I don't turn over my blog very often to guest editorialists, but I thought this one was exceptional.

Randall Price is a longtime friend, a committed believer, and a reliable scholar (that is, if he says something is true, you can write it down and take it to the bank). Before he moved to Lynchburg to work at LU, he was a neighbor of ours down here in south central Texas.

I hope each of us will read these words and take them to heart on this Independence Day 2011.

God bless you!

Gary Hedrick

Some Thoughts on our Independence Day

Randall Price

“… where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty” (2 Cor. 3:17).

I see these words often because they are the motto of my school, Liberty University. As our students wear them on t-shirts and backpacks they remind one another that our liberties are grounded in the godly values that come from the Bible. The Bible was the basis upon which our founding fathers established this great nation and because of such a foundation a Christian university such as ours can exist to continue teaching these godly values that proclaim liberty throughout the land.

However, despite the fact that we have come to interpret “liberty” in light of the freedom we enjoy in the United States, we must remember that at any time in history the majority of peoples and nations have not known the kind of national independence we celebrate today. This was especially true for the People of Israel whose story is at the center of our scriptures. Only in brief moments of their history were they independent as a nation. For the rest of the time they were subject to a dominant resident culture (the Canaanites), hegemony or foreign rule from other nations (Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome).

Because of such conditions, the “liberty” spoken of in the Bible should not be understood exclusively as national or political, but as spiritual. This is the kind of liberty that gives men the courage to serve God and not man, even when man’s laws rule, and to remain inwardly free even though such resistance may result in their being outwardly bound. Yet, it is also the kind of liberty that compelled men to do battle to retain their right to live by God’s laws. When God freed the Jewish People from Babylon and returned them to Jerusalem, the newly reformed nation did not enjoy freedom from their enemies, but had to defend their right to live as God’s Chosen People in a Chosen Land. Therefore, we hear the statesman Nehemiah declare: “Do not be afraid of them; remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your houses” (Neh. 4:14).

Our homeland on this celebration of our national liberty also faces many enemies within that attack the biblical values we have historically enjoyed with respect to family and finance. Families must fight to preserve the very definition of marriage and family with the adoption by states of laws that allow for same-sex marriage. Those who have long practiced the principle of giving to churches, charities and to individuals in need, must fight against economic decisions by our government that have reduced our dollar. And we must not forget that we are waging a War on Terrorism, and even though our troops are on foreign battlefields, we must fight at home to support them and forces that would undermine their success. The terrorism we oppose is rooted in a religion that seeks to supplant the biblical values of our nation with Islamic Sharia law. The triumph of these laws at any level in our nation would result in the loss of the liberties that we have known. Moreover, to follow laws against the God of the Bible would be to subject our people to national sin. For this reason we must remember wise King Solomon’s admonition: “Righteousness exalts a nation, But sin is a disgrace to any people” (Prov. 14:34).

The way forward in this warfare, which is at the core spiritual, is to individually live free and live righteously so that together we might raise our national consciousness and conduct and restore our land in true liberty. As the Psalmist instructed, “I will walk at liberty, For I seek Thy precepts” (Ps. 119:45). In like manner the leader of the first Christian church in Jerusalem wrote: “So speak and so act, as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty” (Jas. 2:12). On Judgment Day the standard against which we measured will not be political correctness, but how our liberties were lived according to God’s law of liberty, which, of course, required His Spirit, as our opening passage established (2 Cor. 3:17). Only those who know (and are known by) the LORD have His Spirit, as the Apostle Paul reminds: “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). And, as the Scripture says, “you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26). Jesus during His life on earth was under the yoke of Roman imperial power, yet He was the freest of all men. Even when this authority nailed him to a cross He stated, “No one takes my life from Me, I lay it down on My own initiative …” (Jn. 10:18). Jesus laid down His life freely, but He did it for others: “I lay down My life for the sheep” (Jn. 10:15). Jesus Christ died for us sinners that we might trust in Him and find freedom from the penalty of our sins in Him and freedom from the power of sin through His Spirit. As Paul explained: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (Rom. 8:2).

It is my prayer that each of you would know the LORD through faith in Jesus Christ and having His Spirit would today live free in true liberty. Those who sacrificed to give us our national independence will be properly honored if we through our godly living we restore our nation’s founding principles that preserve our liberty.

Randall Price, Ph.D.