I am wondering these days - do the concepts that have long defined our nation have spiritual significance? Those "first principles" that our founding fathers prescribed, are there Biblical parallels?
The burning question that I really want to get to but am not yet prepared to answer is: Is Capitalism a spiritual tenant?
Perhaps we'll tackle that question another day.
For today let's look at the simple idea of liberty. Many would say that it defines our nation, certainly no other nation has enjoyed its fruits as long as ours. It is the thing that drew the teeming masses to this distant shore.
We find "liberty" in our founding documents:
" ... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ... "
self-evident truths - my brother and I once were in business together in a retail store, the woman from whom we purchased the store would tell us "these are things you just know..." in other words there were things we should have naturally just known about the products we were selling. The truths the founders expound upon in the statement are things that all people "just know" though many throughout the world have numbed themselves to that knowledge, having no hope of ever drinking from the liberty cup.
unalienable rights - these are rights that we cannot be alienated from! They beat in the breast of every man.
endowed by their Creator - God. He is the One Who grants us these rights - rights that cannot be taken away.
among them are...Liberty... - every man and every woman in every nation under heaven has a right to be free! That's an amazing thought! Stop right here and read that last statement again, speaking every word to yourself slowly and deliberately. Why is it that only a few nations have indulged in this wonderful God-given right?
Liberty is a right that all sides (Right, Left and "moderate") seem to be able to agree upon - though we can't seem to agree upon what that right looks like.
Is liberty a spiritual concept?
I think so. In fact, I think that true liberty can only be found in Jesus Christ... "whom the Son sets free is free indeed!"
When Jesus embraced His own Mission Statement in Luke 4 He said that He was to proclaim liberty. Galatians 5 declares that we are "called to liberty"; Romans 8 proclaims the "glorious liberty of the children of God".
No better is the concept of biblical liberty illustrated to me than in the story of the demon-possessed man from Gadara.
I imagine his legend graced the lips of many a story-teller around a dark night and an Autumn camp fire ... adolescent boys probably achieved notoriety among their peers by racing through graveyards where this man was known to frequent.
The man was a literal wild man, he could not be tamed. Oh sure, from time to time some band of townspeople would get aggravated at this threat to their women and decide to do something about it. Perhaps at times they had even enjoyed a level of success: capturing him and chaining him up. But the success was only temporary, for no fetters were made that could hold him!
He wandered about in the mountains and among the tombs, cutting himself with sharp stones and wailing in eery tones.
He was a fixture that terrorized the town.
It has been said that given his way, Satan will always go too far. He will invariably drive his victims straight to the feet of Jesus. That is just what happened with this pitiful soul.
When Jesus arrived at the nearby shore, the demons that controlled this poor man drove him toward these visitors. But I suspect that by the time the demons realized that they were headed straight toward the Means of their destruction, they tried an immediate about-face. However, at that point, some sort of spiritual inertia had occurred: the momentum was just not in their favor; they couldn't get him turned around in time.
The man collapsed at the feet of Jesus.
Jesus brought him liberty that day and when the townspeople came around, they saw a much different figure from the ghost that had formerly haunted their village. He was sitting, all peaceful, clothed and had his right mind.
Here are displayed two forms of liberty:
Some would contend that prior to Jesus' visit, this man was truly free! No chains could hold him, he was not constrained by the social norms of proper attire and manners, he went where he wanted, when he wanted. Everyone yielded a wide berth to him.
After he encountered Jesus his liberty looks different; he was free yet he took on a submissive role to his Liberator. He was quiet, sober, and later when he truly wanted to accompany Jesus, he acquiesced when Jesus said no.
My imagination really kicks in when I get to the next part of the story. Jesus told him to go back to his old friends and to his own house! What kind of bitterness would the family of a man like that, build up over the years. No financial support for his wife... perhaps people often had eyed his children warily - wondering if they, too, would inherit their father's nature.
For the man who had been set free, the easier thing would have been to go somewhere else and make a clean start.
But Jesus wouldn't let him. True liberty often requires that we do the hard thing.
Jesus told him to proclaim to his family and friends what He had done.
And the King James translation paints in my mind, the picture of a noble entrepreneurial journalist (something we know very little about these days) that sets up his own newspaper - when it says he "published throughout the city" the great things Christ had done.
So one type of liberty is what we call "license" - a hedonistic sort of freedom; the other type of liberty requires something of the recipients.
Yes. I think there is a spiritual basis for the liberty that still graces this nation (though I fear it is diminishing fast);
The trouble is, too many people define that liberty incorrectly.
The story of the Demon-possessed Man of the Gadarenes can be found in the Bible: Mark 5 & Luke 8.
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