Howard C. Wilkinson - "The Christian Is Free" (May 17, 1964)

Download
- Rights
- Limited Re-Use
  Educational Use Permitted
  More Rights Info
- Files (1)
- MP3
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
Share

Embed Code
<iframe src='//idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4h70d23f?embed=true' height='125px' width='100%' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0' scrolling='no' allowfullscreen></iframe>
Permalink

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4h70d23f
Skip to Item Info

Loading the media player...

Files for this Item

Transcript

Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.

-	Who are in sickness.	0:06
	Those who are distraught by...	0:09
	I would like today to preach on one of the great doctrines	0:24
	of the Christian Church,	0:27
	the doctrine of Christian freedom.	0:29
	The Christian is totally free from the law.	0:34
	It has no essential barring or whatever	0:41
	upon his actions from day to day.	0:46
	The true Christian does not need to pay any attention	0:50
	to the command against stealing.	0:54
	The commandment against murder	0:57
	is irrelevant to the life of a Christian.	1:00
	He need not be governed in any respect	1:04
	by the laws against drinking and drunkenness,	1:07
	against fornication and adultery	1:11
	or against cheating on examinations.	1:14
	The Christian is free from all of these laws,	1:19
	absolutely and permanently.	1:22
	Totally.	1:25
	Christians do not have to remember the Sabbath day	1:28
	to keep it holy.	1:31
	In fact, Christians have not kept the Sabbath day	1:33
	for 1900 years.	1:36
	They have utterly discarded the observance	1:41
	of the Sabbath day.	1:43
	The Christian does not govern his speech	1:46
	by the law which prohibits bearing false witness	1:49
	against one's neighbor.	1:52
	Well, we could go on and on to make reference to other laws	1:56
	which God revealed in the Old Testament	1:59
	and it would be the same with all of them.	2:02
	Now in the congregation,	2:07
	the size of the one that we have here today,	2:08
	it's almost certain that there will be some people	2:11
	who will find a statement like this to be a shocking word,	2:15
	but it is not spoken with the intent to shock.	2:20
	On the other hand, what I have said is the truth	2:25
	and there is need to speak it in the Christian Church.	2:28
	I recall a few years ago when I was pastor in Shelby,	2:33
	a Sunday school teacher brought me a handbook	2:37
	which had been given to him	2:40
	by a representative of a fundamentalist group	2:41
	which was seeking his aid	2:44
	in their efforts to organize the high school students.	2:45
	One section of the handbook	2:49
	dealt with suggested gimmicks	2:51
	to capture the attention of a group	2:54
	to which one would be speaking.	2:57
	Here's one suggestion which the author advanced.	2:59
	When you first get up to speak, begin by saying,	3:03
	"There is no God."	3:06
	And pause for a long moment.	3:10
	Let this soak in.	3:12
	Then announce,	3:14
	it says so in the Bible.	3:16
	Next, you open your Bible and read Psalm 14:1.	3:19
	Quote.	3:23
	The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.	3:24
	Unquote.	3:29
	In other words,	3:31
	the suggestion was made	3:32
	that the speaker should get the attention	3:33
	of his congregation	3:35
	by making some kind of shocking statement at the beginning	3:37
	which he would later rescind.	3:40
	But what I have said at the beginning of this sermon,	3:43
	whether it's shocked too or not,	3:45
	I do not expect to rescind,	3:47
	for it is the gospel truth.	3:49
	The Christian is totally free from the law.	3:52
	Well, if Christians are so free is all this,	3:58
	it is fair to ask how we got this freedom.	4:02
	And to answer then,	4:07
	it is necessary that we begin with the disclosure	4:08
	of his own nature and will by almighty God.	4:12
	He has, from the very beginning, revealed to us	4:18
	that his character is holy and righteous.	4:22
	He has shown himself to be a God	4:27
