Law and Liberty

I will walk at liberty: for I seek Thy precepts.” PsaLM cxix. 45.

Here is liberty found in the domain of law. The Psalmist passes into certain limitations and discovers a larger world. That is a sequence which is incredible to the worldling, but it is quite well known to the saint. The man of the world reasons that when he passes under law he enters into bondage. He imagines that when he is a law unto himself, that is to say, when he recognises no law at all, he enjoys a boundless circuit of freedom. On the other hand the Psalmist declares that to be under no restraint is to suffer the severest of restrictions, and that to welcome the yoke of God’s commandments is to walk in the largest liberty.

Now there is no realm where the lawless are the free. In whatever way we wish to go we must accept bondage if we would discover liberty. A musician must reverence the laws of harmony if he would exult in his lovely world. A builder must put himself in bondage to the law of gravity, or it is not a house which emerges, but a rubbish-heap. What sort of liberty does a man enjoy who consistently defies the laws of health? In all these realms to trespass is to be maimed, to pay homage is to be free.

But the principle has its supreme application in the realm of the spirit. When a man disregards the law of the Lord it may seem as though he has an unfenced world to walk in. Can he not do what he likes? Can he not go where he likes? There are no locks, no gates, no walls. The universe is his parish. And on the other hand it may seem that the man who accepts the restraints of the commandment of the Lord has only a, park for his province, and not the bountiful — freedom of the entire countryside. But all this is only a seeming, it is not the transcript of experience.

What has experience to tell us? Which of the two walks in liberty — the miser who defies the law of humanity, or the benefactor who honours the law with all his heart, and mind, and strength? Which man is really free — the man who moves in falsehood, or the man who rejoices in the truth? Which of the two looks as if he had the privileges of a boundless inheritance — the cynic or the lover? Experience has no hesitancy in her reply. It is the slave who is really free: it is the law-bound who have perfect liberty.

And now I can see how the Apostle Paul can in one breath speak of being “called unto freedom,”? and in the next breath glory in being “the bondslave of Christ Jesus.” He has found his rest in wearing a yoke. He has subjected his will to Another, and the submission has given him access into “the glorious liberty of the children of God.”