John 8:31-36
Introduction: Today’s text resonates with the reality we often face when we seek to share the truth with unbelievers. "A slave? I’m free, I do what I want, I make my own choices. It’s you Christians that are slaves to all the manmade rules of the church.” People prize the fact that they are free, free to make their own choices, free to do as they please. We’ve spoken quite a bit in this context of John about the popular tendency today to deny absolute truth and to argue that morality is relative so we are free to make our own choices. The truth is, it’s an illusion, a lie that Satan has used on humans since Eden and the Fall. “Taste the fruit if you want to be free, God wants you to be his slave, he wants to stifle your will and enslave you.” The truth is, apart from Christ, we are slaves. Wait a minute, don’t we have free will? Well, we are free to choose, but since apart from Christ “our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked…”; since there is “none that does good, not even one…”; since without him we are “dead in our trespasses and sins…”; left to ourselves we will always choose amiss, motivated by the flesh and deceived by the devil. Everyone wants to be free, that’s a given. However the issue is that people apart from the liberating work of Christ are slaves and they don’t realize it. They are slaves to sin.
The Big Idea: Continuing in the Word of Christ confirms that we are His disciples as we grow in our knowledge of truth and experience true freedom.
I. Faith, Followers, Truth, and Freedom (8:31-32). “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 "And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
“If you continue in my word then are you my disciples indeed…” “Indeed” refers back to the previous verse and implies not all who in some sense “believe” are necessarily true disciples of Jesus. Last week we mentioned the caution of James, “You believe that God is one, you do well, the demons also believe and tremble.” See also John 2:23-25 where we read,
“Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did. 24 But Jesus did not commit Himself to them, because He knew all men, 25 and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for He knew what was in man.”They “believed” in some sense, but Jesus knew their hearts, so he didn’t “entrust himself” to them (this is the same verb that is translated “believe” in the first part of the verse, they said that they believed in Jesus, but he knew their hearts, so he didn’t believe them! John is interested in faith, it is one of his major themes, and he calls his readers to saving faith. As we’ve looked at “faith” in John we’ve seen at least three essential elements of the faith that saves: 1) knowledge, 2) assent, and 3) trust, and he is calling his readers to understand the truth about who Jesus is, agree that he is our only hope of salvation, and finally to trust Him as Savior and Lord.
First, we have to know the truth, we need the right information about who Jesus is, and what He has done for us. Faith requires knowledge of the truth. We have to be in the Word to know what God says about us, about our need, and about Jesus. God has given us the truth but we need to read it!
It also requires assent, we have to agree with the facts that Scripture reveals. What does the Bible say about humans, about our need, what does it tell us about God? What are the facts about Jesus and what he has does for us? OK, that’s step one, but do we acknowledge and agree with the revealed truth of the Word? We can’t pick and choose, we need to be in the word on a regular and systematic basis, seeking out the whole council of God.
Finally, true saving faith requires trust, it means that we must put our faith in Jesus alone and in His finished work on our behalf as our only hope of salvation. We exercise faith over smaller issues all the time. When you get in a car with another driver, you trust them to keep the car under control (I usually drive, don’t take it personally!). You’re trusting the guy behind you to follow the rules! You get on an airplane you trust the pilot, and the mechanics, and the air traffic controllers. You have surgery you trust the medical team to keep you alive, and do their job well. It’s one thing to say you trust someone, it’s another to get in the car or the airplane or to let them put that IV in your arm and put you to sleep! The faith that saves means we have put our trust in Jesus alone for our salvation. In the Evangelism Explosion ministry we would use a question to help people focus in on that idea: If you were to die tonight and stand before God and He were to ask you “Why should I let you into my heaven?”, what would you say? It’s not a trick question but a lot of people answer that they are good people, or they live by the ten commandments or do their best to keep the “golden rule.” Paul wrote in I Corinthians 15 the truth, the “Good News” that is our only hope is that “Christ died for our sins… was buried… and was raised again the third day…” The hymn writers said it well, “Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to His cross I cling.” “Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.” He is talking about the faith that saves…
Jesus said, “…if you continue in my Word…” Continuing in God’s word is not a condition of being a genuine disciple; it is an evidence of it. I received an email from JS this week about a “40 days in the Word” program at a large church. I like the three-fold emphasis: “Love the Word, Learn the Word, Live the Word…” If we really view this book as the Word of God, we need to avail ourselves of every opportunity to feed on it and to be nourished by it.
