John 8:32; John 8:36; 2 Corinthians 3:17
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): Liberty is the birthright of every man—Liberty is the heirloom of all the sons and daughters of Adam. But where do you find liberty unaccompanied by religion? True it is that all men have a right to liberty, but it is equally true that you do not meet it in any country except where you find the Spirit of the Lord. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” I have commenced with this idea because I think worldly men ought to be told that if religion does not save them, yet it has done much for them—that the influence of religion has won them their liberties.
THOMAS COKE (1747-1814): This fact is so very plain and undeniable, that I cannot but think that, were men to consider it fairly, they would soon be convinced how much they are indebted to the revelation of the Gospel.
C. H. SPURGEON: This land is the home of liberty. But why is it so? I take it, it is not so much because of our institutions as because the Spirit of the Lord is here—the spirit of true and hearty religion! There was a time, remember, when England was no more free than any other country, when men could not speak their sentiments freely, when kings were despots, when Parliaments were but a name. Who won our liberties for us? Who has loosed our chains? Under the hand of God, I say the men of religion—men like the great and glorious Oliver Cromwell, who would have liberty of conscience, or die—men who, if they could not reach kings’ hearts because they were unsearchable in cunning, would strike kings low, rather than they would be slaves. We owe our liberty to men of religion—to men of the stern Puritan school—men who scorned to play the coward and yield their principles at the command of man.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): How did the United States of America ever come into being? It would have never come into being were it not for the Protestant Reformation. The Puritan fathers who crossed the Atlantic in the Mayflower were men who were products of the Reformation, and it was the desire not only for religious liberty, but also for democratic liberty, that drove them to face the hazards of crossing the Atlantic at that time and to establish a new life, a new state, and a new system of government in the New World. You cannot explain the story of the United States of America except in terms of the Protestant Reformation.
J. H. MERLE d’AUBIGNÉ (1794-1872): The necessity of liberty for the Gospel, and of the Gospel for liberty, is now acknowledged by all thoughtful men.
C. H. SPURGEON: And if we are ever to maintain our liberty—as God grant we may—it shall be kept by religious liberty—by religion! This Bible is the Magna Charta of old Britain! Its Truths, its Doctrines have snapped our fetters and they never can be riveted on again, while men with God’s Spirit in their hearts, go forth to speak its Truths. In no other land, save where the Bible is unclasped—in no other realm, save where the Gospel is preached—can you find liberty! Roam through other countries, and you speak with bated breath. You are afraid. You feel you are under an iron hand. The sword is above you. You are not free. Why? Because you are under the tyranny engendered by a false religion—you have not free Protestantism there and it is not till Protestantism comes, that there can be freedom! It is where the Spirit of the Lord is that there is liberty and nowhere else.
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): This is the book on which the well-being of nations has always hinged, and with which the best interests of every nation in Christendom at this moment are inseparably bound up. Just in proportion as the Bible is honoured or not, light or darkness, morality or immorality, true religion or superstition, liberty or despotism, good laws or bad, will be found in a land.
JOHN NEWTON (1725-1807): We breathe the air of civil liberty―It cost our forefathers many struggles to bring forward and establish this national blessing; but we have enjoyed it so long, and so quietly, that we seem almost to forget its value, how it was obtained, or how only it can be preserved.
AUGUSTUS TOPLADY (1713-1778): Were liberty to perish from any part of the English speaking world, the whole would soon be deluged by the black sea of arbitrary power.
J. C. RYLE: These verses show us, lastly, the nature of true liberty. Our Lord declares this to the Jews in one comprehensive sentence. He says, “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”—Yet, after all our boasting, there are many so-called free men who are nothing better than slaves. There are many who are totally ignorant of the highest, purest form of liberty. The noblest liberty is that which is the property of the true Christian. Those only are perfectly free people, whom the Son of God “makes free.”
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): The Gospel is a proclamation of liberty…Christ not only proclaims liberty to the captives, but He sets at liberty them that are bruised, Isaiah 61:1. Jesus Christ, as one having authority, as one that has “power on earth to forgive sins,” came to set at liberty.
C. H. SPURGEON: The text speaks of spiritual liberty—and now I address the children of God. Let us now examine, a little more closely, in what our liberty consists. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” from the bondage of sin; and liberty from the penalty of sin. What is it? Eternal death and torment forever—that is the sad penalty of sin. But there is one fact more startling than both of these things—there is liberty from the guilt of sin—the Christian is positively not guilty any longer the moment he believes…Furthermore, the Christian, while delivered from the guilt and punishment of sin, is likewise delivered from the dominion of it. Every living man, before he is converted, is a slave to lust.
CHARLES SIMEON (1759-1836): Many can say, “I was once a slave to sin, and led captive by the devil at his will: but now the Son of God has made me free; and I am free indeed: He has brought my soul out of prison, and set my feet at liberty.”
C. H. SPURGEON: Once more—“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” in all holy acts of love…There is much virtue which is like the juice of the grape—it has to be squeezed before you get it. It is not like the generous drop of the honeycomb, distilling willingly and freely. I am bold to say that if a man is destitute of the Grace of God, his works are only works of slavery, he feels forced to do them. But—to conclude, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” from the fear of death.
THOMAS BROOKS (1608-1680): A Christian knows that death shall be the funeral of all his sins, his sorrows, his afflictions, his temptations, his vexations, his oppressions, his persecutions. He knows that death shall be the resurrection of all his hopes, his joys, his delights, his comforts, his contentments.
C. H. SPURGEON: What is death?
JOHN BUNYAN (1628-1688): Death is but a passage out of a prison into a palace.