	who not only is the source of beauty,	4:30
	truth, justice, and purity,	4:32
	but who expects us humans	4:37
	to exemplify these virtues in our own lives.	4:39
	God has made us in his image,	4:44
	has given us free wills,	4:47
	has set before us good and evil	4:50
	and has called upon us to choose the good.	4:55
	He has promised us his favor and his acceptance	4:59
	if we choose the good	5:03
	and he has warned us of his disfavor and judgment	5:06
	if we choose the evil.	5:11
	In the Book of Deuteronomy,	5:14
	God is quoted as follows:	5:15
	The commandment which I command thee this day,	5:18
	it is not too hard for thee	5:21
	neither is it far off.	5:24
	I have set before thee this day life and good	5:26
	and death and evil.	5:31
	And that I command thee to love Jehovah, thy God,	5:34
	to walk in his ways and to keep his commandments.	5:37
	But if thy heart turn away,	5:42
	you shall surely perish.	5:45
	I have set before thee life and death,	5:49
	therefore, choose life.	5:54
	However, the plain fact of the matter is	5:59
	that instead of choosing life,	6:03
	by and large, we have managed to choose evil and not good.	6:06
	And when we have chosen the good,	6:11
	we often did it for the wrong reasons.	6:13
	Now this has been the case not merely with some of us,	6:16
	not merely with most of us,	6:20
	but with all of us.	6:23
	As the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans,	6:26
	there is none righteous.	6:28
	No, not one.	6:30
	There is none that seek us after God.	6:33
	There is none that do it good.	6:37
	No, not one.	6:40
	All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.	6:42
	Therefore, the entire human race you see	6:50
	came under the promised judgment of a holy God	6:52
	and being under judgment	6:57
	were found to be guilty and unworthy,	6:58
	unfit for the presence of God	7:02
	and unacceptable in the kingdom of God.	7:04
	Paul then continued in his letter to the Romans saying	7:08
	therefore, by the deeds of the law,	7:11
	there shall no flesh be justified in his sight.	7:13
	And so, beloved,	7:19
	you see, try as we may to change the record	7:21
	to even the scales,	7:27
	to get out of the red ink of God's moral ledger	7:29
	into the black,	7:32
	we still find ourselves in a hopeless condition.	7:35
	Paul wrote,	7:41
	so, this is my experience of the law.	7:41
	I want to do what is right,	7:44
	but wrong is all I can manage.	7:46
	Now, if we try to write the record	7:51
	in the most complimentary way and the best possible way	7:54
	to make ourselves look in the best possible light,	7:58
	we still come to the end of the chapter	8:02
	with mankind and an utterly lost condition.	8:05
	However,	8:11
	God finding us in this state was not content	8:14
	for the end of the chapter to be the end of the book.	8:17
	And so, he wrote another chapter, called The Gospel.	8:22
	The Good News.	8:25
	And in this chapter,	8:28
	he passed beyond the law to love	8:29
	without disqualifying the law,	8:33
	he passed from judgment to grace	8:36
	without nullifying his righteous judgment,	8:39
	he passed on from the certainty of rejection	8:42
	to the possibility of acceptance	8:45
	without compromising either the sharpness	8:48
	or the necessity	8:51
	of the original rejection.	8:53
	In the Gospel,	8:57
	God provided a means, whereby those under condemnation,	8:58
	could come under a grace and forgiveness.	9:02
	All who do not accept the gospel	9:07
	remain under law and judgment.	9:09
	Now, at this point in our story,	9:15
	it becomes necessary for us to turn our attention	9:19
	to a figure in history called Jesus of Nazareth.	9:21
	Upon whom,	9:26
	the entire matter hinges.	9:28
	The words of his mouth,	9:32
	the actions of his earthly life	9:35
	his brutal death and his surprising resurrection,	9:38
	these all together make up this gospel	9:43
	in which the Christian believer can make the transition	9:46
	from rejection to acceptance	9:50
	and from bondage to freedom.	9:52
