Why Liberty and Why Christ?

Why Liberty and Why Christ?

People are asking me, why is it, that I am so passionate about two things in my life: Liberty and Christ? They are asking me, how they go together. Often I would just reply: “Because they go hand in hand, because they are compatible…” Though I believe that, I want to delve more into this topic.

I came to Christ because His love towards me changed me. It completely shook my being and it made me surrender all of what the world had made me. I surrendered to the love and grace of the Eternal God, the Creator of the Universe.
Was I brought up that way? No! Was I made (by force) to choose God? No! Did I choose to walk the path that He has for me because of fear of hell? No. There is nothing in the world that would make me do anything by using force, coercion, fear or hatred.

Before knowing God personally, I thought that a Creator is some sort of force, some sort of energy somewhere outside of our reach. And that energy would, whilst being some sort of intelligence, only do things via forceful actions or it would not want to interfere at all (kind of like ancients in StarGate series). God however took me to a different place, he showed me humility, love, Himself.

Liberty is the other thing I am passionate about and it somehow has to do with God as well. But you know what? I used to think that police is necessary, that rules are needed, that law is good. Whilst I would say that the Commandments are essential to be known, I do not think, that they are to be enforced upon anyone, though everyone should abide by them. For the Bible and the fact of life shows us, that God has somehow embedded or hardwired our being, to know the difference between good and evil and in a way knowing the commandments in our inner selves (except after heavy indoctrination). The problems don’t begin with the law itself, but with the ability (or monopoly) of any one person to twist law to such extent, that it renders the liberties of someone else nonexistent, or that it overrules the law of another. I would say, that The commandments are an example of laws that want people to acknowledge the rights of other fellow men whilst admitting, that we are unable to fully live by them without God changing us first.

Let us look at how commandments affect us:

1. I am the LORD your God […] You shall have no other gods before me.
   • If you only serve one God, one true God, the Creator of universe, then you will likely not intentionally turn against Him and worship some other god or master in your life (you will not make money or gold your created idol or god). Furthermore Christ, contrary to popular belief amongst nonbelievers, sets you free, He gives you freedom and liberty (I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. – Exodus 20, 2)
2. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the LORD your God […]
   • As said before, if you only worship and follow God the Creator, then you will not worship something else. Since, apart from Creator God, everything else is created (not creator), whatever you worship, that is not Creator God, is something that He created and hence removes Glory from Him. It is like praising the painting instead of painter or even worse, if you suppose that painted things are living beings, that those would praise the painting and not the painter who created everything, including them.
3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain […]
   • This one kind of ties into the previous two, for if you praise and worship the Creator, why on earth would you talk bad about Him. He gave you life and Liberty, yet you thank Him by talking bad about and to Him. It is like talking bad to your father and mother, who raised you up.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. […]
   • We humans are creatures, whom God created not just so that we would work our land all the time, but also to Give praise to Him and have rest. Hence this commandment is not just asking a person to take a day to give to God as thanks for all that He had done, but also as a very practical thing for our batteries to recharge. First (to my knowledge) to really find the importance of one day of rest in a week, were Germans under Hitler. They used Jews as workers before they would die in the concentration camps. First they thought, that they would maximize their production by making them work every day. They did, however, soon realize, that Jews did less in full week worth of work, than they did in six days worth of longer work. Hence they reverted back to six days of a working week. It is the same for every one of us. If we overwork ourselves, we can get into serious health problems.
5. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.
   • God created everything, including you and your mother and father before you (and so on). So naturally one ought to honor them, if not else, because it will not do you well if you are against them because it brings emotional and psychological trauma not only into your life, but also theirs. That is especially true if you are living under the same roof, for it is not well if people, who can’t handle themselves and others are in proximity. One is always anxious in a negative way. The same is true for relationships that are not under the same roof all the time. Over time what usually happens is that one side starts feeling hatred towards the other side, which is likely contagious for several generations and is devastating in personal level, in generational level and can affect more than just two people.
6. You shall not murder.
   • This one is the first that states a command that should not be violated, for if it is, it violates the liberty and natural right of one’s life. Also, if God created everything it violates His order of things, for if He gives life, we have no right to take it. Life is every single person’s natural right, for he is born with it. Hence even abortion of alive fetus qualifies as a murder and it is violating the unborn child’s right to life. This applies to every situation, where sperm and egg have already been merged and after that (scientist would say that even bacteriae are life, which would go even further). Now an interesting thing is that the commandment does not say “Do not kill.” Let’s unpack this a little bit from hebrew. Hebrew uses the word ratsah which goes beyond the English meaning of “murder,” because the Hebrew word ratsah also covers causing human death through carelessness or negligence. As it states in TheResurgence article:
     

     “Here’s the big idea: the Bible distinguishes between killing and murder. This is important, because many people don’t understand the difference. The sixth commandment does not say, “Thou shalt not kill.” It does say, “Thou shalt not murder.”  Murder is a sin against a person and the God who made them. However, there are situations in which, sadly, the death of a person is both justified and necessary. Just a few paragraphs after giving the sixth commandment, for example, God allows for killing in self-defense (Exodus 22:2) and also instructs Israel to punish murderers with the death penalty (Exodus 21:12–14).”

