FREEDOM?
JAMES D. BALES

Although Robert Meyers called attention to some of the charges made by G. C. Brewer concerning Carl Etter (Voices, 111-12) in “As Touching Those Who Were Once Enlightened,” Meyers may not have noticed how free Etter was with certain charges concerning the church (Voices, 104-109). The wonder is not that he was denied fellowship by the church, but that he should have wanted its fellowship.

Freedoms That Christ Brings

Christ brings us freedom through truth (John 8:32). Where is this truth found? It is the word of Christ (John 8:31). This word received He from the Father (John 17:8). Thus it is the word by which we shall be judged (John 12:38-52). His word is the truth in which we are sanctified (John 17:17). In speaking of the apostles Jesus said that He had given them the word (John 17:6-8).

The words of the apostles are Christ’s words, for He sent them, and to receive those whom Christ sent is to receive Christ (John 17:6-8, 18; 13:20). Our treatment of His word is related to our treatment of Him (John 14:23-24).

How were they to remember His word? By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit they were to have brought to their remembrance all that Jesus taught (John 14:26). We might desire an inspired recollection of all that Jesus taught, but we were not there to be taught by Him, and this promise was not to us. That knowledge must come through perspiration and not inspiration. We know nothing about what Christ taught except through what the Spirit taught through inspired men. Although the promise of John 14:26 was to the apostles, other passages show that there were other men who were inspired by the Spirit (Eph. 2:20). They were not to teach just part of the truth, for the Spirit was to teach them “all things” (John 14:26), which included things which Jesus had not taught them.

We do not have inspired apostles and prophets today, but the written word of inspired men is as authoritative as their spoken word (2 Thess. 2:15). To have the word of inspired men is to have them, and to listen to their word is to listen to their voice (Lk. 16:29; Acts 13:27). The written word is not only the voice of the prophet (Acts 13:27), but it is the voice of God (Matt. 22:31) and the testimony of the Holy Spirit (Heb. 10:15). It has the power to produce faith and to instruct us (John 17:20, Eph.3:3-4).

Modernism assumes that “all the truth” was not revealed to the apostles and prophets in the first century. To this we say:

1. How can they claim to love Christ and to be loyal to Him when they discredit His promise that certain men would be guided into all truth? While they claim to be disciples of Christ, they try to make Christ their disciple and to teach Him that He was wrong. Etter (p. 109) criticizes our “backward look in religion” and thinks that the fruits of modern scholarship in religion goes beyond what is found in the Bible. Yet if Jesus is the truth, His promise that the apostles would be guided into all the truth was fulfilled before the last one of them died. Therefore, it is necessary for us to take the backward look to the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

2. All the truth has been delivered, for the promise of Jesus Christ did not fail. We invite Etter and Other modernists to state one moral and spiritual truth which is not found in the Word of God. If he will list some of the new truths which he thinks he has, we are convinced that it can be shown that either (a) they are found in the Bible, (b) they are discernible through human reason, (c) they are condemned by the Bible, or (d) they are condemned by human reason.

Knowledge of the truth make us free (John 8:32). This knowledge is more than an intellectual grasp, for it involves obedience. We have been begotten again by the word of God (1 Pet. 1:23, Jas. 1:18). This involves our obedience for “ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeined love of the brethren” (1 Pet. 1:22). Knowledge of truth involves the practice of truth, and thus the abiding in Christ’s word (1 John 2:3-4, John 8:31).

It should be obvious that no one has a perfect grasp of “all the truth,” much less a perfect practice of it. There is room for growth for “as new born babes, long for the spiritual milk which is without guile, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation” (1 Pet. 2:2). Some have not grown and need to be fed milk when they ought to be eating meat. This is not a healthy situation, and in Hebrews the exhortation to go on to maturity is followed by a warning concerning those who had totally fallen away (Heb. 6:1-6).

Since no one perfectly understands or practices “all the truth,” it is clear that God must overlook some things in order for anyone to be saved. How much he will overlook is not mine to know, and I am happy that I must leave this to the Judge of all the earth. This does not mean, however, that I should be presumptuous and neglect my obligation to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:18).

The truth is not, however, a cold and impersonal system, but it is centered in Jesus Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6) . He makes us free: “If ye abide in my word, then are ye truly my disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free . . . If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:31, 36). Our freedom is therefore in Christ and in His living word, not in an impersonal system of abstract truth.

Free from the Law of Sin and Death

Christ has freed us from the law of merit, under which we would have to earn our salvation. If we were under such a law, we would have to do all God requires and do it all of the time (Gal. 3:10). If we did this, we could boast in our work and would deserve the reward of wages (Rom. 3:27,4:4). But no one has lived the perfect life, for all have sinned and fallen short (Rom. 3:9). We do not have to transgress all the laws all the time in order to be condemned by the law (Jas. 2:9-11). If we are to be saved it must be on some basis other than merit-on some basis other than doing all the law says and doing it all the time.

