and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
Jesus says this to people who had just believed on Him. He at once attaches a condition: they will know the truth if they stay in His word. Their reply was that they had never been anyone's slaves. It shows they did not yet see what He was offering to free them from.
Freedom does not come with the first stir of belief. One writer points to what marks a real disciple, and to the two powers at work:
Continuance is always the test of what is real. Those who continue come to know the truth and its freeing power. The devil enslaves by the power of his lie; Christ sets free by the power of God's truth. He did not flatter them by telling them that as God's nation they were free. He set before them the true spiritual freedom that comes from knowing the truth. They needed it, and so do we!
The promise points forward, and that shows where they stood at the time:
The proof of their discipleship would be continuing in His word. In that word they would find the knowledge of the truth, and by the truth they would be made free (vv. 31-32). So it is clear that these people were not yet free.
The Jews already had God's commands in the law. Christ points them somewhere else:
So His word (not the law) is the sole means of knowing the truth and its liberty. It was not just a question of commands, or of something God wanted from man. God had already given that, and it had been tested; and what did it come to for them and for Him? Now much more was at stake, God showing Himself in Christ to the world, and doing this in His word, in the truth.
The offer of freedom offended them. Their protest fails in two ways:
It offended the proud Jews of our Lord's day when He said, "The truth will set you free." They answered Him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?" Their boast of freedom was false in two ways. As a nation, they had served at least a dozen different powers in their history. In spirit they were where everyone is by nature: in bondage to sin.
"The truth" here is not a vague ideal. One writer sets the promise against people who look open-minded because they hold nothing as true:
They have no truth at all, so they do not care about it, and they like to be free. Since they hold nothing as truth, they are happy to leave others free too. It looks broad-minded, but it means they treat nothing as truth. You may have seen this in their interpretation of the Lord's remarkable words, "If you abide in my word... you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." It is a huge announcement of the love of God. It promises freedom by truth that is certain and known — and, He adds, by the Son — from every immoral influence, from everything that was not the truth.
Because the truth stands on its own, our sense of it is not the measure of it:
The truth is what it is — the truth; it is unchangeable, and our experiences or our enjoyment in no way affect it. Let us ask for grace to measure our freedom in Christ by this standard. Until we know the truth, we are not aware of being free in spirit before God.
Freedom here is not permission to please oneself. One writer defines it by what it removes:
First, each person who receives the truth revealed in Christ comes into perfect freedom before God. Freedom from what? Everything that would keep your heart and soul from enjoying God to the full.
It also changes the person who receives it:
God has made us know His truth as what delivers us. This freedom is not freedom for our sinful nature. It cuts right through our hearts and makes a real separation, one that God, who is holy, knows fully. So a person comes into his place before God with a broken and humbled heart.
One writer links this promise with the Lord's later words about the Son, and reads them as two stages of one blessing:
after
To know "the truth" frees us from the things that hold the soul in bondage. That is a great thing. But it is the Son Himself who brings the soul into real freedom in the presence of the Father. That is why it says, "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."
- Continue — Christ promises freedom to those who stay in His word, not to those who only start well. Staying is the test of real belief.
- Know — what sets free is real truth we can know. Our feelings do not change it. A faith that holds nothing as true has nothing to free anyone with.
- Free from — their boast of never being slaves was false twice over. The nation had served many masters, and every person by nature serves sin.
- Free for — this freedom removes whatever blocks our enjoyment of God. It humbles the heart instead of feeding it. It is never a licence to sin.
- Free indeed — truth frees us from what enslaves. The Son Himself brings the freed soul into the Father's presence.
They answered him, We are Abraham's seed, and have never been under bondage to any one; how sayest thou, Ye shall become free?
They had just heard an offer: continue in His word, know the truth, and be set free. Their answer names a pedigree and denies a problem — and in doing so it shows why they needed that offer.
The words of Jesus divide His hearers. Some receive them. In others they find no place. The reply about Abraham's seed shows which group is speaking.
The verses before show the effect of Christ's words on those who believe. The verses that follow expose the condition of those in whom His words have no place. The Jews, who reject His words, resent the implication that they are in bondage. They claim a place of privilege as Abraham's seed. They say they have never been in bondage to any man. They forget that at that very moment they were in bondage to Rome.
To deny ever serving anyone was no small exaggeration. Their history is full of servitude. They were even living under a foreign power as they spoke.
They took pride in being Abraham's children: "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone." It is easy to forget what you do not wish to remember. They had forgotten the brick kilns of Egypt, their oppression by Moab, Canaan, Midian and others during the time of the Judges. And even at that moment they were under the domination of Rome. Yet they could say they had never been in bondage to any man. What fools pride can make of its victims!
Their own leaders had said the opposite in prayer. Ezra and Nehemiah both confessed the nation's servitude openly.
Even outwardly, not to speak of the soul, the Jews were, and had long been, in servitude to the Gentiles. So Ezra confessed at the evening sacrifice… "we are bondmen; yet our God has not forsaken us in our bondage." So, again, Nehemiah: "Behold, we are bondmen this day, and the land that You gave to our fathers to eat the fruit of it and the good of it, behold, we are bondmen in it… and they have dominion over our bodies… and we are in great distress."
Jesus does not chase the false claim. He could have disproved it. Instead He goes after the point that matters, and that choice is a lesson in handling objections.
What patience it took to deal graciously with these people! It took discernment, too, to answer them rightly. The Lord showed both, and gave His disciples an example of how to meet objections people raise. What to take up and what to let pass may need Divine wisdom. This time He would explain His words. But He let their claim pass without comment — that they had never been enslaved to anyone. Nehemiah 9:36-37 says the opposite. There was no need, however, to point that out. He kept to the real point about freedom, explained what He meant, and then took up their mention of Abraham.