1. If we love the Word we should “long for the pure milk of the Word….” (I Peter 2:2). Do you truly cherish time in the Word? I thought of the scene in the movie the “Chariots of God” where Eric Liddel said that when he ran, he felt the “pleasure of God.” I think each of us can be assured of God’s pleasure if we love the Word, delighting to read it, to hear God’s voice teaching us and revealing Himself to us, showing us how we can live. Love is a choice, and the more time we spend with something we love that love grows and deepens. I have a personal quite time in the morning and I love it, I look forward to it. Reading and praying and hearing God through His word.
2. Learn the Word: If we continue in the Word we should also be seeking more and more to “learn the word” since it is God’s revelation to us, and as such a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths. We have opportunities to learn, to continue in the word, throughout the week.
- Sunday morning is a time for teaching the Word, in fact in some respects it is the primary “teaching time” that we have as a church. We put an outline in the bulletin to allow you to take notes (or write down questions), by doing so you give your brain one more avenue to assimilate the truth. We’ve recently started putting the text of the weekly sermons online in case you missed something on Sunday AM [As we stated in the first entry of this blog this isn’t an exact transcript of the Sunday AM message, but is fleshed out from my outline. So it is what I planned to say, or, in some cases, what I wish I had said! (Someone said this sounds a bit like the congressional record!)]. You can read, and even post questions and observations. Some groups will discuss the text further in homes during the week and I hope that more groups will use the study questions as a starting point for your small group study. The idea is that our “learning” can be enhanced and continue throughout the week.
- We also hope to maintain two, and sometimes three electives for adult Sunday School, as well as SS classes and mid-week “Word of Life” meetings for teens & children.
- We have a short Bible Study as part of our Wednesday night meeting. Our goal is to have 30 minutes of time in the Word followed by 30 minutes of prayer. We’ve been flexible with this, but at least it’s our goal! Some of our small groups have different biblical topics they are studying.
- Of course we encourage you to adopt a regular, systematic, program of Bible reading. We have one possibility available for you that will give an Old Testament and a New Testament passage each day as you read through the Bible in a year. There are a lot of different reading programs but this has the advantage of guiding us through the Bible together, thus allowing for questions, discussions, and interaction based on things God is teaching us.
- Our book table in the back of the church as well as the church lending library which will be moved to the old church office, offer reading material that can help us learn from others. Christian radio of course gives us the spoken Word and some of the best Bible teachers in the country.
- My point is that “Learning” is not something that is restricted to Bible college or seminary classes (obviously I believe they have value in supplementing the teaching of the church, or I wouldn’t have been a missionary seminary professor all of those years! But…). It wasn’t long after I came to Christ that I went off to Bible College. Suddenly the people at church assumed I was an expert in Theology! There is no way that three or four years in a Bible College or seminary should trump a lifetime of study of the Bible in the local church and in our daily Christian life. But we do need to be students, “learning the Word” by every means possible. If we love the Word and learn the Word, then we will be prepared and equipped to…
3. Live the Word: James made this clear when he talked about faith: faith without works is dead being by itself. We are to be “doers of the Word, and not hearers only who delude themselves.” Jesus says here, “If you continue in my Word…” If you love the Word, learn the Word, and live the Word, you continue in it, and Jesus says “then you are my disciples indeed.”
Jesus goes on to say, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free…” Know the truth starts with knowing the Gospel, the revelation of who Jesus is and what he came to do on our behalf. Paul said, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” It’s only through the truth that we are set free. The Gospel sets us free, free to obey, free to live in the light of His truth. Continuing in the Word of Christ confirms that we are His disciples as we grow in our knowledge of truth and experience true freedom.