The way is provided through the blood of Jesus Christ and the grace of God (Rom. 3:21-26). We are to have an obedient faith (Rom. 16:26), but even the acts of faith do not merit salvation. They draw their value from the fact that they are God’s way of salvation and related to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thus in Christ we are not under condemnation (Rom. 8:1-4).

We are free from the domination of sin since we are under grace instead of law (Rom. 6:14). But this does not mean that the Christian is not under law in any sense, for, if this were the case, it would not be possible for him to do wrong. Sin is said to be a transgression of utw (1 John 3:4). We are said to be under law to Christ (1 Cor. 9:21). So we are free from sin and not under the dominion of law in that we are not under the law of merit.

If we were under such law, then once we sinned we would be in bondage to sin without any hope of escape. But God in his mercy made provision for our forgiveness. Being free of sin’s dominion does not mean, of course, that we are free of temptation or that we cannot go back into the bondage of sin. It means that through God’s mercy we have escaped and that we can remain free so long as we walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh.

Free Within the Bounds of the Gospel

We are thus made free of the law and are not to go back to the law. “For freedom did Christ set us free. Stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage” (Gal. 5:1). Jews who obeyed the gospel were made dead to the law, and Jews and Gentiles alike are made dead to the principle of justification on the basis of merit. But we are made free from such bondage that we may be joined to Christ and bring forth fruit unto God (Rom. 7:1-7). We are not free to bring forth just any kind of fruit, but fruit which is consistent to our relationship to Christ.

Freedom does not give us license to serve the flesh (Gal. 5:13). Nor are we free from the demands of the law of love, even if we cannot attain perfect love. If we were able to keep the law of love perfectly, we would then be earning our salvation. But no man has done such. So we are obligated to the ethical requirements that are summed up in the law of love (Rom. 13:8-10) . We are on a higher plane than were the Jews in regard to moral responsibility, for Christ revealed a higher standard of love (John 13:34-35).

Although we are responsible for some minute regulations, we are free from the multiplicity of minute requirement of the law of Moses. This does not mean, however, that we are less responsible to God. In fact we are under greater responsibility. Some want a detailed list of all that is required of them so that they can check them off once they have been performed, and thus feel that they have arrived. This spares them from having to think about such things.

The truth is that much of our life is regulated by principles, such as the golden rule, which may be referred to as the law of love for our fellow man. One has to think in order to make proper use of the golden rule in the various situations of life.

As Richard Whateley has said:

Hardly any restraint is so irksome to man as to be left to his own discretion, yet still required to regulate his conduct according to certain principles, and to steer his course through the intricate channels of life, with a constant vigilant exercise of his moral judgment. It is much more agreeable to human indolence (though at first sight the contrary might be supposed) to have a complete system of laws laid down, which are to be observed according to the letter, not to the spirit; and which, as long as a man adheres to them, affords both a consolatry assurance of safety, and an unrestrained liberty as to every point not determined by them; than be called upon for incessant watchfulness-careful and candid self-examination-and studious cultivation of certain moral dispositions.

Wherein the gospel has left us free it has not left us free from the law of love, so that we might use our knowledge to lead people into sin. Paul condemned eating meat in an idol’s temple on two grounds. It was a violation of the law of love (1 Cor. 8), and it was wrong to commune with demons who were represented by the idols (1 Cor. 10). In the home, if the meat was not in the context of a feast to an idol, the meat could be eaten.

Although we are free from Old Testament ritual, and under the system of worship in spirit and in truth (John 4:20-24), we are not free to go back to the Old Testament temple and serve it (Heb. 13:10-16) . We are not free to add to New Testament worship. For example, our Lord instituted the Lord’s Supper at the time of the passover meal, but he instituted the supper and not the meal. And the apostle Paul showed that we do not have the authority to introduce into the assembly a meal along with the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11).

These then are some of the things involved in the Christian’s freedom. However, we are not free, as Etter thinks we are, to (1) use the so-called scientific approach in religion to discredit certain doctrines taught in the Bible (p. 106), and (2) to bring various innovations into worship (p. 107), and (3) to establish our own standards of fellowship, as some have done in making fellowship too narrow and some in making it too broad. Etter wanted us to fellowship him in his modernism (p. 109). Some of us may need to expand and some of us may need to contract our position concerning fellowship, (4) To denounce the revelation of God in the Old Testament with reference to certain of the Old Testament wars (p. 108).

There is Biblical “unity in diversity,” for Christians are certainly at different stages of growth and development. But there is not room to include in this unity the modernism of Etter. And if we ever become convinced that the Bible is not inspired of God, as it claims to be, there will be no fellowship of “unity in diversity,” because without the divine revelation we could not maintain that there is any fellowship in which men ought to receive one another.—Harding College, Searcy, Ark