In the sermon titled 'Of Christian Liberty and Liberty of Conscience - The 1689 SLBC 21', Scott Brown explores the concept of Christian liberty, emphasizing its spiritual rather than worldly nature. He explains that true freedom is found in being liberated from sin, guilt, and the constraints of the law through Jesus Christ. The sermon highlights the distinctions between the Old and New Covenants, noting that the New Covenant offers expanded freedoms, including liberation from the ceremonial law, greater access to God, and the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. Brown discusses the role of conscience in Christian liberty, arguing that it should be shaped by the Word of God rather than human doctrines. He warns against the misuse of Christian liberty as a license to sin and stresses that true liberty is found in aligning one's desires with God's will. The sermon concludes with a call to live in obedience to God, which is the essence of true freedom.

Tonight we'll be looking at the whole matter of Christian liberty and liberty of conscience. We're on a subject that everyone's soul longs for, and that's liberty. Everyone wants to be free. And the trouble with freedom is that people are looking for freedom in all the wrong places, and the confession makes that very clear. You can search for freedom all you want, but if you look in the wrong place you'll never have it all you have all you'll have is bondage and so there are great tragedies in this whole matter of Christian freedom you know I was I was stunned as a very young man when I first read the words from John 8, 32, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

What a remarkable thing. It takes me back to that very time, those words, they were so precious to me. And the apostle Paul makes it very clear that the whole matter of the Christian life ends up in this matter of liberty. He says in Galatians 5.1, "'It was for freedom that you were set free. "'It was for freedom that you were set free.

It was for freedom that you were set free. Freedom is something that every human soul longs for. But if you look for freedom in all the wrong places, all you'll get is bondage and chains. And Christ's desire for his children is for freedom. He has ordained it and he has provided for it.

And there's a freedom that's far greater than our own versions of freedom. All of us have ideas of what would make us free, what would make us happy. But often the problem is that our ideas of freedom are different than God's, and so as a result, we never really get it, because we've been looking for freedom in all the wrong places. Now, when Christian people think of freedom, or Christian freedom, they usually think about questions like this. What do I get to do?

What are the boundaries? Do I get to do this? Do I get to do that? You know, do I get to watch that kind of film? Do I get to listen to that kind of song?

That's where our minds go in this whole matter. And so this subject brings us to categories that touch on legalism and antinomianism, matters of conscience, and matters of biblical requirement. And so it's a very important subject. And so this chapter here answers the question, what does it mean to have Christian freedom? What is Christian liberty?

And, you know, when someone says, I'm free in Christ, what does that mean? Because it's actually a phrase that's misused. And our confession helps us to understand that. And we know that Jesus Christ sets us free. But from what?

What does he set us free from? Well, that's really the focus of this chapter of the confession. And the first chapter defines exactly what Christian liberty is. And there are three paragraphs here. And the first paragraph defines what Christian liberty is.

And then the second paragraph addresses how do I deal with my own conscience regarding freedom. And the third paragraph addresses what Christian liberty isn't. So what it is, how do I deal with my own desires, the desires of my own impulses and the conscience that I have, and then the final paragraph answers the question, what it isn't. So let's take these one by one. First of all, there's in this first paragraph here, there's the definition and the scope of Christian liberty.

And there are actually 12 things that are mentioned in this paragraph. The first is this. There's freedom from the guilt of sin. This is the beginning of Christian freedom. You're set free from guilt because of the blood of Jesus Christ.

He has taken your guilt upon Himself. God sent His Son so that He might bear the guilt for us. And what a freedom that is. And then the second element of freedom is here. The condemning wrath of God.

A Christian is set free From the wrath of God. There's no wrath There is no condemnation For those who are in Christ Jesus When we were singing this last song Those the the words to the song just struck me. I shall come forth as gold Gold and I and I will be presented before the Lord is gold I am the righteousness of God. I have escaped the wrath of God." So what a freedom that is. And then the third freedom is the freedom of the rigor and curse of the law.

These two words, rigor and curse, are critical to understand what this means. And what this means is that in the law, perfect obedience was required. In the Mosaic law, perfect obedience was required, and the only thing that would satisfy it was a perfect sacrifice. And that, of course, is a picture of Jesus Christ. Now, When God gave the Ten Commandments through Moses, he was requiring perfect obedience or death.