	First then by the words of his mouth,	9:57
	Jesus taught the nature of reality	9:59
	as God understands reality.	10:03
	He declared many things to be patently false,	10:06
	which a great many well-educated people today	10:10
	believe to be true.	10:13
	He described what is a permanent value,	10:15
	what is of temporary or passing value	10:18
	in this world.	10:22
	He taught how life will work and how it will not work.	10:24
	He separated the acceptable motives	10:28
	from the unacceptable ones.	10:30
	He drew a sketch of the likeness of God	10:33
	and christened him our heavenly father.	10:36
	He identified himself	10:39
	as the heavenly son of the heavenly father.	10:40
	So, the life and teaching of Jesus	10:44
	form the first peg on which the gospel hangs.	10:48
	The second is his undeserved death	10:54
	which came in the form of an official execution	10:58
	at the hands of the local government	11:00
	and at the insistence of the local religious leaders.	11:02
	The death of Jesus occurred on a cross.	11:06
	And that wouldn't instrument is the name	11:09
	which Christian faith gives to a major doctrine,	11:12
	because the event which took place on it	11:16
	is so very crucial to the entire matter	11:20
	of our release from the bondage of sin and guilt.	11:23
	On the cross,	11:28
	we witness a painful dramatization of the price	11:29
	of our release,	11:33
	but we witness very much more than mere drama.	11:36
	We witness the act itself.	11:40
	Minute ago, I said that,	11:46
	in the Gospel,	11:48
	God passed on from judgment to grace	11:48
	without nullifying his righteous judgment.	11:50
	Well, on the cross, we do not see a denial of the warning	11:57
	that the wages of sin is death,	12:00
	indeed we see a confirmation of that warning.	12:03
	But we also begin to see meaning in Isaiah's words.	12:08
	He was wounded for our transgressions.	12:12
	He was bruised for our iniquities.	12:16
	The chastisement of our peace was upon him.	12:20
	And with his stripes, we are healed.	12:24
	A loving God in human form	12:30
	is both, sinlessly able and divinely willing	12:34
	to pay the price of reconciling God to us	12:39
	as the second article of religion puts it.	12:43
	And all of this	12:47
	without relaxing the demands	12:49
	of righteousness on the one hand	12:51
	or frustrating the love of the father	12:53
	for the repentant prodigal on the other hand.	12:55
	Now the third peg on which the gospel hangs,	13:00
	is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead to new life.	13:04
	This was a demonstration of the power of God	13:10
	to overcome the results of sin.	13:14
	And it was a clear vindication of the life of Jesus,	13:17
	of the teaching of Jesus	13:21
	and the loving death of Jesus	13:24
	by the source of all power in the universe.	13:26
	It was therefore a cosmic vindication	13:30
	of the first two pegs on which the gospel hangs.	13:34
	Well, here then,	13:40
	is how it is that God provides	13:42
	that all of us who came under condemnation,	13:45
	can come under grace and forgiveness.	13:47
	The country and from person to person.	14:00
	Each hearer is enabled to see	14:04
	that by identifying himself with Christ,	14:08
	he can be set free from the law	14:13
	and live under grace.	14:16
	Turning back then to these three pegs.	14:22
	First.	14:24
	When through faith,	14:26
	the hearer and the believer	14:28
	accepts the teaching of Jesus	14:30
	and approves the deeds and attitudes of Jesus,	14:33
	he identifies himself with the nature of reality	14:37
	as God revealed it in the life and teaching of Jesus.	14:40
	And as the believer saturates his mind	14:45
	with the Sermon on the Mount,	14:48
	the other teachings of Christ and records of his actions,	14:49
	more especially the spirit of all these,	14:53
	he enlarges his understanding	14:57
	of the nature of Christian freedom.	14:59
	And then secondly,	15:04
	when the believer identifies himself	15:06
	with the death of Christ,	15:08
	he confesses that his sins	15:11