Their descent from Abraham is real; Jesus never disputes it. What He disputes is what they think it proves.
They were Abraham's seed by natural birth. But they were not the children of Abraham as the father of the faithful. Their attitude to God and to His Son showed that they belonged to another family.
The bondage Jesus names is worse than any foreign rule. Unbelief keeps people from seeing it.
His word stung their proud spirit, because it laid bare their slavery to the enemy… In His answer Jesus brought in the light of God — for eternity, yes, but also for the present. "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin." How true, solemn, and humbling! No bondage is so real, none so degrading, as that of sin: could they seriously deny it was theirs? Truly unbelief blinds people to their moral state, and even to plain facts. Only grace delivers, and through the truth believed.
A servant in the house has no lasting place there. Only the Son does.
The idea of bondage stung them, for their pride could not bear it. So they declare themselves free, and say they have never been in bondage to anyone. In reply, the Lord shows that those who commit sin are the servants (slaves) of sin. Now, as Jews under the law, they were servants in the house, and they would be sent away. But the Son had rights that could not be taken from Him; He was of the house and would remain in it for ever.
The mistake is not limited to one nation. Trusting your background and standing does the same damage today.
If we fall into this snare, we may be inwardly counting on our ancestry and position, just as the Jews in our Lord's time boasted of being children of Abraham. Nothing deadens the conscience more than this. It kills the inward exercise, and that practical response to the truth which bears fruit.
- Pride blinds. Egypt, the Judges and Rome all contradicted their claim. Pride made them forget what they did not wish to remember.
- Blindness hides. Unbelief hid the plain facts of history from them. It also hid the deeper slavery Jesus named: everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.
- Descent fails. They truly were Abraham's seed. Yet they were not his children, for their treatment of God's Son showed another family likeness.
- Only the Son. A servant has no lasting place in the house. The Son remains for ever, and freedom comes from Him.
- Check yourself. Counting on ancestry or position deadens the conscience today just as it did then.
Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say to you, Every one that practises sin is the bondman of sin.
The scene is a dispute in the temple. Men who claimed Abraham as their father insisted they had never been slaves to anyone. The Lord answered with a solemn "truly, truly." His words move the argument off politics and ancestry, and onto a bondage they had never counted.
They insisted they had never been slaves. One commentator points to the yoke they had worn so long that they no longer felt it.
It was not that the Jews of that day carried a lighter load. They had grown so used to the yoke that they forgot it and denied it altogether. And if their outward bondage came from God's righteous government, still less did they judge rightly their state before God. That state was what the Lord Jesus was now bringing to light. Their proud spirit was stung by His word, which laid bare their slavery to the enemy. "We are Abraham's seed, and have never been in bondage to anyone." Jesus in His answer brought in the light of God. How true, solemn, and humbling! No bondage is so real, none so degrading, as that of sin. Could they seriously deny it was theirs? Unbelief blinds people to their moral state, and even to plain facts.
They wanted to argue about who had ever ruled over them. The Lord left that question aside.
But the Lord will not raise that question here; He goes deeper. "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin" — and this, though men often count it freedom, is the bitterest bondage. Since this is the condition of man in general, the first thing he needs is to be set free. There is no such thing in the spiritual realm as freedom a man wins for himself: salvation from sin must come from God.
People flatter the sinner. They call the man who does as he pleases free, independent, his own master. The Lord's word turns that picture around.
What a divine thought that is in John 8 — "Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin." The man who gratifies his lust is not a man of pleasure with independence, the Lord says. He is a slave, a captive — he serves sin.
The bondage is not the penalty God adds later; it is what contact with sin does. One writer taught children this with a picture from a kitchen.
Imagine an old fly talking to a young fly. It would say, "Whatever you do, do not touch that sticky tape. It looks and smells nice, it is very attractive, but do not touch it." The little fly will not listen. It thinks it must have one touch, so it puts out a leg — and the leg gets stuck. It puts out more legs to push itself off, and they stick too. Come back in half an hour and you would find the little fly nearly dead, sticky all over. The fly cannot touch the tape without being caught by it. That is like sin. Am I giving you my own ideas? I will tell you what our Saviour said: "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin."
Verse 34 opens an argument. If they are slaves, what is a slave's place in a household worth?
The Lord, in His reply, passes over their history in connection with man, and exposes their state before God. By their sins they proved themselves to be the slaves of the evil principle of sin. Being slaves, they could have no continuing place in the house of God, a picture here of the position of privilege they had just claimed. The slave can be dismissed; the Son abides for ever. The Son, whom they were rejecting, could indeed make them free.
If sin is a master, the cure must be stronger than rules. One writer marks what the law could never promise.
He was speaking of the slavery of sin, a far worse bondage. Romans 6 and 7 set out this Christian teaching at length. The law could never promise that freedom to the Jews. Grace alone can give it. It gives it to those who believe on the Lord Jesus and own Him as their life. They learn in practice the blessed result of being in Him who has died, and reckon themselves dead indeed to sin. Over such, sin shall not have dominion; for they are not under law, but under grace.
- Practice deceives — men count it freedom; the Lord calls it the bitterest bondage.
- Practice blinds — long habit makes a yoke easy to forget, so the loudest denials came from men still wearing one.
- Practice binds — nobody touches sin without sticking to it, as a fly sticks to the tape.
- Practice excludes — a slave has no lasting place in the house; the master can send him away, but the Son stays for ever.
- Practice ends only in Christ — the law could never promise this freedom; grace gives it, and the Son sets the slave free.