But the problem in the Old Testament and the problem in the New is that no one has perfect obedience. And the fact that no one can have perfect obedience was clearly communicated in the Old Testament law because a sacrifice had to be given. The person did not offer perfect obedience and so a sacrifice was necessary. So when you when you read the Old Testament you have to recognize that perfect obedience was required. That was a picture of the perfect obedience that God still requires of all people and what God has done is that he has given the obedience of his son to replace our disobedience and the Bible Explains it that that that something was imputed to the Christian that he didn't have.

What was imputed? The obedience of Jesus Christ was imputed. You've not obeyed any of the laws, but God's Son did obey every law. And so the freedom that we have in Jesus Christ is a freedom from the rigor and the curse of the law. And then the fourth, The fourth kind of freedom is this matter of being delivered delivered from this present evil world and This is this deliverance has different manifestations of it and There there there is a God has set us free from the from the from the present evil of this world in the sense that Jesus Christ is our protector he He walks he walks for this children He he is a protector The devil cannot do anything to you that God has not allowed him to do.

In the same way that when the devil came to God regarding Job, he had to ask permission, because nothing can touch you in this evil world without God's sovereign hand, and he'll use it for his own glory. And then the fifth is bondage to Satan. And this has to do with the chains of bondage being broken. The power of sin has been broken. And while you were subject to sin before your conversion, now there's a new freedom and you don't sin like you used to.

You still sin, but nothing like you used to sin. You know, I speak with people fairly regularly about their assurance of salvation, and they grieve and lament their sins, which there's an appropriate way and reason to do that. But if you start asking them questions about their life, after a while you discover and they discover they are totally different people. They're not in bondage to sin like they were before and so many of their previous bondages have gone away. Our struggle with sin isn't over, but the bondage is over.

That leads us to the next. It's a different way of saying the same thing. The dominion of sin. While the power of sin has been broken, there's a daily freedom from the dominion of sin because the Holy Spirit has been poured out. You have a power that you never had before.

In the New Covenant, God sends His Holy Spirit as a person to live within you. And that person is doing work in your life. And that person has fruit in your life. That person, the Holy Spirit, the second person of the Trinity, manifests various fruit like love, like joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. In other words, you're not under the same kind of bondage that you had in various categories of your life because the Holy Spirit has been shed abroad in your heart.

And then the next, the seventh is from evil affliction, from the evil of afflictions. And I believe this is speaking of what God does to His children in their afflictions. God uses affliction for our good. All things work together for good, to the called. And God takes every single thing that happens to us, even afflictions, even evil afflictions, and he uses them for his good.

He sets us free from the tragic trajectory of evil afflictions. We're not taken into the evil of afflictions. They actually turn out for our good. And then the eighth manifestation of freedom is that we're free from the fear and the sting of death. When people die, they die differently.

In fact, you can read about various last words of different people. And it's astonishing to compare the last words of the Christians and the last words of the atheists. It's astonishing. The last words of the Atheists are bitter and vile. The last words of Christians are as sweet as you can imagine because they're falling into the arms of their Savior.

And so the fear and the sting of death is gone. And so you have Christians who actually sweetly die as they find themselves in the arms of their Savior. It happens all the time. And then the ninth victory over the grave. In other words, you don't stay in the grave.

You've been raised up with Christ. And as He was raised, you are raised with him. And so, you know, Christians have a completely different relationship with the grave. They're not staying in the grave. They rise to eternal life.

And then the tenth, Then the tenth They have freedom from everlasting damnation and Then 11th they have free access to God and they have freedom of obedience unto him. But What kind of obedience is it? Not out of slavish fear, but a childlike love and a willing mind. This is Christian freedom. It's the freedom from the guilt of sin, from the condemning wrath of God, from the rigor and the curse of the law, and being delivered from this evil world.

And it's a kind of freedom that makes you like a child. It's a really sweet freedom. And then in the next section, the authors of the Confessions say that in the New Covenant, these freedoms, this liberty is expanded. And so, as we go to this next part of this very same paragraph, As you can see, he's speaking of this, but under the New Testament, the liberty of Christians is further enlarged. So in the New Covenant, there's more.