II. False Freedom and Slavery (8:33-34). “They answered Him, ‘We are Abraham's descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say, “You will be made free"? 34 Jesus answered them, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.’”
Why did the people balk here at the teaching of Jesus? If he is talking about being set free through his Word; that implies that People are enslaved. In the context it clearly means that everyone, apart from the saving grace of Jesus, is a slave of sin. People think they are free, they are autonomous, they make their own rules and are the masters of their own fate. For the Jews of Jesus’ day they were descendants of emancipated slaves: their forefathers had been enslaved in Egypt for 400 years – but they had been freed through the Exodus. That was their identity they felt, the Romans might be a thorn in the side but they would admit to being no man’s slaves.
Jesus explains that their slavery is spiritual: They are slaves of sin. He is not saying, I don’t believe, that every human that commits a sin (or sins) is a slave of sin. The verbal form here indicates a continual, habitual, practicing of sin. Those who continue in sin are slaves to it. Its similar to Paul’s contrast between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit in Gal 5. Of the works of the flesh Paul says, “…those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal 5:21). We also read in 1 John 3:6-8 that
6 Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. 8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
If we continue in sin, without change, without evidence of repentance, we are slaves whether or not we admit it.
One symptom of slavery to sin is avoiding the Word. It’s too boring to read. Its too hard to understand and too tiring to listen to. I’d rather watch TV or play a video game, or go hunting, or sleep in. We love things, but we don’t love the Word, we not interested in learning the Word, so there is no way that we are going to live the Word. Someone said, “This book will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from this book.”
Calvin said that “the greater the mass of vices anyone is buried under, the more fiercely and bombastically does he extoll free will.” Augustine spoke about how slavery to sin is the worse form of slavery when he said, “…at times a man’s slave, worn out by the commands of an unfeeling master, finds rest in flight. Whither can the servant of sin flee? Himself he carries with him wherever he flees… The pleasure passes away; the sin remains. What delighted is gone; the sting remains behind. Evil bondage!” (cited by Leon Morris, John, 406-407). Apart from saving faith in Jesus all humans are slaves to sin… Continuing in the Word of Christ confirms that we are His disciples as we grow in our knowledge of truth and experience true freedom.
III. The Promise of Sonship and genuine freedom (8:35-36). "And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. 36 "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”
The point in 8:35a is that their confidence in their physical decent from Abraham is an illusion. Remember Jesus words in Matthew 3:9, “…and do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham for our father'; for I say to you, that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” God isn’t interested primarily in our physical lineage, but rather in the object of our faith. Since they are slaves they have no basis for confidence that they have an eternal place in God’s house. On the contrary, “…a slave does not abide in the house forever…” That kind of residence in God’s house requires being part of God’s family, it requires being a child of the King.
John uses two different words in his Gospel: he reserves huios, son, for Jesus. Believers are tekna, children, of God. Jesus has a unique relationship with the Father. As the Son, Jesus has the authority to free from slavery all who turn to Him in faith. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.” Because of who Jesus is, God the Son, He has unique and absolute authority to free us from bondage to sin, to make us children of the King, free to obey. Free to be sure of our eternal home, our residence and inheritance in our Father’s house. Free to experience the abundant life He want us to have.
What is God saying to me in this passage? Continuing in the Word of Christ confirms that we are His disciples as we grow in our knowledge of truth and experience true freedom.
What would God have me to do in response to this passage? I don’t believe in accidents with God. If you are here, it’s not by chance. God planned this moment in your life and He wanted you to hear this message, and consider His Word to you. Have you been fooled by the enemy into thinking that staying away from the Word, keeping space between you and God, is the way to freedom? God makes the rules. And His Word is absolutely true. Through the Word we can experience “life” and genuinely been free, freed by the Truth to know the truth, free to obey God, free to experience the abundant life of blessing Christ wants us to have. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, you will be free indeed.” Is it your desire to continue in His word, to Love the Word, to Learn the Word, and to Live the Word? His Word is truth.
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