And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free

 

 Then Jesus said to them again, "I am going away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin.  Where I go you cannot come."  So the Jews said, "Will He kill Himself, because He says, 'Where I go you cannot come'?"  And He said to them, "You are from beneath; I am from above.  You are of this world; I am not of this world.  Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins."  Then they said to Him, "Who are You?"  And Jesus said to them, "Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning.  I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I heard from Him."  They did not understand that He spoke to them of the Father.  

 

Then Jesus said to them, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things.  And He who sent Me is with Me.  The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him."  As He spoke these words, many believed in Him. 

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.  And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

 

- John 8:21–32 

 

In our recent readings, Jesus is attending the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem.  He has been teaching in the temple, and has been confronted in a would-be trap by being presented with a with a woman taken in adultery.  After that, He continued in dialogue with the religious leaders.  Yesterday we read that Jesus spoke to them again, saying, "I am the light of the world.  He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life." The Pharisees therefore said to Him, "You bear witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true."  Jesus answered and said to them, "Even if I bear witness of Myself, My witness is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from and where I am going.  You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.  And yet if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent Me.  It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true.  I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of Me."  Then they said to Him, "Where is Your Father?"  Jesus answered, "You know neither Me nor My Father.  If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also."  These words Jesus spoke in the treasury, as He taught in the temple; and no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not yet come.

 

  Then Jesus said to them again, "I am going away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin.  Where I go you cannot come."  So the Jews said, "Will He kill Himself, because He says, 'Where I go you cannot come'?"  And He said to them, "You are from beneath; I am from above.  You are of this world; I am not of this world.  Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins."  Then they said to Him, "Who are You?"  And Jesus said to them, "Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning.  I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I heard from Him."  They did not understand that He spoke to them of the Father.   My study Bible tells us that going away, in this first verse here, is a reference to Christ's death, Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven.

Then Jesus said to them, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things.  And He who sent Me is with Me.  The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him."  As He spoke these words, many believed in Him.  Jesus uses the term lift up, as He did with Nicodemus in John 3:14.  My study Bible explains that here, this phrase has a double meaning of being nailed to the Cross and also of being exalted by God the Father upon the completion of His work.  

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed."  My study Bible comments that Jesus expects all who follow Him to be disciples; in other words, learners.  To abide in His word is the responsibility of all believers, not simply of the clergy or an elite class of zealots -- but all of us.

"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."  My study Bible tells us that the truth refers here both to the virtue of truth and, more importantly, to Christ Himself (John 14:6).  To be free means the freedom from darkness, confusion, and lies -- and also freedom from the bondage of sin and death.  

From what do you need to be free?  Jesus' freedom is inextricably tied up with the truth, for how can we ever be truly free from something unless we first understand what is true and what is false?  It is also tied in with any concept of justice or righteousness, because we cannot discern either justice or righteousness unless our understanding is based in the truth of what is and what isn't.  For an example of these things, let us look to the Crucifixion of Christ itself.  Of what was Jesus truly guilty to have received a sentence of crucifixion?  Certainly Pilate himself found no wrong according to Roman law.  In St. John's reporting of Christ's trial before Pilate, Pilate twice says, "I find no fault in Him," and later seeks to release Him to the crowd, asking, "Shall I crucify your King?" (John 19:4-16).  In our previous chapter, Nicodemus speaks up against the hasty action of his fellow members of the Council, saying, "Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing?"   But Christ's accusers can do nothing in response but  deliver a lie, saying, "Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee" (see John 7:50-52).  In these examples we can see immediately the question of truth and its importance for notions of justice and righteousness.  Jonah the prophet was from Galilee, something these Biblical scholars of their time are supposed to know; either their claim to expertise is not true, or they are deliberately obscuring the truth.  On the other hand, Nicodemus seeks to uphold a proper search for truth by reminding them that lawful judgment requires hearing from the accused first.  But if we look at the Crucifixion itself, we see a greater example of what truth has to do with being free.  For Christ's freedom is precisely in His own innocence, and His mission from the Father.  All along, He has been saying that His union is with the Father, His mission is from the Father, as He is taught by the Father, so He does -- and as the Father judges, so Jesus will judge, and not of Himself.  See yesterday's reading, above, in which Jesus tells the religious leaders, "You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one.  And yet if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent Me."  His freedom in this sense is guaranteed by His loyalty to the Father and His unwillingness to compromise with what He knows to be false.  We can only imagine what shame crucifixion would bring to a family such as His, but we understand Christ's very state of freedom to rely on the truth, and not judgment by appearances, and in this He was free and remained so.  There is yet another example at the Crucifixion, close by the Jesus, and that is the thief who recognized his responsibility for his crime, and turned to Christ asking for forgiveness -- and was granted such.  He asked of Christ, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom."  Jesus replied, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise" (see Luke 23:39-43).  So, in that case, it was the truthful acknowledgment of his crime that set free the thief to be received by Christ in His Kingdom.  Both cases -- Christ's innocence and the thief's crime -- are true, and both are necessary to the freedom of each, as well as our freedom to understand and to seek the same discernment in our own lives, even the same truth in Christ which guides us.  We human beings experience many confusing layers of what may or may not be true in life. So much depends upon experience and perspective, even awareness itself, or education, or how complete or incomplete is our grasp of all the facts pertinent to whatever things we may consider.  And so, truth can be elusive and even seemingly changing.  But this is why we seek Christ for discernment of the truth that makes us free, because we don't have that divine perspective of Christ.  We are not "from above," as Christ so eloquently puts it.  We are not born with the discernment that Christ offers through participation in His life, and the subsequent growth He offers to us.  We may be trapped in cycles of guilt that are not based in truth, or of irresponsibility equally not based on truth.  We may find ourselves punishing ourselves for things we can't change, and looking in all the wrong directions to salvage our lives from something truly devastating.  Christ's freedom is the deepest one can go; it is what we would call ontological, even a state of being within us.  That is, a state of freedom at the depth of soul and identity.  Only Christ can offer this because on He has the perspective of the ultimate Healer, for -- as we are told by St. John -- in Him is life, and that life is the light we need (John 1:4).   His light is truth, and in that truth is our real freedom.