It's a better covenant in every way. And there are three ways that this is accomplished. And the first is there is a freedom from the yoke of the ceremonial law. So we're not bound to the ceremonial law. Like for example, today we weren't slaughtering bulls and goats.

We were lifting up our hearts and our hands. We were taking the Lord's Supper. We were eating of the fat and drinking of the sweet. That's what we were doing today. Under the new covenant, it's a better covenant.

And so we're released from the ceremonial law to which the Jewish church was subjected. And the second thing is that we have an advantage. They call it here a greater boldness of access to the throne of grace. And the Lord Jesus Christ, as a faithful and compassionate high priest, hears his children and we have access by his blood. We can enter into his presence anytime.

And there's a boldness and an intimacy in this access to the throne of grace. And God has accomplished this. This is a new kind of freedom. And then the third kind of freedom in the New Covenant, which is over and above the Old Covenant, it's in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God than believers under the law did. So the power of the Holy Spirit has exerted itself.

And so the New Testament saint is able to do far more than the Old Testament saint was. The New Testament saint has an upgrade, big time. And if you look back in the Old Covenant, you actually see the character of people's lives and things like that, you can actually see the power of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament saint. God's children are far better off. They are more holy.

They have greater impulses toward loving God than the Old Covenant because the Holy Spirit has been poured out in your heart and what does he do in there? He cries out, Abba, Father. The Old Testament saint didn't have that. You have something inside of you and it's a person and he's crying out, Abba, Father, and he's taking you to the Father. So there are differences between the Old and the New Covenant.

Now, I'd like to have us read two verses to illustrate what we've just gone through. Gone through. First of all, go to Galatians 3.13. I think this verse helps us to support what the confession has stated here. Galatians 3.13.

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, curse it as everyone who hangs on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. And so in this verse you have the two elements, the two elements of these two paragraphs. First is that Jesus Christ has set you free from sin and death. That's the great freedom that you have.

And then secondly, that the Holy Spirit was poured out. And then go to Romans chapter 8 and we'll look at verse 3 for the second support. There are many verses that can be referred to here, but we're just going to take two verses per paragraph for the sake of time. So look at Romans 8 verse 3. Of course, that begins with, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

But verse 3, for what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin. He condemned sin in the flesh that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." So, what we learn from this first paragraph is that true liberty isn't doing what you want to do. True liberty is getting rescued from the bondage of sin and being freed from guilt and the freedom from condemnation of wrath and the rigor and the curse of the law. True liberty, Christian liberty, the way that the Bible speaks about it, isn't doing your own thing. It's not becoming an autonomous entity doing whatever you want.

That isn't freedom in Scripture, and the authors make that very clear. You know, the people who claim Christian liberty are sometimes the most miserable people you'll ever meet because they're grasping for things that aren't true Liberty and The Word of God You know grasping the things that are true of the Word of God is always a blessing, but those who find themselves obsessed with their own sense of liberty, they find liberty being eclipsed from their life because they're looking for liberty in all the wrong places. Jesus says, you know, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. Meaning, that means that you have a new shepherd, a new master, and that's where your freedom comes from. You come under his authority and under the ordinances of his kingdom and you are free.

That is Christian liberty. The greatest liberty really is to be free from your own desires. I'll just say that again. The greatest liberty is freedom from your own desires. Because your own desires usually lead you not into freedom at all, but they lead you into bondage.

And so we have to be very careful about our own desires. This is why in Romans chapter 13 verse 14 the apostle Paul says, make no provision for the flesh but put on Jesus Christ. Make no provision for the flesh but put on Jesus Christ. So in summary of the first paragraph, true Christian freedom is to be free from selfish desire and to do what is truly good as a result of being set free from condemnation. So then we come to the second paragraph here, and in this paragraph is addressed, how do I deal with my own impulses from my conscience?

You're born into this world, you have a particular way of living, you have certain attitudes, you have certain opinions about life, you pick them up from wherever, from your parents, from your friends, from your nation, you know, from what you've been watching. We're all a mix of impulses from our conscience And the truth is that our consciences are always being built by something, but you have to be really careful what your conscience is being built from. What is it that's forming your conscience? And this section addresses that. What do I do with my own impulses of my conscience?

