Pastor
Cornelius R. Stam
The fact that we are given perfect liberty in Christ does not mean
that we should spend our lives in gratifying our own fleshly desires. Just the
opposite is the case. Believers have been delivered from the bondage of
childhood and given the liberty of full-grown sons in Christ (Gal.3:24; 4:1-7),
and this advance from infancy to maturity in itself implies the acquisition of
a sense of responsibility.
The doctrine of our liberty in Christ does not support, it rather
refutes, the false theory that those who are under grace may do anything they
please. Paul was "slanderously reported" in this connection
(Rom.3:8), but there were carnal believers then, as there are now, who actually
did use their liberty as license to gratify their own desires. To turn from liberty
to license in this way is fully as serious an error as to turn from liberty to
law.
Many a believer, motivated only by his own fleshly desires and not
at all by love for Christ or others, has indulged in pleasures of the flesh and
of the world, justifying himself on the ground that he is under grace and has
liberty in Christ. Taking others down with him in his spiritual declension he
complains of any who would help him, that, "They are trying to put me
under the law".
Such are actually guilty of departing from grace, for "the
grace of God…hath appeared":
"Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we
should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world;
"Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of
the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
"Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all
iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good
works" (Tit.2:11-14).
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