I. The designation "servant of God" embodies an opinion or theory about human life. When a being like man finds himself in this present sphere of existence, with the endowments of thought and of passion which go to make up his nature, he naturally asks himself how he may make the best of his opportunity. For some men life is pleasure; for others it is energy; for others it is active thought; for the last class it is moral excellence. In all these cases, man lives within the compass of his own being, for something which it yields, or which, as he think, satisfies and completes it. His pleasure, his energy and thought, nay, his very virtue, are parts of himself. They exist as sensations, moods, facts, satisfactions of his being; they have no existence apart from him. The servant of God, too, may nay, will sooner or later taste exquisite pleasures, may exercise his thought on the highest subjects, may achieve real excellence in character and conduct; nay, in different degrees he cannot help doing this: but for him these things are not ends of action; they are only the accompaniments of his real object. He thinks of life only as service; he conceives of it as the surrender of his will, of his time, of his affections, of his intellect and memory, of his goods, if needs be, of his friendship, reputation, and health, and life, to a perfectly holy Being, who exists in utter independence of himself, who has the very highest claim upon his obedience. For him life is a constant sense of having upon him a Master's eye; it is a constant reference to what is known or may be inferred about a Master's will.
II. The right and property which God has over all men, as based on creation, is in the case of Christians reinforced by a second right based upon redemption. When all had been lost by abuse of that free will which is man's highest endowment, the infinite mercy stooped from heaven in the person of the Eternal Son to rescue us from misery and from shame, to endow us with the means of grace and with the hope of glory. If it is maintained that the service of God is unworthy of man's dignity, the answer is, first, that God made man, and, secondly, that He has made man to know and to serve Himself. Our human nature, notwithstanding its ancient error, does when cross-questioned point upwards; and experience confirms what reason and observation suggest. Those who have served God, though amidst imperfections and failures, yet do know that this service expands, satisfies, completes, all that is best and strongest in their thoughts and affections; above all, that it corresponds with the facts of their being, that it is based on truth.
H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit,No. 821.
The text sets before us the limits of Christian liberty, the responsibility which lies upon every Christian for the right government of his private individual will, according to what he knows, or ought to know, or might have known, of the will of God.
I. The love of liberty is generally said to be a feeling implanted in the heart of man. It begins to show itself in his earliest years. Even in our childhood we are all apt to show impatience at the control exercised over us by our parents and guardians, and in our strong manhood we chafe under the restraints of law and the commands of our superiors whenever they happen for the moment to cross or impede anything we desire to do. The sense of freedom is itself pleasure.
II. And yet, notwithstanding this hearty love of freedom, which appears so natural to us, the very earliest lesson we have to learn is that we are not free to act as we please even in earthly matters; that our will is not our own, but that of our parents and governors. Even when we are grown up and think we are about to taste the desired fruits of the liberty of manhood, the disagreeable conviction is forced upon us that if we would live happily and creditably here, we must prevent our desires and wills from ranging too widely. It is our highest interest, as it is our bounden duty, to consider in all our actions how far they will be for the general good as well as for our own good.
III. This, then, is the measure of the Christian's liberty in the world. We are free agents within the limits of God's laws, and of human laws also, as deriving their force and value from God's permission. The true Christian is the only man who is free upon earth because he will never desire to do more than God's law permits him, and that, indeed, in glorious liberty. There is no such freedom as serving God.
P. Williams, Oxford and Cambridge Journal,April 24th, 1884.
Freedom and Law.
I. Christ has given to us men, first of all, political or social freedom. He has not, indeed, drawn out a scheme of government and stamped it with His Divine authority as guaranteeing freedom. The New Testament only notices two elements in man's life as a political or social being. One is the existence of some government which it is a duty to obey, be it assembly, president, king, or emperor; the other element is the freedom of the individual Christian under any form of government whatever. The whole social fabric totters to its base when there is a conflict between human law and Divine law enthroned in conscience, when law and the highest liberty are foes. To avoid such a misfortune must be the aim of all wise legislators, to deprecate it the heartfelt prayer of all good citizens.
II. Christ gave men also intellectual freedom. He enfranchised them by the gift of truth. He gave truth in its fulness, truth absolute and final. Until He came the human intellect was enslaved. The religion of Christ gave an immense impulse to human thought. He led men out into the great highways of thought, where, if they would, they might know the universal Father, manifested in His blessed Son, as the Author of all existence, as its object and as its end.
III. Christ has made us morally free. He has broken the chains which fettered the human will, and has restored to it its buoyancy and power. Man was morally free in paradise; he became enslaved in consequence of that act of disobedience which we name the Fall. How was he to be enfranchised? What had been lost was more than regained in Christ. A Christian lives under a system of restrictions and obligations; and yet he is free. Those obligations and restrictions only prescribe for him what his own new, heaven-sent nature would wish to do and to be. They are acceptable to, they are demanded by, the "new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."
H. P. Liddon, Easter Sermons,vol. ii., p. 211.
References: 1 Peter 2:16. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, The Life of Duty,vol. i., p. 227; E. Bickersteth, Church of England Pulpit,vol. iii., p. 221; Preacher's Monthly,vol. vii., p. 295.