The Nature of Christian Freedom (Part 1 of 3)

There are some people who dismiss Christianity saying it is overly restrictive. Others claim that Christianity offers total freedom.

So how are we as Christians at liberty to live? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg explores the true nature of Christian freedom as he begins a study in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians chapter 8 and verse 1 reminds us of the fact that Paul has been answering some specific questions that have come to him from these Corinthian believers. They had written to him about some specific practical issues of Christian living. In coming to chapter 8 and verse 1, he now begins to address with them another question that was obviously a matter of great concern, and to it we are introduced in the phrase which leads up to this first colon. Now about food sacrificed to idols.

I called our study this evening The Nature of Christian Freedom. I thought it would look better on the tape and in the tape catalog than food sacrificed to idols. Because after all, I don't think any of us probably have given any attention whatsoever to the whole concept of food sacrificed to idols, certainly not in the last week and maybe not even in the last lifetime. And so when we open here and we turn to chapter 8 and we read the first phrase where our immediate reaction is, well, let's skip that part, because we're not into food that has been sacrificed to idols.

And we're made very aware of the fact that Paul is addressing a context in first century Corinth, and we know ourselves to be living in Cleveland. However, I hope we will discover as we go through the chapter that the wider issue to which we are introduced by means of this phrase is vitally relevant, confronting us as it does with the whole issue of freedom. What am I as a Christian free to do? How does my freedom affect other people?

How is my freedom to be limited by other people? It's a concern in many of our lives, and it is a subject of great confusion. So let me go through this with you as best I can, staying within the orb of the first three verses, by noticing first of all the cultural issue to which we're introduced, then the biblical instruction which we receive, and then finally one or two practical implications which emerge from it.

First of all, then, the cultural issue. Sacrificing to the gods with a small g, was at the very heart of both private and public life at the time that Paul was writing. If any one of us had been living in first century Corinth as believers seeking to follow after Christ, we would have inevitably had non-Christian friends, and being invited to the homes of non-Christian friends for an evening meal, or perhaps to share with them in the joy of the wedding of one of their children, we would expect to be confronted by this whole issue. Part of the meal that we were about to eat would have been burned. Now that may not strike some of us as very surprising, but it is the way in which it was burned.

This is nothing to do with a gentleman who said that the way that his wife calls him for his evening meal is that she sets off the smoke alarm. But the burning here was a token sacrificial burning. So whenever the family took the food that was to be eaten, some of it would be offered up as a token sacrificial offering. Then a portion of it—namely, the left side of the face, the ribcage, and some other bits and pieces—were given to the priests. And once the priests had had their part out of this, which gave the opportunity for priests to eat a great deal and to stash away all kinds of produce, once the priests had been taken care of, then it would have been the residue of that beast or whatever it was that we would be sharing together at the banquet, the feast, or the wedding reception. The question then obviously was, in the minds of the believers, if there has been this sacrificial offering up of this food, should we as Christians eat food that has been so sacrificed?

And that was so endemic in the culture that it was virtually impossible to avoid it. On the public level, the state was going about it in much the same way. They offered up sacrifices, and after the priests, and then in the state's case the magistrates, had received their share of the produce. All of the rest was sold in the marketplaces and into the shops and supermarkets and stores of the day. So much so that when we went along to the kind of local stop and shop in Corinth, we would inevitably look at the produce there and say to ourselves, I wonder if this stuff has been sacrificed to idols. And in the large majority of situations, the answer would be, yes, it certainly has. And so the question would again confront the individual, should we buy this stuff?

Should we participate in this way? Now, that wasn't all. Added to this was the notion that demons were everywhere, and the demons were able to inhabit the lives of men and women. And one of the favorite ways for the demons, so they taught, to inhabit a life was to jump on the food. So not only did you have the problem as to whether the food had been sacrificed to idols, but you had the further question, I wonder if any demons are on it. So you've got this picture of little demons jumping on the chickens and everything all around the thing, and then the people coming along eating chicken and eating little demons.