	were among those which nailed Christ to the cross.	15:14
	He admits that his sins are an abominable curse	15:19
	and a fatal disease	15:23
	and he recognizes his own inability to cure the disease.	15:26
	He recognizes that his cause is lost,	15:31
	so far as his own ability to save it as concerned.	15:34
	And he throws himself upon the mercy of Jesus Christ,	15:39
	whose mercy was everlastingly offered	15:44
	and universally offered on the cross.	15:48
	Christian faith sees	15:52
	that when our Lord met the repentant gaze of a dying robber	15:53
	and said to him,	15:57
	"Today, shalt thou be with me in paradise,"	15:58
	he was offering the same acceptance to all	16:03
	who are ready to die to sin.	16:07
	Who are ready to die to sin.	16:13
	Third, when the believer identifies himself	16:18
	with the resurrection of Christ from the death,	16:20
	he enters into a new life of grace	16:24
	and love and freedom.	16:27
	No longer is he a slave to sin.	16:31
	No longer is he condemned because of guilt.	16:35
	No longer is he under the law.	16:38
	For Christ who fulfills the law,	16:41
	beckons him to a new life of responding in gratitude	16:45
	to the love which God has shown on the cross.	16:49
	He thus becomes a witness to that act of love	16:54
	and enters a life of obedience	16:57
	under the beckoning of the spirit	16:59
	rather than under the lash of the law.	17:01
	Here's what Paul wrote to the Romans about it.	17:06
	God proves his love for us in this,	17:10
	that Christ died for us	17:13
	when we were still sinners.	17:16
	Thus, there is no doom now for those	17:19
	who are in Christ Jesus.	17:21
	The law of the spirit brings the life	17:24
	which is in Christ Jesus	17:27
	and that law has set me free	17:29
	from the law of sin and death.	17:32
	Now, we have a righteousness disclosed	17:35
	apart from the law altogether.	17:38
	It is a righteousness of God	17:40
	which comes by believing in Jesus Christ.	17:42
	The crucified body of Christ, he goes on,	17:47
	made you dead to the law,	17:50
	so that you might belong to another,	17:52
	to him who was raised from the dead	17:55
	that we might be fruitful to God	17:58
	for when we were unspiritual,	18:01
	the sinful cravings excited by the law	18:03
	were active in our members and made us fruitful to death.	18:06
	But now, we are done with the law.	18:10
	Done with the law.	18:13
	We have died to what once held us	18:16
	so that we can serve in a new way.	18:19
	Not under the written code as a vote,	18:22
	but in the spirit.	18:26
	Now, this is indeed a wonderful gospel. Isn't it?	18:30
	It's the greatest news the world has ever had.	18:34
	It brings joy to our hearts	18:37
	and it puts a ray of hope in our eyes.	18:40
	Charles Wesley was so inspired by it	18:45
	that he wrote to him over a thousand tongues	18:46
	to sing My Great Redeemer's Praise.	18:49
	He breaks the power of canceled sin,	18:52
	he sets the prisoner free.	18:55
	And yet,	18:59
	and yet,	19:01
	this is a doctrine which is as dangerous	19:04
	as it is wonderful.	19:07
	It certainly is not foolproof.	19:09
	The apostle Paul,	19:14
	who first articulated this doctrine and its fullness,	19:15
	recognized that even during his lifetime,	19:19
	there were those who sought to pervert it.	19:21
	Some wanted to hang the gospel	19:24
	on only two of the three pegs.	19:26
	Some would leave off the first peg.	19:31
	Some would procrastinate about the third.	19:34
	They would believe what Jesus said	19:38
	about the nature of reality.	19:40
	Yes. And they were so glad that Jesus died for their sins,	19:41
	but as for being raised to new life.	19:44
	Well, perhaps we'd better wait about that until heaven.	19:48
	Not now.	19:52
	A few years ago,	19:55
	I was talking with a young man who was an ordained minister.	19:56
	It became clear to me during our conversation	20:00
	that he had previously lied to me,	20:03
	and that he was even then lying to me.	20:06
	I called this to his attention	20:10
	and expressed some concern about it.	20:12
