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CHAPTER TWO
GRACE AND LIBERTY
Such is the warrant for liberty from
the Lord, who at the very first made a test for the first of mankind, with a
prohibition to be freely broken if desired, and a veil over the wonders
that might be, if obedience were opted, that the whole history of man is in part
the by-product of this test. As man fell, says Paul in Romans 5, so death
reigned by one, and as grace came, life with justification was thrust onto man,
and as we read in John 1, as many as received Him, to them He gave authority or
power to become the children of God.
Paul declares in II Corinthians
3:17, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Indeed, the very next
verse is occupied with telling us how the refining beauty of the Lord makes yet
more beautiful, what was already through the endowment of grace, given with a
new status, that of adopted children of God (Ephesians 1). What IS the beauty of
holiness ? Is it machinery ? Is it programs ? The wheels in Ezekiel 1 go where
the spirit is to go. These are not the criterion. The peeping eyes of
intelligence and knowledge so often there expressed (as also in Ezekiel 10, esp.
10:17), these are means; but the spirit has the drive, the purpose beyond
program.
It is not that God does not KNOW
(Romans 8:29ff.), nor yet that He propels all by mere force (Isaiah 48:15ff.),
rather using lament, even lamentation, where desire not being met, damage is
done, even destruction looming (Luke 19:42ff.). So it was in the entire book of
Jeremiah, where cherishing call and help offered continued remorselessly for
long, even to the point of a last-minute offer as in Jeremiah 17, only to
find a reckless and defiant spirit of rebelliousness and self-ruin, which
stopped at nothing, finally expressed in Jeremiah 44:7-17 , especially verse 17.
Rambunctious, consciously rampaging,
this was to the effect that although they had asked for divine guidance through
Jeremiah, in fact, yet
"As for the word
that you have spoken to us in the name of the LORD,
we will not listen to you! But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our
own mouth."
This included, as stark provocation,
the intent to burn incense to the "queen of heaven",
an early replica for a later Mary, idolatrously fashioned likewise, from the
mouths of those who could not leave to herself, the virgin whose was the child
Christ, as she was at the first, without turning even her into "the only hope of
sinners." It is always so when prerogatives strictly those of deity are
attributed with due response, to what is not deity, whether it be through pure
imagination or through distortion of the record. There is no queen for worship,
for in God in the form of God (as in Philippians 2), there is neither male nor
female, nor in heaven (Matthew 22:30). In the resurrection, such are they,
and as such are the very angels, the messengers of God. We who are to be made
like Him, are not in heaven made with such distinctions.
That may be one reason why it might not have been
fitting for Jesus Christ to have physical children, in this, that He as exact
representation of God, did not so operate. The incarnation was THROUGH a
human woman, whose femininity was for this earth, where such things obtain, and
hence already the form for this was expressive in human terms, but not the less
accurate for that! As to God Himself, He does not vary (James 1:17, Psalm102),
His years are the same.
As to the statement made in Jeremiah
44, cited above, it reminds one of the very approach once found when the author
had been called as Principal of a High School. While conditions of liberty
had been made before coming, as a necessity before being able to come, so that
certain reward and punishment criteria were not basic but peripheral, these were
soon to be breached, and the excuse ? It was that some, despite the conditions
voiced as basic to one's being able to come, had a "dream". It was this which
was going to come to pass, whatever had gone out of their mouths, or that of
their representative, and whatever the arrangements made and underlying.
Staggeringly, it seems this body could make a breach of faith as readily as one
could turn around. It is a strange feeling; but when God is in view, and the
arrangements are with Him, and His name is directly involved as with Jeremiah
the prophet, then you have the utmost in vagary.
How is this so ? It is because God
has created freedom, and whether this astonishing gift be in the original pair,
in their proclivity to do their own thing instead of the creation order, or in
the rebels resulting, to refuse the salvation offered (Hebrews 2:1-3), which
cuts off by their own wilfulness their very door of escape (John 3:19), this the
criterion of judgment. They would not. Whether as with Hezekiah it be in a
certain worldliness which may try to take-over even the very saints of God, so
causing discipline, this is all not to remove their liberty but to enable it,
that confusion should not mask revolt, or darkness dim reality: liberty it is.
God tested Hezekiah in this very case, seeking to evince the reality that moved
him: high though he was spiritually, yet reality check did not fail to operate,
and though all was known, so were the depths made known in this! (II Chronicles
32:31). God even "withdrew" in certain experiential regards, the deep probe
discovering what needed correction. Freely Hezekiah responded, freely the Lord
corrected.