It's a kind of stupid idea. But that was the notion, and the Christians were confronted by this. So consequently, the people who were offering up the sacrifices to the gods had two important objectives in view. Number one, in offering up the sacrifice, they sought to gain favor with the gods with a small g, and number two, they were attempting decontamination. In other words, recognizing that these demons had jumped all over the food, they figured that if they sacrificed them to the gods and put them up on the altar, then that would make the demons buzz off, and therefore, they could go forward on that basis. They therefore followed that it was virtually impossible to eat meat that was not in some way connected with a heathen god. And that really troubled these people, and understandably so.

What were they going to do? Should they take part in the feasts? Should they eat the meat bought in the shops? That was the specific cultural issue which, if we're able to think around it and beyond it for just a moment, we will begin to discern that that cultural issue reappears with a different face in every generation. And there are issues that confront us as believers this evening that relate to Christian freedom, which we ourselves are saying, can we engage in this? And hopefully, from the specific cultural issue of first-century Corinth, we will be able to discover principles which are still applicable in Cleveland.

So that's the cultural issue. Second, then, let's consider the biblical instruction. I still haven't fully made up my mind whether verses 1b, 2, and 3 are actually a digression or part of the heart of it all.

It's very interesting. He says now about food sacrificed to idols, colon, then he starts to talk about knowledge and about love, and then in verse 4 he goes, so then, about eating food sacrificed to idols. Is this a classic Paulan digression? Well, even if it is, Paul seldom digressed the way most of us who are inferior mortals digress, and that is that it is totally unrelated to anything at all that is in his mind or on his heart.

So I'm unwilling to suggest that this little section that we're now about to consider, which is really the heart of the matter for us tonight, is somehow distanced from this surrounding issue of food being sacrificed to idols. Certainly, he's returning to a subject that we've dealt with before in the earlier chapters. The Corinthians, we know, were consumed with, impressed by, and committed to the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. And he's had to tell them earlier on that the wisdom of the world is inferior to the wisdom of God, that he didn't come to speak in the powerful wisdom and knowledge gnosis of man, but rather he came to declare the muse of Jesus Christ, which in the minds of men and women was absolute foolishness. Paul, of all people, is certainly not about to denigrate the place of knowledge. We could take time and go through his Pauline epistles and notice how many times and in how many places he talks about how important it is for these people to come to a knowledge of the truth and to grow in their knowledge. You find that in Romans 15, Colossians 1, 2 Corinthians 6, Romans 1, Romans 11, and all over the place.

Because Paul knew that love which was devoid of knowledge so quickly becomes a kind of mushy sentimentality. It becomes a gooey thing. It becomes like a body that doesn't have a skeletal structure.

It just eventually is a pile of flesh and blubber and just a kind of ugly thing. And Paul, of all people, understood that. If you have just love that is not framed by biblical knowledge, you probably end up with sentimentality. But he was also aware, and indeed this is his point at this section, that a knowledge which lacks love so easily and quickly degenerates into a kind of Pharisaical arrogance. And it would appear from the context that what had immediately happened here was that both views had polarized, and both claimed to be the bright group. The group that said, Of course you can eat, said, After all, don't you know? I mean, we know.

The group that said, You can't eat, said, You can't eat, and you should know why you can't eat. And so, on the basis of their various gnosis or segments of knowledge, they had got into this difficult diatribe with one another. And Paul, in seeking to correct that, points out a vital principle which is timeless. Now whether he is quoting what they've said or merely stating the obvious—namely, in the second half of verse 1, We know that we all possess knowledge—he's making a clear distinction here between what knowledge achieves and what love is capable of. That's the distinction that is before us in these verses. That's the antithesis that he sets up.

