What does it mean that we are free indeed (John 8:36)?

We have good reason to thank and praise God that we are freed from both sins and sin, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Speaking of bondage to sin, He pointed the way of freedom from it; “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32); but in verse 36 we are told of further freedom—not only from, but into. So we read, “If therefore THE SON shall set you free, ye shall be really free.”

How simple are the Lord's words to the Jews, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). First of all, the soul, individually, by the reception of the truth revealed in Christ, is set in perfect freedom before God. Freedom from what? Everything that would hinder your heart and soul thoroughly enjoying God. "The servant abides not in the house for ever: but the Son abides ever" (John 8:35). The servant is in bondage; the Son is in liberty. There is the contrast; and who is the Son? The blessed Lord Himself; and what does He do? The moment He takes you into association with Himself, of course on the ground of death and resurrection, you are in the same atmosphere as He is, and therefore when He says, "the Son abides ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (ver. 36), He indicates the abiding liberty into which His grace brings us, that we may enjoy the rich portion He shares with us. I like to admit, honestly and openly, that I am a Free Churchman. You say, The Free Church of Scotland? No, nor of any other land; the Free Church of God — of Scripture. I am also a thoroughly Established Churchman; and greatly rejoice further to be a member of the United Church. The Established-United-Free Church is the Church of Scripture, and membership of anything but that is foreign to its teaching. God's Assembly is established, united, and free, and I should be ashamed to own that I was a member of aught else. All Christians are united to Christ and to each other, are in the liberty of sonship before God individually, and are brought by God into the most wonderful liberty collectively, His saints, all together, forming the temple of God. Now see how other scriptures present it.

The power of His words was felt and many took the place of believing on Him. The Lord tested them by telling them that one who was not a mere nominal follower but a disciple indeed is characterized by continuing in His word; that is, in the whole truth that He brought. Continuance is ever the test of reality, and where that exists the truth is known in its emancipating power. The devil enslaved by the power of his lie: Christ liberates 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 that true spiritual freedom which is the result of the knowledge of the truth. That they needed, and so do we!

Many failed under the test, for their national and religious pride was wounded. They might be Abraham's seed after the flesh, but to claim they were never in bondage to any, while in complete subjection to the Romans, only proved their blindness. By His emphatic statement of verse 34, Jesus directed their thoughts to the slavery of sin. Men cannot practise sin without being enslaved thereby — a tremendous thought for every one of us. Now the place of the slave is outside, but in contrast to him is the Son, whose place is inside and that for ever. And the Son not only has that abiding place Himself but He can set free the slave, introducing him into that which is liberty indeed. Thus he who is one of the "disciples indeed" becomes "free indeed."

"But the son abideth ever." He is in the freedom begotten of relationship, and not under the bond man's law which may cast him out. The principle is general, but there is no application of it with regard to Christians, as the Christian status of sonship was not yet known. In fact, only Christ Himself can make free, and this is the Lord's application of it here: "If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." For the Son is no mere servant in the Father's house, but one in word and purpose with the Father; and His work is that salvation-work which alone can make free. Thus again to abide in His word leads into that communion with the Father and the Son, in which alone is found the mastery of all restraints and difficulties whatever. Blessed then is freedom such as this! for ever blessed He who brings us into it.

The Son makes us free indeed, not only does the truth set free. We may take up truth apart from the Son. Intellectuality is a sore evil, affecting not only such as believe not, but also the children of God and to all it is a most deadly spiritual affliction. Truth taken up by the intellect will not be a delivering power in the soul. The Lord's own hand removes our fetters through the Spirit by the truth. The Son abiding for ever, in grace and love delivers His own. Jesus risen, in His own authority and by virtue of His death and resurrection, delivers. He gives perfect liberty. His gracious work has effected the liberty. He Himself has broken the bars of the prison-house, and has opened its doors and vanquished the power of sin. And He the Victor snaps asunder the chains of each individual believer who has true faith in Himself where He is, by giving to each such heart the conscious knowledge of His resurrection power, and of the eternal life being secured to the believer beyond death, sin, and the law.