But some may say, But what of the
foreknowledge aspect, where as in Romans 8:30ff., God has foreknown who
are His, and put this into a resultant file, predestination: is not this
foreknowing a mere cover for merit ? Is it not the case that when God,
before time and creation, and hence prior to the fall of man, knows the reality
of some spirit, whether it is for Him or not, His own or not, inclined to Him or
not, there is merit in this situation for the 'better' spirit which is so
positively inclined ? So some might question.
Not at all. This is to alter the
model in order to criticise it, as if to say that since 2 plus 2 equals 4,
THEREFORE 3 plus 2 CANNOT equal 5. Why ? It is because the system in view is
changed, so that ONLY in the former case is the criterion of numeration to be
found. To change a model in order to criticise it is merely to move from reality
to imagination, even in the mind.
Thus BECAUSE there IS freedom in the
ultimate spirit of man, NOT autonomy, since where law and results obtain, and
initiation is with the Lord, as well as termination, this sort of total sway
over things is not possible, therefore conclusions or inferences drawn
from the contrary assumption are mere breaches of the conditions of discourse.
Thus, where freedom is, it is and cannot be subjected to some law that forces,
some mode of creation that determines, or some superiority or inferiority of
nature which is the criterion of conduct; for that is the opposite character,
that of determinism. Obviously, the installation of the opposite system in the
midst of that of liberty will have ludicrous results, as if one were to move in
complex computations on some account, and suddenly and inexplicably turn it from
a debit item to a credit one.
Such vagaries are of psychological,
but not logical interest.
Thus WHAT determines the way a
spirit seen by God in its actuality, as an hypostasis, before its creation (cf.
Predestination and Freewill),
will act ? By what law as in physics, or by what combination as in chemistry, by
what notional constraint as in mathematics, will its action be made to occur ?
It is by NONE. That is all in the
opposite realm. If this were to be the case, then the liberty would not be
operative: determinism would replace voluntarism, that is the action of will to
make a way here or there, in the system in view. In such a case, the will
itself, as determined and not free of this as in the biblical model -
would merely in an indirect way return to model of determinism, shanghaied from
its created scope as free to opt to come or go in the realm
operative, to rebel or to obey, to prefer or not to prefer the options.
These, in this case, as to be with or not with God.
It is a little difficult for some
even to envisage what they practice daily, in the abstract, because firstly of
sin, which makes of man a slave as Christ pointed out (John 8:30), and secondly
of the slave philosophy, which wants to explain what in the personal realm is
liberty, with what in the material, is necessity, so confusing one realm with
the other, and in the end, God with creation; for without God liberty is
impossible in the writhing or turmoiled troubled events, reactive and
coercive; but with Him, liberty is His prerogative, and in whatever system He
prefers, He can grant it. Making man in His image, geometrical elements being
irrelevant for the One who so far from occupying space, made it (just as the
author does not live in any of his books by the very nature of creation and its
mode), means making him to have some essentially god-like qualities. These
CANNOT be duplicates, since to be made by itself MUST mean a starting point, and
hence a diversity from God, and being dependent must likewise mean a derivative
scope, not ultimate or absolute; but it must mean at least that in essentials,
there is scope for discourse, communication and communion, that there is a
likeness at the heart sufficient for heart to know heart, at least in principle
(cf. I Corinthians 13:12).
Therefore it not only is not, but
cannot be the case that with man, as God foreknows him, each one (cf.
Ephesians 1:4, Isaiah 46:10), is forced or made the result of an extraneous
determination, relative to being an adopted child of God - or not.
It cannot therefore result from, or be inhibited through, any input in its
created mode; but rather, through that very mode, it freely expresses what is
its preference, the criterion of coming or not, in view of the desire that the
world be saved and not judged, shown in John 3:16-17. That later sin removes the
contemporary power of man to opt for God, because of the slant and slither of
his sin, has nothing whatever to do with the elemental knowledge, the
foreknowledge of God, NOT of what he will do (Romans 9:11), but of what he is.
One might urge that what one is
determines what one will do, but this likewise is an hypothesis based
on deterministic principles which, invading the realm of liberty, is like
Germany invading Holland. It is an alien thing and does not belong. It is
mutative confusion, a different model, another system. It does not relate.
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God is often the 'item' omitted in
such thought. When GOD deals with the sunken soul, there is lift.
To be sure, it is the final movement of the heart is AS foreknown,
not subject to mere psychological fantasy or clutch as determinative,
it is this which conserves and preserves reality in the eternal destination of
each soul.
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This however is a guarantor of
liberty, not its end, so that mere mood or instantaneous folly is not final,
but something far deeper, and not its termination.
