him is simply to lose citizenship. God gives perfect liberty both to choose and to act in harmony with or contrary to His law. James calls it "the perfect law of liberty." James 1: 25. The liberty that it allows is perfect, complete.

A Kingdom of Love

The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of love. God is love. All His subjects obey Him through love, and never through compulsion. Of the banner of God's government Solomon sings in his song, "He brought me to the banqueting house, and His banner over me was love." Cant. 2: 4. All His subjects are under this banner.
Any earthly government that would remove the coercive features from its laws, allowing its subjects to go, as long as they should live, in obedience or disobedience, without any interference from the government, could not maintain its authority for a day.
What would be the condition in the United States, or any other earthly government, if all coercive measures were removed, and its citizens were asked to obey the laws out of love for the lawmakers? All the power and force of the government would be gone.
God's government, and it only, is on this plan of love for the Lawgiver and His law; and in it and its laws is perfect liberty.
All that a man has he owes to God. "It is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves." But God will permit a man to spend the substance that belongs to the Lord, in open rebellion to Him; and yet He will let His sun shine and His rain fall upon that man's land, and give him abundant harvests, blessing him so that his "eyes stand out for fatness."
Has this God of love and liberty, delegated authority to men to make laws to compel others to worship Him? Has He authorized them to make a Sunday law, and inflict punishment upon those who do not observe it? No, No! All such work is contrary to every principle of His government of love and liberty.