	And his serious and somewhat angry reply to me	20:15
	was that we Christians are not under the law anymore	20:18
	and are therefore, not bound to tell the truth	20:21
	on all occasions	20:23
	or to obey any other moral law.	20:25
	And he said that my concern	20:28
	that he should tell the truth only proved	20:30
	that I was moralistic and paratistic,	20:31
	which is supposed to be	20:35
	some kind of a club	20:37
	that you can hit someone over the head with.	20:38
	He said that it only proved	20:41
	I did not understand the freedom	20:42
	which we have under Christian grace.	20:44
	He may be right.	20:48
	But I believe that he was distorting the gospel	20:50
	rather than representing it.	20:53
	Listen to what Paul wrote	20:57
	to those who were distorting it in his day	20:58
	and then decide for yourself.	21:01
	This is a part of the same section of Romans.	21:03
	I read from the sixth chapter.	21:08
	Now, what are we to infer from this	21:12
	that we are to remain on in sin	21:14
	so that there may be all the more grace.	21:16
	Never.	21:20
	Exclamation point.	21:21
	How can we live in sin any longer when we died to sin?	21:23
	Surely, you know that all of us	21:31
	who have been baptized into Christ Jesus,	21:32
	have been baptized into his death.	21:35
	Our baptism into his death made us share his burial,	21:38
	so that as Christ was raised from the dead	21:42
	by the glory of the father,	21:45
	we too might live and move in a new sphere of life.	21:46
	For if we have grown into him	21:52
	by a death like his,	21:54
	we shall grow into him by a resurrection like his.	21:56
	Knowing as we do that our old self	22:01
	has been crucified with him	22:04
	in order to crush the sinful body	22:07
	and free us from any further slavery to sin.	22:10
	We believe that as we have died with Christ,	22:16
	we shall also live with him.	22:19
	The death he died was for sin, once for all,	22:22
	but the life he lives is for God.	22:27
	So, you must consider yourselves dead to sin	22:30
	and alive to God	22:36
	in Christ Jesus, our Lord.	22:38
	Sin is not to rain then in your mortal bodies.	22:41
	You must dedicate yourselves to God	22:46
	as men who have been brought from death to life.	22:49
	Sin must have no hold over you,	22:54
	for you live under grace, not under law.	22:57
	What follows then?	23:01
	Are we to sin, because we live under grace, not under law?	23:03
	Never.	23:07
	Exclamation point again.	23:09
	Do you not know	23:11
	that you are the servants of the master you obey?	23:13
	Thus ends the reading of that section.	23:21
	Now brothers and sisters,	23:25
	to avoid this distortion of the idea of Christian freedom,	23:26
	we need to understand the importance of what Christ meant	23:31
	when he said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law.	23:36
	I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill."	23:42
	He reminded us first of the 10 commandments	23:47
	taking them off one at a time,	23:50
	which by the way, are chiefly negative prohibitions	23:53
	against such acts as murder and lying	23:56
	and theft and adultery and all the rest.	23:58
	And then he taught a new and better way.	24:01
	The follower of Christ will avoid these gross sins	24:06
	not by smarting under the lash of some kind of legalism,	24:11
	but by a new spirit.	24:16
	A spirit of life.	24:19
	He thus fulfills the law by going far beyond it.	24:21
	Christian does not commit murder, of course.	24:26
	Why?	24:30
	He avoids this act because he loves his neighbor.	24:31
	If you love someone,	24:35
	you certainly are not going to murder them.	24:36
	A person who loves his neighbor	24:40
	has no need for a law against murder.	24:42
	This is irrelevant.	24:45
	Such a law is meaningless to such a person.	24:47
	The Christian does not commit adultery. Of course.	24:53
	Why?	24:57
	Not because he has read the 10 commandments.	24:59
	It is rather because a Christian is not a lustful person.	25:02
	He does not selfishly use the body of another	25:07
