Liberty

A recurring theme of modern man is emancipation or liberty. In many of the wars and revolutions of the modern period, the rallying cry involved some notion of freedom or independence. Yet we still have a world of oppression, war, and debt—and these grow as we speak. This is because all modern revolutions have been political at heart, and not ethical. They have aimed to rearrange the conditions of society rather than to renew the hearts of men. Where man seeks to achieve any level of goodness apart from the true revelation of God and man in Jesus Christ, the effort will devolve into some form of coercion or chaos.

Nietzsche’s attempt at replacing Christ with a “higher man” provided following generations with plenty of intellectual ammunition with which to assault Christian liberty. Under the plan of elevating man to a status where he could truly enjoy life, Nietzsche set in motion the wheels of the war machines of human avarice. He, in a sense, saw this coming. He knew that the overthrow of traditional values, which he saw as lies (funny that someone engaging in a war on morality would worry about lies), would mean the end of human peace. He writes,

For when truth enters into a fight with the lies of millennia, we shall have upheavals, a convulsion of earthquakes, a moving of mountains and valleys, the like of which has never been dreamed of. The concept of politics will have merged entirely with a war of spirits; all power structures of the old society will have been exploded—all of them are based on lies: there will be wars the like of which have never yet been seen on earth.[6]

This being first published in 1908, the astute observer will note that history has proven Nietzsche correct in this regard. The war against Christianity has indeed been disastrous on all fronts. This is the inevitable result when man—collective man, governmental man, tyrannous man, machine-gun, tank, helicopter, nuclear missile-armed man—does not submit to a higher divine law, but sets his own law and agenda.

Against all the failures of man, Christ has revealed the true path to human liberty: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-2). The foundation of human liberty is found in following Christ, the living Word of God. Thus, a proper understanding of Christ becomes all too important for social order.[7]By understanding Christ alone as truly divine and yet fully man, entered into history, we deny that either divinity or true humanity can be found in mere human institutions. No individual and no institution—State, school, or church—can claim ultimate authority in the earth. Christ rules all of heaven and earth (Matt. 28:18), and His Incarnation makes this possible. Where mysticism leaves open the question of God to each individual—of who shall be God incarnate, or who represents God—Christianity claims that Christ is God Incarnate and He represents God. If man answers the question for himself, then some collective agent of man will eventually triumph. It will be either the power of the mob, or the power of a tyrannical state. There will be a higher man, but he will likely be in a black suit with a tax invoice, or in a blue suit with handcuffs and a gun. The State becomes the ultimate representative of man, the highest appeal in the earth, and therefore an incarnate deity. It takes on a messianic role, claiming to provide for the welfare and safety of its people. Men become subjects to the care of the State, rather than free men under God. God provided a way out of human tyranny in the Incarnation of Christ: no State has a legitimate claim to ultimate authority, because Christ is the true King of kings in the earth.

True freedom can only be found in the shadow of God’s wings. Likewise, true safety, welfare and salvation. All of the things that modern man desires, but denies in principle through his self-centered humanism and mysticism, God has provided through Jesus and His teachings. Only when the State bows beneath the rule of the King of kings will men begin again to experience a free society; for only when the power of both individual and collective man is checked by the ethical rule of law will man be free from the haunt of his tyrannous fellows. The Incarnation lays the foundation of this liberty, for only there is man seen as a new creature, able to follow God’s ethics, and only there is God manifest in history so that no other ruler has ultimate authority in the earth.

Conclusion

We must not follow a man-made god, but rather the One true God-made-man. We must not allow human imagination to intrude upon the “express image” of God in Jesus Christ. The Incarnation of the Son of God meets the needs of human salvation and godliness at all levels (2 Pet. 1:3). It exposes the easiness of a mere “inner” spirituality as spiritual laziness and self-centeredness, in that Christ truly manifested in the flesh in history. Thus the mystic must deal with the historical revelation of God before and ever above his own feelings. As well, the Incarnation denies tyranny and demands that all civil rulers reign justly beneath the Prince of the Kings of the earth (Ps. 2:10-12; Matt. 28:18; Rev. 1:5-6). The law of God is revealed as the path of order and peace in the earth, and the lust to rule on the part of mere men is checked by the rule of Christ on earth. If we truly mean it when we pray, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10), then we must take the true understanding of Christ as fully God and fully man, and apply that truth to all of life.

http://americanvision.org/3858/baby-jesus-and-freedom-implications-of-the-incarnation/