And so the first few words really explain the heart of the matter where they say that God alone, God alone is the Lord of the conscience. And so here, the authors are saying that God alone is king of the conscience. In other words, the ruler, the conscience must be subject to the Lord himself. And that really is the beginning of understanding how one can be free, is by seeking Jesus Christ as Lord over everything, everything in your life. And so God alone is the Lord of the conscience and hath left it free, and this is really critical, from the doctrines and the commandments of men.

So freedom is freedom is never achieved by the doctrines and the commandments of men. It's not the opinion of your friends. On the one hand, it is left free from that. In other words, If there are doctrines and commandments of men that aren't found in the Word of God, then they may be presented as liberty, but they're not liberty at all. In the book of Galatians, Paul is talking about doctrines of demons.

Doctrines of demons. These were the doctrines in the commandments of men and their bondage. And so the doctrines and commandments of men, which are in anything contrary to his word. So, Christian freedom isn't pursuing things that are contrary to God's word or not contained in it. So freedom, you know, how do I deal with my own conscience?

Well, I have to ask, where do my impulses come from? What is shaped and created my conscience and is it is it the doctrines and commandments of men? The desires of men the things of this culture that are so alluring is it that or is it the Word of God? True freedom is achieved when a person has found his conscience shaped by the Word of God, and as his conscience is shaped by the Word of God, he wants to do the things that are declared in the Word of God and are pleasing to God. So that to believe such doctrines or obey such commands out of conscience is to betray true liberty of conscience.

In other words, you're not free when you're doing your own thing. You're not free when you're doing the doctrines and the commandments of men. You're not free. Those things betray true liberty. And we have these betrayers out there that are in our own consciences.

The ways that we've sought pleasure in the past, the ways that we've thought about freedom and what makes us happy. These things, when they're not formed by the Word of God, they are betrayers of true liberty. And so what we find in this world is we're constantly being betrayed by ourselves and the things that we have become because of what has shaped our conscience. So we have to be really careful what shapes our conscience. And we live in a world with so many ways to shape your conscience.

And with this media saturated world, the consciences of the people of the world are being polluted. And so what does it do? It takes them to the doctrines and the commandments of men, and they're getting betrayed all day long by those things. So train your conscience by the Word of God. Liberty of conscience and the requiring of an implicit faith and absolute and blind obedience is to destroy liberty of conscience.

In other words, this blind obedience, what is he talking about? He's talking about you grow up in this world and everybody says life, you should do this in your life to find pleasure and you just blindly follow it and you you act like and you do the things that everybody else does by blind of obedience because it's a little bit too harmful to you to step out of the stream of culture You'll get punished by the culture if you step out, so you're just going to have blind obedience. You know, you see this all the time. You see this particularly in the liberal media and in the things that are presented today. You know what the LGBT movement is doing to an entire generation?

It's creating blind obedience to the stupidest proposition that has come across the transom today. That you can choose whether you're a girl or a boy well that's insane but what you find now large corporations are requiring blind obedience blind obedience but that that that's a result of rejecting the word of God and walking according to the doctrines and the commandments of men. But freedom is not found there. Walking in blind obedience, just accepting what your culture is telling you is pleasurable, is going to rob you. It's going to destroy liberty of conscience.

Now I'm going to give you two verses for this. James chapter 4 verse 12. There is one lawgiver who is able to save and destroy. Who are you to judge another? And here he's talking about how there is a judgment that is apart from the lawgiver and it's destructive.

And then the next verse is Colossians 2 20 Colossians 2 20 220. And we're going to read 20, 22, and 23. Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, these are the doctrines and commandments of men. The basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations? Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle, which all concern things which perish, which the using according to the commandments and doctrines of men.

These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh so there are a lot there are many commandments and doctrines of men don't touch this do this it's self he calls it you know self-imposed religion false humility, but what they have no value. They have no value at all. And they lead to bondage. You know, Martin Luther in the famous speech that he made in Wittenberg, he speaks of his own conscience and he talks about his conscience being bound by the Word of God. This is such a clear and dramatic illustration of this paragraph here.

