John 8: 31-32
“To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’”
So far the past three days we have looked at the teaching of Jesus in this passage, what it means to be his disciple, and what it means to know the truth. Today we will look at the final promise in this passage, the promise that knowing the truth will set you free. As we will see in the next passage, the Jews assign a very literal meaning to the word, “free.” You and I, on the other hand, have the advantage of a perspective that comes from reading the whole of John’s gospel.
Jesus didn’t mean “free” in the sense of being freed politically or judicially. The freedom Jesus talks about applies to all people wherever they are in life: Slaves remain slaves, prisoners remain prisoners, draftees remain drafted. People in bad situations remain in those situations. Jesus does not change where we are or who we are in the physical sense.
Q: How then does holding to the teachings of Jesus, being his disciple, and knowing the truth set us free and what does it set us free from?
I think this refers to us being free from the tyranny of sin, death and Satan. There is freedom in Christ to be in relationship with God and not be enslaved to our most destructive and cruel enemies.
Set free from death. Hard to fully grasp and appreciate.
Praise to Jesus our Saviour!!!
Sin, Death, and Satan.
It isn’t that the other forms of ‘slavery’ are not bad, it is that they are the mere symptoms of a deadly disease. We are often fixated on alleviating the symptoms of sin/death/Satan – a good and needed service – but if the root of the problem isn’t dealt with we merely make people’s slavery and death more comfortable.
Jesus clearly cared about physical needs and ‘symptoms’ of sin, but his focus was always on curing the disease. He came to bring lasting Freedom and Life and Victory!