That's the contrast. He says, We know that we all possess knowledge. He may be feeding back to them their own line, because although Gnosticism didn't really get its full embellishment until the second century, there was a kind of pre-Gnostic notion which pervaded the church of the day. And all this idea of secret knowledge and being initiated into knowledge and having knowledge that others didn't have was very, very important to these people. And so they probably had this kind of little phraseology which said, We know that we all possess knowledge.

I mean, we don't want to leave anybody out. So Paul may well be saying, Well, we know that you know that we all possess knowledge. Let me tell you, he says, about knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Now, this is actually a tremendous generic statement. It is as true tonight as it was then. These individuals were mature in their knowledge, and they were infantile in their love.

J. B. Phillips as so often helpfully paraphrases the statement and captures the essence of it by saying, We should remember that while knowledge may make a man look big, it is only love that can make him grow to his full stature. That while knowledge can make you look like a big guy, it is only love which enables us to grow to our full stature of maturity in Christ. And indeed, I believe that Paul is here offering a kind of gentle rebuke to those who prize knowledge too highly. So knowledge can give you a fat head, but love can build your spiritual muscle. Then into the second verse, he points out the limits of knowledge. He points out that our knowledge here on earth is at best limited.

The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. Does that make you think of the verse in 1 Corinthians 13? For now we see through a glass darkly.

It says in the King James Version, I think, in the NIV, it's 1 Corinthians 13, 12. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part. Then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And Paul is sensitive enough to his own spiritual pilgrim, Mitch, and aware of the context to which he addresses himself to point out that even the people who think they know the most need to realize that even at the apex of their knowledge, they're not really that smart. And the contrast that he sets up is not a contrast, as we've said, between knowledge and ignorance—because ignorance is a big handicap—but the contrast is between knowledge and love. It is love which has permanent effect.

It's hard for us to realize, isn't it? And yet when we think about our schoolteachers—maybe this helps—think about any of our teachers, and it's a great challenge to those of us who teach, and an illustration of why James says, I don't think many of you ought to become teachers, because if you teach you'll be judged with greater strictness. But if you think about the teachers that most impacted your life, they probably weren't necessarily the ones who were the most erudite in their knowledge, or if they were, their knowledge was tempered by love. I mean, if you didn't know the periodic table of the elements, they didn't make you feel like an idiot.

They helped you to understand why it was important and how you could benefit from it. Or if you didn't like Shakespeare's sonnets, they sat down beside you at the desk and they said, you know, there's got to be some line in here that you like. But those who simply stood before us to, as it were, get the knowledge from their bobbin off their bobbin got it largely onto the floor.

They certainly never seemed to engage ours. And the engaging factor, when we think it through, is often not the communication of the knowledge itself, but the love which pervades the communication. So no matter what a man thinks he knows, he does not yet know as he ought to know. Now, you've got to understand that we mustn't divorce this here.

Remember what he's talking about. He's talking about the nature of Christian freedom, things that were a deep concern to these people. This is not some little discussion and superficial discussion about knowledge. This was threatening to have a radical effect in people's hearts, lives, homes, and church family. And the whole issue of Christian freedom was then a great divisive force.

And loved ones, the issue of Christian freedom is in many churches still tonight an incredibly divisive issue. And it is often those who believe they've got it down, they know it all, that are the most divisive in their influence upon people. And so Paul says, the man, verse 3, the man who loves God, he's the one that God knows. So that the knowledge that is the real knowledge that produces love in life is the knowledge which is interrelated with the fact that God knows me.

And what he's doing is he's underlining a truth which pervades all of Scripture, namely this. The really important thing is not that we know all the right stuff, but that God knows us. Because even when we know all that we could possibly know for all of our lives, that still is no great mystery. The great mystery is that God knows us, that he would pick us out in a crowd, that he could meet us at the Super Bowl and call us by name, that he could identify us. And so he says the person who is understanding this kind of knowledge knows that this knowledge which produces itself in love is founded in the fact that the Lord knows them that are his.