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Though in His own Being,
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and HENCE in His provisions at the
technical level, since no power can be denied to God, without self-contradiction
that makes of such a being a mere created element,
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God would have children saved (as in
Matthew 18:14), not perishing, and so mankind (John 3:15-18, Colossians 1:19ff.,
I Timothy 4:10, 2:1ff.),
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yet He does not force or compel into
the kingdom of heaven.
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Some might seek to take it by force,
as notoriously in the case of slain John the Baptist, removed that lust and
fancy might rule (Matthew 11:12), so that in this that kingdom was suffering
violence, yet what they take is only illusion and death with guilt; for God is
not like that. He takes it by truth and love in mercy, and it is liberty where
life is. Such is the very nature of God (II Corinthians 3:17). What takes by
force but grasps air, and airily departs irrelevant to grace.
Hence in Proverbs 1 you see the
loving appeal in almost haunting simplicity and charm, followed by the result.
God was willing even to INSTRUCT the ignorance, remove the veil, but because
that particular soul in view was not willing, the results accrue. The results do
not cause the condition; they come to result from it. What is that condition ?
It is one in which the impassioned desire of God is not met because of human
will to the contrary.
It is sad if not grievous, that some
feel a need, as Martin Lloyd-Jones so well points out in his sermon "True
and False Religion" in the work Evangelistic Sermons, to go to one
extreme or the other. One has found precisely this thing and so expressed for
decades. Such pockmarks the annals of history (cf.
The Bay of Retractable Islands).
Here this tendency to unproductive extremism is found in the desire to make an
absolute sovereignty for God, that has the aura of making this very thing, the
rule over God. That is, He is to be made into SUCH a sovereign that what He
roundly declares to be His own nature, becomes subject if not subordinate to
this philosophic creation. This god when Christ is saying how often He
would have gathered the contemporary generation of Jerusalem under His wings,
but now their house is left desolate, is conceived by Calvin*1
as having His own thoughts somewhat differently moved from those of Christ!
There is a diversity more than diversion. While Christ is moved one way, we are
not to conclude this is true of the Father's heart! So he creates an operative
dichotomy where there is infinite unity, even at the intensively spiritual
level.
In Christology this is
appalling! (cf. John 5:19ff.). To something in some it may be appealing, but it
is grievous nonetheless. It separates the infinitely intimate.
Christ is to show the nature of God,
not void it, vary it or vitiate it.
The god so made becomes one whose
mysterious felicity is served by not desiring some at all, not even in
foreknowledge, so that one does not quite know why this is so. This starved
version of the plenary beauty of the Lord can exist only in violation of so many
scriptures*2 and their inferences that it
misleads, and has misled many. On the other hand, there is the opposite extreme,
equally fanciful and abortive of the Bible, which would have man happily able to
choose God, in his own contemporary situation, despite John 1:12, which
could not well be more emphatic to the contrary, removing every imagination
about man's fallen powers being adequate for choosing God.
Biblically, it is indeed possible
for something of the divine to be intimated to man, the contrary thought
ignoring the power of God. In the case of Corinthians 2:14, the nature of
the unconverted per se is considered, but it is unwise to consider something
entirely apart from its creator and founder. In itself, this would have a
complete exclusion zone, but as Hebrews 6 shows so eloquently, this is not so.
It is not in itself. God operates as He will. Very considerable may be the
elements of knowledge of God in the as yet unconverted, the ambiguous, the
dubious players who taste but do not swallow the reality of God through the
Gospel. Indeed, this specious and pernicious substitute for faith can be fatal,
as can toying with atomic bombs. Experience without salvation may merely
mislead, and the inherent obfuscation may distort. When God acts, the
power is for a purpose; not for playing, whether by extraneous enticements or by
psychological manipulation. Truth works and is not deceived (cf. Matthew
7:21ff.).
Nevertheless, this does not mean
that the summit is reached in which the unconverted heart makes in this life the
ultimate decision, which John contradicts. Until salvation, lingering
uncertainties, suffusions of desire, calls of other motivation may indeed
operate. Liberty in itself is not its situation. Intrinsic liberty from the day
of creation of mankind, however, this is its condition. This can be liberated in
the liberty of God who knowing all, savours each. It is not some mysterious
substitute for the liberty, therefore of man, which God enacts. It IS the
liberty of man which He, in His wisdom, protects and inspects, that is
fulfilled. Therefore, when any person on this earth, any sinner, considers God,
it is mere subterfuge or fallacy to imagine that there is a mystery which
protects one from the charge of rebellion, rancour or resistance to the will of
God (as in Acts 7:51), when this is left ambiguous. Indeed, in the case of
Stephen, in his address to those about to stone him, we are told that
those concerned did ALWAYS resist the Spirit of God, and this statedly. If one
being confronted with truth as in the day of Christ's life on earth, and the
Spirit of God convicts in periods after that (as in John 16), then rejects Him,
then the reality is on display, the experimental resultant in reality as
foreknown, and full responsibility comes to that person altogether as in John
15:24). If repentance comes later, well; but in this situation, as long as
it obtains, there is the readout.
