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Introduction
The United States celebrates the ratification of the Declaration of Independence every July 4, wherein we eat hot dogs, collectively become pyromaniacs, and reflect on the fact that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
And if you were born after July 4, 1972, this is the first Independence Day you have ever seen that does not involve the tyranny known as Roe v. Wade and federally protected prenatal homicide.
A new holiday season
As with any holiday, Independence Day should be marked by doxology (1 Thess. 5:18), but this particular holiday coming so soon after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v Jackson decision – which upended Roe and rightly called it “egregiously wrong from the start” – makes our thanksgiving all the more congruous.
It is purely providential that Dobbs was decided so close to July 4, but even more so Juneteenth, which celebrates the emancipation announcement to slaves in Texas on June 19,1865. Yes, the nation struggled through Reconstruction and Jim Crow, but the promises of July 4 began to be applied to African Americans on that day.
In the same vein, everyone knows that Dobbs will not immediately end bloodshed and dismemberment in the womb. But June 24, 2022, will be remembered in history as the day that the promises of July 4 began to be applied to the preborn. In the long run, this will become a new summer holiday season. Just how we have a rapid succession of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day in late fall and winter, we’ll eventually have celebration of liberty from slavery, liberty from murder, and liberty from generalized tyranny within the span of 15 days.
True freedom
For the Christian, it is imperative that we not see the United States as an end unto itself. Every gift, whether the founding of a nation or the ending of infanticide, is from God and must be treated as such (James 1:17). And this celebration of liberty is but a shadow of our own liberation from the shackles of sin, death, and hell, accomplished by Jesus Christ.
And because Jesus rose from death, he rules the nations with a rod of iron. He has asked for the nations as his heritage, and the Father has granted that request. This is why we proclaim to the nations to repent, or, “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way” (Psalm 2). In an ultimate sense, we celebrate Juneteenth, Dobbs, and Independence Day because, at least in some minute sense, the nations are being brought into accordance with God’s law, and because of Christ’s greatest victory.
Particularly poignant is the fact that as Christ reigns and makes his enemies his footstool, the last enemy to be destroyed is death itself (1 Cor. 15:25-26). What better way to look forward to our own resurrection this Independence Day than to celebrate the innocent millions who will be saved from death in utero, to the glory of God?
This was a victory won by the King of kings; raise a glass to him today.
Cody Fields 