Liberty bound in Charity: A Meditation on 1st Corinthians 8

St. Paul begins this short chapter in the context of eating meat offered to idols.  In the ancient world, it was not uncommon for much of the meat offered as sacrifices to pagan gods, to end up in the public market.  Without any significant means to preserve meat, all those sacrificed animals usually went to feed the priests and servants of the temple, then what was left over was sold.  Because pagan idolatry was the basic religious backdrop of the ancient world, most of the meat sold in the markets was at some point sacrificed to a pagan god.

Rather than telling the Christians in pagan lands that they could not buy and eat meat, he tells them that in reality, these pagan gods are not gods at all.  He knows that any pagan god was at best a ridiculous myth, and at worst a demon, but never could they be gods except to the deluded people who worshipped them.  Since there is only one true God, who makes and sustains all things, such sacrifices were meaningless to the Christian who knows that both food and the one who eats it, are ultimately responsible to the Creator.  The Christian had liberty to eat whatever was available as a gift from God, and to God alone did he give thanks for it.

But, given the pagan world in which they lived, Paul was quick to remind the Corinthian Christians, that appearances do matter.  For example, to the people who actually believed in their idols and worshipped them as gods, the Christian had to be careful that in eating meat sacrificed to idols, he did not give the impression that he worshipped those false gods, too.  The Christian must only and always worship the one true God:  Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  This is made clear in the first commandment, and reinforced by Jesus who declares that He alone is the Way, Truth, and Life—the only way to the Father.  Only the true God has created and sustained all things; only Jesus has suffered and died for the sins of the world; only the Holy Spirit proceeds forth to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify the whole Christian Church on earth.  Therefore, only the Trinity in Unity, and the Unity in Trinity is to be worshipped and adored.  The Christian must never give the impression, or present the false confession, that he is willing to worship or tolerate any other gods along side or before the one true God.

Even as St. Paul teaches the liberty of the Christian, he also teaches that Christian liberty is bound up in charity and compassion for the neighbor.  No Christian is free to exercise his liberty apart from love for his brothers and sisters, because the Law of Love is more fundamental than the Law of Liberty.  We learn this not only from St. Paul, but from the very nature of God Himself:  for He who is ultimately and infinitely free, has bound Himself to human flesh so that He might be the Atonement for all mankind.  It is divine and eternal love that bounds the Creator’s freedom, first within the Godhead between each of the Divine Persons, and secondly binds Him to His people by the Promise of His Gospel.  God shows to us something better than pure, unfettered freedom.  He shows to us a freedom made infinitely more noble when it is infused with and bound by love.  He becomes to us the image we are called to reflect, as Jesus—fully God and fully man—binds His freedom to love in the Cross.

As we survey ourselves and the whole Christian Church on earth, it is clear that we have a preferred fondness for our liberty over love.  Being selfish and sinful creatures, our inclination is to seize what we feel should be our freedom and our rights, usually at the expense of our neighbor’s need or weakness.  We demand the hymns and songs we prefer, over the desires of others; we demand the forms of worship we prefer, over the desires of others; we demand the offices and duties we prefer, over the needs and requirements of others; we demand power and prestige, over the wounded consciences of others.  We build for ourselves shrines to our gifts and talents, while ignoring the neighbors we should be serving through them.  We heap to ourselves titles and offices, forgetting that the Lord has said that the chief amongst His people, will be their servant.  While hymns and worship, offices and titles, forms and functions may all reside within the liberty of the Christian, they are never given unbounded by love.

In such things, St. Paul admonishes us, that even in the matter of something so trivial and meaningless as meat, he would rather not eat meat again so long as the world stood, than by his freedom in eating be a cause for a single brother or sister to stumble.  And why?  Because those brothers and sisters belong to Christ, who was crucified to save them.  To whom do you think you will give an account of how you use your freedom, but to Him who bound His freedom in love to save both you and them?  This is the scandal of Christian freedom run amok—that it uses the saving love of Christ as an excuse to jeopardize the salvation of others.  Unbounded freedom is not what we learn from our Savior.  Rather, it is the old lesson of the devil and his fallen angels, who prefer freedom without love.

To you, and to me, the love of our Savior calls out once again, this time in the words of St. Paul.  Rejoice in the freedom and liberty you have been given from sin, death, and the devil.  Rejoice in the salvation won for you by the precious Blood of Christ.  Rejoice that you are no longer under the Law of sin and death, but raised up to eternal life by grace through faith in Christ alone.  Even so, cast your eyes upon your Savior to learn what true liberty and freedom is:  it is love and compassion for God and man, a mystery of faith which cannot be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  Our Christian freedom is purchased by the death of the Son of God, so that we might be raised up by His Holy Spirit, to walk in newness of life.  Through Jesus we learn to bind our freedom in love, so that our fellowship is with Him—and through Him, with the Holy Trinity, now and forever more.  Amen.