IF Christ had not come among them,
He said, and done the works no one else did, and spoken the words none else did,
then that is one thing. If however He comes and does not work and speak, and yet
they refuse, THEN there is NO EXCUSE for their sin. Such is His own word (John
15:22). That is God at work, God speaking. If theology is more precious than
God, then cease here. But if Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ is your concern, and
His words, then this is the read-out clearly. There is scope for excuse before
the compassionate and intensely merciful God, not for sin, but in terms of
salvation, for not having it when what it is all about is not displayed. He is
in principle desirous of saving all; but not at the cost of integrity and hence
reality, not in order to gain either simpering pretenders or arch-strategist,
invading heaven to take over (cf. Satan's endeavour as depicted in
Revelation 12).
Thus the responsibility of man
is not made mystic or mysterious or questionable by the exposure to the Gospel,
for this is clear, that what rejects Him on earth, being so exposed, displays
what is rejected in heaven. What God knows is not a substitute for reality, but
what in reality is shown. He is the God of truth (Psalm 31:5).
Nor is there escape in terms of
merit, as if those who come were made better, as we have just seen, and hence
one who is made worse is not really responsible and can hope for consideration,
or need not care. That is the deterministic idea which contradicts the Biblical
Model. You need to care. God is very careful and denial on this earth of what is
confronted by Him is a mode most sure of exclusion, as in Luke 9:26. Be ashamed
of Him and He will be ashamed of you. He is merciful but not foolish; discerning
but not devious; seeking but not fudging. Merit may be found in the kingdom of
heaven (Matthew 25), but not as a determinant for entry into it (Ephesians
2:1-10, Romans 10), whether for the savvy, or inferentially for those who have
the X-factor which is appealing to a mysterious God who is not the one in the
Bible. In the precincts of liberty, the God of restoration works, and in truth
He liberates, unfuddled by our confusions, unfazed by our deficiencies, in love
finding all, discovering all, and acting accordingly. If you do not trust Him,
you may demur. But that ? it is once more a psychological problem, not a
systematic one. You need to do the same with any doctor in any operation.
It is the will of man which God has
made, knows and deals with in His own way, not to forget it because of sin, but
to conserve its meaning and ensure its operation even when it is smitten. He
does not save ruins no longer in His image, but realities seen despite their
calamities, as they are.
The only merit, it is His own; the
place of grace, it is infinite. The contribution from the differential
performances of man, it is zero. It is God who chooses before creation is,
or differentiation through sin defiles and renders inoperative the full scope of
the will of man. The only guarantee and the assured basis of liberty, the only
way for it to be actual, is this, that God has it and can confer it in any
quarter He so desires. With man, this is in his will, surrounded with a mind for
understanding, a spirit for realisation and a place for confrontation, wherever
this may be. For the operation of this, he is entirely and realistically
responsible. Whether it be fallen, as now, or not, as at the first,
it is God who made it and operates in entire wisdom and integrity concerning it.
Profaning grace is thus as real as if we were in full possession of our powers.
Illusion does not operate (like a disease) to prevent truth, but truth operates
to preclude illusion.
With God, technicalities SERVE, and
do not sever; they enable His will, and do not thwart it; for He does whatever
He will in heaven and on earth. What that is, is found in His word, the Bible,
all of it, a wonder of impassioned mercy, soaring love over searing sin with
indelible compassion propelling into every nook and cranny, ditch and byway, for
reaching the lost, even conserved before time! Here lies a perfect bundle,
a mountainous summit of truth and perspective, in terms of which all doubts are
resolvable, all conundrums in type are unloosed, all questions have their answer
concerning life, and all wisdom is to be found. Test it, try it, for as to
the Bible, it does not move. Rather it moves what strives to become in itself
immovable, and its resolution is like that of a vast light, which renders dark
the lowly who exalt themselves, and exhibits the darkness of all lesser and
aspiring luminaries.
NOTE
*1
See:
The Glow of Presdestinative Power Ch. 4,
The Lord of Longsuffering
... Ch.
6
Celestial Harmony for
the Terrestrial Host Ch. 2.
The Christian Pilgrimage Ch.
3.
*2
See for example:
SMR
Appendix B,
Great Execrations ...
Ch. 9,
The Majestic Might of the
Merciful Messiah: Jesus Ch. 5