	for his own physical satisfaction.	25:11
	He understands what God's will and intentions are for sex	25:15
	and he desires to be caught up in that divine intent.	25:19
	He chooses love rather than lust.	25:23
	He chooses life rather than spiritual death.	25:26
	Well, you see the Christian	25:32
	who has identified himself with Christ is free from the law	25:33
	and he lives and serves in total freedom,	25:37
	both, from the law and from the condemnation	25:41
	which life under the law inevitably brings.	25:44
	He decides every question in complete freedom	25:48
	and what he does, he does in freedom.	25:51
	He acts in response to what God has already done,	25:54
	to God's acts.	25:57
	He lives a life of gratitude	26:01
	for what God has done in Jesus Christ.	26:03
	He seeks to follow the leadership of the holy spirit	26:07
	dynamically, creatively, responsively.	26:10
	And you see, until we realize that the law,	26:16
	whether the civil law or the 10 commandments,	26:20
	has nothing at all to do with the behavior	26:23
	of the true Christian.	26:27
	We do not even understand Christianity.	26:29
	Much less, appropriated.	26:33
	Well, of course, it's true	26:37
	that the state has to have civil laws	26:39
	to govern the population,	26:41
	made up as it is of all types of people	26:43
	and the Christian has a certain responsibility to the state.	26:46
	It is also true that the moral law	26:50
	has a certain continuing value in the world.	26:54
	It informs the sinner that he is a sinner and why.	26:57
	And it shows him his inability	27:01
	to make himself respectable in the sight of God,	27:03
	and therefore, leads him to understand his need of grace	27:06
	through and in Jesus Christ.	27:10
	But,	27:13
	because the law teaches us these things,	27:15
	it has been called the school master	27:20
	to bring us to Christ.	27:23
	And having been brought by the school master to Christ,	27:26
	the Christian lives a new life in Christ	27:31
	and no longer is bound by any legalism	27:35
	of school master.	27:38
	He lives and acts under grace.	27:40
	If so be,	27:44
	if so be,	27:46
	that he has indeed identified himself	27:48
	with his Lord	27:51
	by identifying himself with the teachings and life of Jesus,	27:54
	by identifying himself in guilt and faith and forgiveness	27:58
	with the death of Christ,	28:03
	and by identifying himself	28:05
	with the new life of Christ in his resurrection.	28:08
	Oh God,	28:21
	we now accept Jesus Christ.	28:23
	We identify ourselves with him.	28:27
	We believe his teaching.	28:30
	We die to sin in Christ.	28:34
	And we pray for grace to be raised to a new life	28:37
	following the lead of the holy spirit.	28:41
	And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ	28:44
	be with you all.	28:48

Item Info

Title:

Howard C. Wilkinson - "The Christian Is Free" (May 17, 1964)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4h70d23f

Date:

May 17, 1964

Speaker:

Wilkinson, Howard C.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0266
ref5737_tbo
uachapelsermaud
duke:628507
dcrau002269
ark:/87924/r4h70d23f
cfb6f232-36a5-493b-b490-2d125e10f42a

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Related Resources:

See below

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

Educational Use Permitted

Rights Note:

This material is made available for educational and non-commercial use. This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the license indicated here. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For other reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

Sponsor:

Sponsor this Digital Collection

Howard C. Wilkinson - "The Christian Is Free" (May 17, 1964)

Transcript

Item Info

1. Howard C. Wilkinson - "The Christian is Free" (May 17, 1964)

Duke University Archives

More Info & Options

Howard C. Wilkinson - "The Christian Is Free" (May 17, 1964)

Transcript

Item Info

Related Item

Duke University Archives

More Info & Options