The Christian Roots of Liberty

“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”  John 8:36

As America celebrates Independence Day let’s quickly take a look at what freedom is and is not.  

In this passage from John’s gospel, Jesus is in a debate with the Pharisees, His all too common sparring partner.  The Pharisees were, much like many Americans today, quite ardent in their belief that what Jesus was saying about them was untrue.  He had said that “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth…and the truth will set you free.”  This was, like so much of what our Lord said, a loaded statement.  He was saying that if we “abide” in His word, which is to say continually obey the Scriptures and base our lives upon them, then we would know the truth and be free.  

What is this freedom?  It’s the freedom from the penalty, power and presence of sin.  But they shot back defiantly, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been enslaved to anyone.  What do you mean by saying, ‘You will be set free?’”

This is a curious statement given that right then Jerusalem was under Roman occupation.  They were, while claiming freedom to God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, physically in bondage to the Roman Empire. Such is the zaniness of sin! It destroys us in every way, especially our ability to think logically and be consistent. 

But, anyway,  even this is missing the point.  Jesus goes on to explain that anyone who practices sin habitually is a slave to sin.  This is what He meant when He said that if He sets you free then you’re free indeed.  More still, there’s a direct connection between knowing the truth and knowing about sin.  To deny mankind’s slavery to sin is to deny the truth.  The work of Christ is deliverance from sin, so the choice is always before us: slavery/bondage to sin or faith in Christ.  

The Pharisees didn’t like that message.  We don’t like it today either.  

The thing is, since this is God’s world, His creation, we don’t get to set the rules of reality.  We insist, like the Pharisees before us, in looking at the world upon our own terms, not God’s.  This is why the gospel goes right over our heads; we’re thinking in a worldview that’s a lie and don’t want to admit our bondage to sin.  

Today’s fireworks will celebrate an Independence we hardly understand.  The founding generation was animated and informed by the Christian worldview, indeed, and knew that because of man’s sinful condition, only Christ could ultimately set us free.  John Adams, for one, feared the lawlessness that threatened to break out during the Revolution.  

Contrary to historians who have an arbitrary bias against Christianity, John Locke and Thomas Paine were not the intellectual fathers of the Revolution.  It was Jesus Christ.  For example, a 1579 work called “Vindiciae Contra Tryannos” was a primary influence.  The literal meaning is “Defenses of liberty against tyrants.”  It was a Huguenot tract and the author is uncertain.  Nevertheless, it taught that any ruler, the king included, who commanded anything contrary to the law of the Lord actually forfeited their power.  

Let that sink in for a moment.

I was in New Paltz, New York a few days ago and therein is a historic Huguenot village. Loving history, and the Huguenots, I brought the family and couldn’t wait to walk around and learn more about them. What I found was the preserved village, yes, but none of the history it promised. Entering the area there was a banner that read:

“Helping visitors understand the historical forces that have shaped America.” 

This was under the title: “Help Preserve Historic Huguenot Street!”

So, what did we learn about the Huguenots and the rich theology and love of God that inspired them to come to a hostile wilderness and start a new life? 

That they had slaves. 

A few anyway. 

And there was slavery and slaves there. One plaque features a proverb called “Sankofa,” which means “go back and get it.” It’s a proverb from the Akan people of modern-day Ghana. Why is there a plaque memorializing a west African proverb in a historical Huguenot village in New Paltz you ask? Good question. We’re told that a gravestone there had the remains of an African man and that he may have been enslaved by the Dayo family and buried on their property. 

They do admit that there’s no record whatsoever of this man, his life, or if he was, in fact, a slave at all. 

But we’re told with absolute moral certainty:

“Sankofa reminds us that you cannot move forward without first remembering your past and understanding your history…Sankofa has become central to Historic Huguenot Street’s mission.”

What’s fascinating is that this is in front of the site of the “Walloon Church” the first church-school of 1683. It was called “our French church” and the precursor of the Reformed Church.

What were the big ideas of this church and the later Reformed church? 

No mention.

What were the reasons for the Huguenots leaving France in the first place?

Not a peep. 

But slavery. 

The reason for this must be made clear: the American left is the spirit of Pharisaicalism in our day. Being against slavery, is an easy means of self-righteousness for a culture devoid of a moral standard. In the absence of God and His law-word, and the gospel of Jesus Christ, modern righteousness means anti-Americanism. Any honest history of the Huguenots should definitely mention slavery, but it most certainly must include the theological reasons for their departure from France in the first place. To have the former without the latter shows so clear a bias as to be a lie. 

And what is the lie trying to cover up? 

It’s the philosophical idea of freedom itself!

Freedom is under the Lord, through faith alone, and the forgiveness of sin. Sin is tryanny in that it dominates a person. It ruins one’s life. Sin chews up our families and everything else. It also animates the desire to control others and use them as a means to an end. It’s this fact that gives us slavery over against God’s clear command that slave traders cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. 