Only in one other place does Matthew speak of Christ as “the Son” (11:27), and there we are told that One alone fully knows Him. In the impenetrable depths of His holy Person none but God could perfectly comprehend Him. In one passage only does Luke so name our Lord Jesus Christ (10:22), and there it is said also, “No one knows who the Son is but the Father.” Nor does it say that the Father thus reveals Him, although He reveals the Father to whom He pleases. In all His counsels, in all His love, in all His glory, and in His own home the Son knows the Father, and it is His Divine pleasure to reveal Him to others. True freedom before the Father and the Son in the power of the Spirit may be enjoyed even now. To know “the truth” secures for us freedom from things that hold the soul in bondage, and that is a great matter; but it is the Son Himself who brings the soul into real freedom in the presence of the Father, therefore it is said, “If therefore the Son shall set you free ye shall be really free” (John 8:32, 36). What light, liberty, life, love and exalted blessedness this involves; and what wealth of praise, song and worship would flow where this is known experimentally in spite of the ecclesiastical failure and apostasy in Christendom! But how can this be where the Son is not honoured?

The liberty into which we are brought, then, is the complete emancipation which has reached us as being made the sons of God. It is the freedom of which the Lord Jesus spoke when He said, "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:36). We are no longer like servants of the household, who rightly have their conduct regulated by the rules suitable to the servants' hall; and to put ourselves in our thoughts and behaviour back into that position is to sadly entangle ourselves. It is indeed to fall from grace, as verse 4 has it.

And this leads us to the second of the privileges alluded to, as connected with the "Son of God." He gives liberty as well as life. "If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." (John 8:36.) These are the two great aspects of blessing which characterise Jesus as the Son of God. He imparts not only life but liberty too. Not that they have always or necessarily gone together. For a man might have spiritual life and yet be in grievous bondage, as one observes too often. This is also what we read of in Rom. 7. A person who is converted has life, but may be withal the most miserable of men as regards his own experience. "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" In Rom. 8 we have the answer of grace. "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free [or delivered me] from the law of sin and death." Liberty now goes with the life of the Son of God, for He is the risen Lord who died for me and discharged me from all the claims of law, and of every other thing or one which might else arrest my blessing. The servant does not abide ever in the house, he might have notice to quit; but there is no such thing as the son's leaving the house. And it is thus as sons God puts us in His house, in the place of full and holy liberty.

The Lord declares to those who had been brought to believe in Him, that, if they remained firmly attached to His word (for it is a question of His word), they should be His disciples indeed, they should know the truth, and the truth should set them free (v. 31, 32). The truth supposes the full revelation of that which is divine and heavenly, that which was revealed in His Person, and in His words, and would be fully made evident when He should be glorified, and the Holy Ghost should have come. I do not think that those of whom verse 23 speaks were those who believed in Jesus, but the Jews in general. They trust to their outward position according to the flesh: they had never been in bondage, they say, forgetting, however, all their history, and their position at that very moment. The Lord passes over all that, to present the ground of the truth as to the state of man before God, and the effect of the law; for He identifies these two things - being a slave of sin, and being under the law, as the man of Romans 7 "Every one that practises sin, is the slave of sin," captive of that terrible law of sin that is in his members; but being a slave, he may be sent away from the house, and sold. The Jews, sinners under the law, would be sent away from the house of God; but the Son belonged to the house, and dwelt there always, and necessarily; if He made them free, they should be free indeed, free from sin, and free from the law. The Son, the revelation of the Father, as object, and power of life in him who shall have received Him, acting by the word, takes the place of the principle of sin in man, and the law which in vain forbade man to commit it.

But the Lord intimates more. None under sin is entitled to speak of permanence. Such a one exists only on sufferance till judgment. Bondage there was none when God created and made according to His mind; nor will there be when He shall make all things new. The bondman, in every sense, belongs only to the transitory reign of sin and sorrow. So says the Lord: "Now the bondman abideth not in the house for ever." Another and contrasted relationship suits God's will; "the son abideth for ever." But there is infinitely more in Christ. He is not merely Son, but "the Son." He is the Son in His own right and title, as God and when man, in time and in eternity. He is therefore not "free" only, as all sons are, but such is His glory that He can and does make free in virtue of the grace which pertains to Him alone. Thus it is not only the truth which sets free, where law could only condemn, but the Son also gives and confirms the same character of liberty according to His own fulness. It is a question of what suits not them merely, but Him. He could make free those who hear Him and abide in His word, and nothing else but free. It is worthy of Him to deliver from sin and Satan; and "if the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." He frees after a Divine sort. He brings into His own character of relationship out of the bondage to sin, which the first man made our sad inheritance. The last Adam is a quickening spirit and a Deliverer. Let us stand fast in His liberty, and be not entangled again with any yoke of bondage, as the Apostle exhorts the Galatians against that misuse of the law, whatever its shape. (Gal. 5:1.)