7. You shall not commit adultery.
   • Adultery is another commandment, which implies, that adultery is a violation of a right. Let’s look at it. Adultery is primarily a violation of the right to your own body. Usually we would think of rape as an example of adultery. However Jesus says ”
     But I say to you that every man who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery in his heart. (Matthew 5, 28)” which means, that whosoever even thinks of lust after seeing a beautiful woman, is at the same place as the one who raped one, and hence it is also the same for every single man and woman, who looks at pornography. For it is the fact that we either own ourselves, or we are in the ownership of God almighty. However we look at it, when lusting after a real person (physically or mentally) we are violating the other persons right to an untouched body.
8. You shall not steal.
   • Theft is a violation of right to property. Therefore every person has a natural right to own whatever he nurtures, makes or modifies, unless if that other thing is owned by someone else.
9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
   • False witness is a violation of truth. It usually leads to theft or other unlawful possession of things.
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.
    • Coveting (or yearning) for something that is not of your own, normally leads to violation of right to property and/or right to life. For if something is not yours, it does not belong to you, hence you ought not have a desire of possessing it. Hence people should not covet someone else’s house, for the house is someone else’s property and very quickly it might happen, that the coveter will do something to procure that property, usually that is some sort of theft (it is the same with ox, donkey, servant, worker, anything basically that is someone else’s property). While some will say, that a wife is her husband’s property (except if you view marriage as a mutual ownership of each other: “For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.” 1Cor 7:4), coveting someone’s wife or husband is not necessarily theft (though it might be – according to 1Cor 7:4, Matt. 19:4–6, Mark 10:7–9 and Gen 1:27), it is adultery and hence a violation to a natural right for the untouched body.

Frederic Bastiat in his book “The Law” says:

“We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life.

But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.

Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.

What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.”

Thereafter I came to conclusion (not necessarily upon studying this) that all of What God had entrusted us with, he did so while giving us liberty. Moreover I have (and had) complete liberty to choose Christ. I was not and should not be forced to follow Christ, not even by God almighty Himself. He in fact is the one, who created us with liberty. Even in the Garden of Eden He created Adam and consequently Eve with certain ability of understanding and conscious awareness of themselves, surroundings and of God. He also gave them freedom to eat from whatever in the garden, with the exception of the tree, that is in the middle (possibly the fruit would give knowledge of good and evil according to the serpent) (Genesis 3). God told them that for their own good, yet they violated His will, they sinned. God because of His nature cannot have in his midst a being who did not freely choose him, and who is not of the same nature or kin as He is. Human chose his and not God’s will. And he had all the liberty to do so, yet with the wrong choices, consequences follow. But because God would like to be in fellowship with his Humans again, he devised a plan, by which all who want to follow Him, have their wages paid for (wages for sin is death Romans 6:23) hence they can enjoy fellowship with God in the eternity (heaven). He incarnated Himself as a baby. He came into the world as a baby – Jesus Christ, lived a life of a poor man, son of a carpenter, humbled Himself, whilst being fully God and fully Man, he suffered for sins of all men before and after Him, died (paying for our wages), and three days later He rose again to the witness of many, and now He still lives in the eternity as a triune God.

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴ not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

^“5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Do Everything Without Grumbling

¹² Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³ for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

¹⁴ Do everything without grumbling or arguing, ¹⁵ so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.”Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky ¹⁶ as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. ¹⁷ But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. ¹⁸ So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.”   Philippians 2: 1-18

And because of what God did in flesh on the Earth I follow, worship and adore Him. He gave me liberty to choose Him or the world. Worldliness offers physical wealth, pride, suffering, envy, empty egoism and selfishness, at the cost of life and freedom, because one in the world chooses some created thing to become his idol (just look for example at the title of the famous show The American Idol), his own little created god (money, gold, wealth, lifestyle, cars, sex, etc.). On the other hand Christ offers me freedom. He offers me kingdom of God, starting here on the Earth while I am alive. In Him I am free. And I am free, because of what He did for me on the cross, and because all of the things I want to do, is follow Him by obeying Him through following His commandments not because I must (or am forced to), but because I want. Hence I am really living as a libertarian paradise would look like. If all would abide by His commandments all would really live in harmony with each other and with God.

Unfortunately we the people are sinners, who ought to repent to God. When someone acknowledges what God did for us and believes, and tells God that he wants to follow Him, God will gladly start the process of renewal of man’s being. It changes a man fully. It makes him free of himself, it makes him free in Christ. A man who only goes by incentives, will inevitably stumble at sin of wickedness of men. God is the only one, who covers for sin and gives people not just incentives not to sin, moreover He gives examples of humility and incentives for humility. He washes our sins away and lets us see everyone as an equal or greater that ourselves and be a servant to people around us (Mark 10:42-45, Matthew 20:25-26).

So you see, by Christ we can be truly free, which also means that we are not to exercise taking freedoms away from others. That is why I preach Christ, because by Him changing every one, all would be truly free and governments would not be needed anymore, because the basic principle of government is coercion and monopoly over the use of force. Nobody really has the right to use force, (except maybe ultimately God the Creator, but even He will not use it unless there is no other way, but that is for Him to decide and not us).

Ultimately the choice is yours and yours alone. If you want to live free even though you might live as a slave to the ways of the world, chose Christ and He will set you free, he will give you new family of His disciples amongst Christians, he will give you life as you have never known before.

And you know what?
You are free to choose!

More sources:
Libertarian Christians
libertarianchristians.com