The Huguenots left a France dominated by two forces. On one side there was the Catholic philosophy of authority and on the other there were the champions of reason…the atheists. Both claimed ultimate authority was in man’s mind and institutions, not God’s word alone. 

This and this alone is the pivot point around which America exists and true freedom revolves. To say that the Huguenot’s weren’t fully faithful to the principles of God’s absolute authority and, consequently, their own limited and derived authority, is something that should be said. And studied. But the omission of the point altogether is deliberate because only if it’s ignored can the population be controlled. 

Only if we think righteousness means, not personal faith in and humility before the Lord, but vehemently disapproving of generations long past, can we continue to ignore the gospel. This is to say: no gospel of Jesus Christ and the equal need of repentance of all before Him – slave and free, black and white – and no liberty. 

Why?  

Because all authority ultimately resides in the Lord.  There simply is no moral power outside of Scripture.  If moral law and authority abide totally in man and his institutions (secularism) and/or is shared (Catholicism), then tyranny must follow. Man the sinner will always seek to make others submit to him, not God. Man wants “absolute” freedom and this brings conflict…and slavery. 

The foundation belief of liberty is faith in Jesus Christ and repentance of sin. Subsequent to this is the ordering of all affairs in submission to Him. No authority exists that’s not derived from Him and any that asserts itself contrary to His word-law is by definition arbitrary and tyrannical. Tyranny is life outside of the freedom in Christ because it will be bondage to man’s rules, not God’s. Tyranny is man playing god over others. 

The Huguenot’s understood that to rebel against authority, so long as it was in accord with the principles of Scripture, was to rebel against God.  Put this together and you see how the founders’ saw obedience to a tyrannical ruler as disobedience to God since that ruler had usurped God’s authority.  

Tyranny is, therefore, ruling outside the law of the Lord.  

Furthermore, the founders’ generation were all reared upon the “Westminster Confession of Faith.”  The Confession clearly put forth the parameters of obeying the civil magistrate in the context of God’s law-word.  All of this meant that Adams, Madison, etc., understood that since God’s law is the foundation and source of all morality and law, no king, ruler, parliament or subject is exempt from it.  Remember, they all knew Jesus’ proclamation that we were free only insofar as we abided in His word.  These facts literally necessitated the doctrine of lesser magistrates, which is to say that no ruler had absolute power except God.  The reality of sin makes necessary divided political powers because sin is a usurper.  

America today sees government as the final law.  It sees God’s law as subordinate to the government.  It sees the federal government “grant” religious freedom rather than recognizing it as a fact, thereby making itself lord over Christ’s church.  Just as bad, America sees sin as liberty.  It celebrates sexual sin and demands that the Lord’s church celebrate with it.  All of these things are predictable consequences of the rejection of the Lord.  At root remember: politics is always a consequence of one’s theology. 

Man, being created by God and for worship of Him, is hopelessly religious.  In his rebellion, he creates false religions rather than turn to Christ for forgiveness.  This makes sense of our insatiable desire to turn politics into religion.  R.J. Rushdoony said, “Man seeks the perfect social order, but his search has a double halter on it.  First, man the sinner wants a just world and perfect righteousness without the necessity of repentance and regeneration on his part.  Every man wants a perfect and completely faithful wife, but not every man is ready to be a godly and faithful husband.  The expectation of justice and perfection is imposed upon the social order: it is not required of one’s self.” 

John Adams was concerned that one former client of his, a horse-jockey, encouraged revolution because it caused legal confusion.  Men like the horse-jockey wanted anarchy so they would be “free” from law but Adams knew that anarchy was a worse slavery than tyranny.  He said, “If the power of the country should get into such hands, and there is a great danger that it will, to what purpose have we sacrificed our time, health, and everything else?  Surely we must guard against this spirit and these principles, or we shall repent of all our conduct.”Adams knew, you see, that both obedience and disobedience had to be grounded in God’s law for only it could bring real freedom.  

It’s as if Adams foresaw the danger of a godless generation decrying the sins of slavery from generations past while running breathlessly into the sinister embrace of socialism, a far greater and more destructive slavery than ever devised by man. It was socialism that enslaved and murdered over 100 million people in just the last century. What form of tyranny has a more comprehensive list of bloodshed than that?

Outside of God’s law we have only the twin terrors of tyranny and anarchy waiting.  Sin is a deceiver. It tricks the foolish into captivity and death. America, as she celebrates the blessings passed down by wise, though sinful and imperfect men, must reclaim the truth that we are slaves to sin.  This slavery, unless we repent, will destroy us.  But if we turn to Christ in faith, casting ourselves humbly before Him, He will forgive us, restore us, and wash us clean.  

Then we will be free.  

Only then.  And then, in Christ, our salvation is our July 4th and our jubilee.