That's 2 Timothy 2.19. The knowledge that really counts is not mere knowledge, however extensive and correct, but the kind of knowledge that is united with and permeated by love to God. That's why I think in Deuteronomy 6, and we quote it so many times in our baby dedications in the morning, God was careful to say to his people, these things, Deuteronomy 6, are to be upon your hearts, and you are to teach them to your children. Now, I've said this to you many times, but I find it a great challenge. The issue is not that these things are to be in your heads and you teach them to your children, because we may be able to rattle knowledge into our children.

We may be able to stamp them out to some degree in terms of our limited ability to constrain their tiny lives as they grow. We may be able to give them all the right knowledge. But that's not ultimately the issue, because the kind of knowledge that God looks for, the kind of knowledge that the church requires, the kind of knowledge that will allow us to deal with difficult, divisive issues is a knowledge, I say it again, that is united to and permeated by our love to, for God. Now, again, I say to you, remember that the wider context, digression or not, is that of making important decisions that will have an amazing impact upon our brothers and sisters in Christ. So our conduct in relation to Christian freedom specifically must not then be guided by the thought of our own superior knowledge but by the kind of sympathetic, considerate love for our fellow man which is directly related to being known of God.

That's tough, isn't it? Especially for those of us who think we know. Especially for those of us who think we know more than what other people know. Because knowledge is power, after all. Knowledge is influence. Knowledge provides the basis of intimidation. Knowledge can coerce people into a lifestyle they don't even believe in. But love won't do that. And that's why the antithesis, again, is not between knowledge and ignorance but between knowledge and love.

It's an interesting juxtaposition. Only somebody led by the Spirit of God and as smart as the apostle Paul would have been able to come up with this kind of thing and state it so succinctly. Turn with me into 1 John, just for a moment, because I think this seals it in our minds.

This intermingling of our love for God and what it means in terms of knowledge and love and decision-making for our fellow man. 1 John 4 and verse 19. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God, yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command, whoever loves God must also love his brother. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and everyone who loves the Father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God, by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God. To obey his commands and his commands are not burdensome.

And so the argument continues. It is love, says Paul, which is the key to our behavior, not knowledge. And it is love which sets the limits of our liberty, not knowledge. Because he says, knowledge puffs up, blows you up.

It is love that builds up. And since the responsibility of the Christian is to be built up in their faith, then we want that which builds us up. If you're listening to Truth for Life, that is Alistair Begg with a message titled The Nature of Christian Freedom.

Alistair will have more on this subject tomorrow. If you have listened to Truth for Life for any length of time, you know one of the things we love to do is to offer free or at-cost resources to our listeners. And we have been offering here in the month of September a free e-book. If you have not yet requested your copy of Alistair's book, The Christian Manifesto as a free e-book, today is the last day you can download it. This book takes a close-up look at the radical instructions Jesus gave in his most well-known sermon where he talked about forgiveness, our possessions, obedience, and a whole lot more. In this book, Alistair provides us with a deeper understanding of how the counter-cultural values Jesus described in this sermon are still relevant today. And you'll see how real joy comes when we embrace the values of God's Kingdom. And if your Bible study group is looking for a foundational topic to study, this book might just be the answer.

It comes with a corresponding study guide that takes you through each of the eight sections. Your group will learn the counterintuitive lessons Jesus taught about a life of blessedness. Download your copy of The Christian Manifesto e-book and study guide.

Again, they are free today. Go to truthforlife.org slash manifesto. Today is also the last day we're featuring the book Future Proof. This is a book that Alistair describes as profoundly helpful. The author looks at the dramatic cultural changes we've experienced in the past few decades, and then talks about what happens when a society abandons biblical beliefs. Future Proof explores the answer to the question, how can churches survive in the midst of this cultural confusion? Ask for your copy of the book Future Proof today when you give a donation online at truthforlife.org slash donate. I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for listening. Since as Christians were given freedom, why would we constrain ourselves? We'll explore the answer to that question tomorrow as we consider two common extremes that need to be avoided. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.