As we have seen with the last couple of blog posts, the illumination of the great biblical truth of freedom and liberty was very strong in the minds of the Founders of America. And they drafted a Declaration of Independence along with a Constitution designed to protect the liberty of American citizens, which Americans celebrate on July 4th.
Reverend Samuel Francis Smith wrote of this in his 1831 lyrics for the patriotic song America:
“My country ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrims’ pride, from every mountain side,
Let freedom ring.
…
Our fathers’ God to Thee, Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright, with freedom’s holy light, protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King.”
Note the great allusions to the liberty bell and the biblical concept of Jubilee (see post from June 13, 2025) the acknowledgement that God is the Author of Liberty, and that freedom is a “holy light”. These are wonderful truths!
The gospel is an offer of ultimate freedom, and the biblical revelation of our Creator is of a freedom-giving God. From the very beginning, with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, God has desired a relationship with those “in His image”, offering His created abundance along with a free choice of relationship with Him. They could choose to obey Him about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - or not. Even in a covenant commitment, a love relationship must allow for freedom or else it is not true love.
His call to the gospel, and our redemption from sin through accepting Jesus Christ as Savior, as well as our ongoing relationship through prayer and fellowship, is also our choice. He came to set us free from the bondage and tyranny of this world, and thus the Bible says, “Stand fast in the liberty for which Christ has made us free” (Galatians 5:1).
Martin Luther King Jr, in his famous I Have a Dream speech, used the song America and its phrases for his great clarion call to freedom’s ideal of “color-blindness”. He famously spoke in rhythm and re-iteration about letting “freedom ring” from all the “mountainsides”, “hilltops”, “heights”, and “mounds” all around the geographical locations of America.
Freedom is indeed a great and eternal truth, because it is from our Maker, the God of all creation!
Image: Photograph of Samuel Francis Smith over an American flag background.
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