He says, I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the councils because it is clear as the day that they have frequently erred and contradicted each other. Unless therefore I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture or by the clearest reasoning, unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted, and unless they render my conscience bound by the Word of God, I cannot and I will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience." Now what he's saying is that his conscience is bound by the Word of God, not the doctrines and the commandments of men, the word of God and the word of God alone. We have to be very careful that what we advocate comes from God and his word alone, not from our own preferences, not from our own inclinations, but from God and God alone. So the second paragraph speaks of how you deal with your conscience. And then the third paragraph gives us the final paragraph gives us a definition of a wrong view of liberty.

And so it reads this way, they who upon pretense of Christian liberty do practice any sin, cherish any sinful lust, as they do thereby pervert the main design of the grace. They pervert the main design of grace. So notice he identifies the motive. In other words, the person who says I'm free to do whatever I want to do, that person is doing it under pretense. This really exposes the wicked heart that says, you know, because the grace of God abounds, let sin abound.

It's pretense for the person who says, well, I can do whatever I want when it involves sin or any sinful lust. And what that is, it's a perversion of the design of grace. God designed His grace to set you free from the law of sin and death, not to give you encouragement to sin, and therefore put to death many good things in your life. And so, with this pretense, what happens? Well, they destroy the end of Christian liberty.

Out of the pretense of wanting to do whatever they want to do, they destroy true Christian liberty. And they are deprived of serving the Lord without fear in holiness and righteousness all the days of our lives. So he's identifying a wrong view of liberty which says you can do whatever you want and it destroys Christian liberty. Now there are two passages of scripture Romans chapter 6 verse 1 Romans chapter 6 verse 1. Romans chapter 6 verse 1.

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? So shall we sin that grace may abound?

No, not at all. And then the next is Galatians Galatians is a powerful and very complete testimony of Christian liberty. But Galatians 5.13 reads this way, For you, brethren, have been called to liberty. Only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself, but if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another." One of the things that happens when people reject the Christian view of liberty is that they end up biting and devouring one another because they think they can do whatever they want. They think they can say whatever they want and proclaim whatever they want. And rejecting the liberty that's in Jesus is such a harmful thing. So this whole section makes it very clear that man is free not when he does what he wants, but when he does what God wants. That is when we are most free.

And, you know, I'll give you an illustration. Just a couple of days ago, or actually it was yesterday, my daughter found two baby bunnies out in the pasture. Two baby bunnies, little bunnies, about the size of a tennis ball, you know, very young. And they jump and they run, and they can jump very high for little bunny rabbits and we were surprised how high they could jump because they jumped out of their cage last night or the night before last and got lost where we found them but they were born they were born to jump and to run and when they jump and when they run they're they're most free but suppose just hypothetically there was a little child you know growing up near those bunnies And let's just say that child so loved to swim in the lake. And that child said, well, I think the bunny would love to swim just like me.

And so the child takes the bunny and puts the bunny in the lake. And then the bunny would be found to be most unfree. Because the bunny is doing something that it wasn't created to do. The bunny is doing something that is actually harmful. And that's exactly what Christian freedom is all about.

When you do what you were created to do, you're most free. But when you step out and you try to do something that you think would just make you so free, it never works out that way at all because God God has designed us to only be free when we are walking in his ways and you know in the same way that bunnies are made for running and jumping. We're made for obedience and we're always happiest and most free when we do that because we were made to obey God. So true true Liberty is found in one thing, doing the will of God, which is often quite opposite to our own thinking where we think, I'll be most free when I do what I want to do. And it's a very deceptive principle.

And I think this is why What we read in John 8 is so wonderful you shall know the truth and the truth Shall make you free and you shall be free Indeed now I want to just close with reading a few verses of Romans six, and then we'll pray. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not. How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?

Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of his death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we also shall live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more.

Death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives he lives to God likewise you also Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin But alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts and do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin But present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness. And that, brothers and sisters, is how one is free, by submitting the members of your body as members, as instruments of righteousness. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that you would give us such a heart to turn away from our own affections, to find all of our hope in your affections, having our consciences trained by your Word, and not being left to continue on as they are.

Lord, that you would give us such impulses for freedom, true freedom, that we would be found loving what is truly free and turning away from the things that are actually for our bondage. That we would quit looking for freedom in all the wrong places and to find it in you. Amen.