Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed

 

 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'?"  Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.  And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.  Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.  

 

"I know that you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.  I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father."  They answered and said to Him, "Abraham is our father."  Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.  But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God.  Abraham did not do this.  You do the deeds of your father."  Then they said to Him, "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father -- God."  

 

Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.  Why do you not understand My speech?  Because you are not able to listen to My word.  You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.  But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me.  Which of you convicts Me of sin?  And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?  He who is of God hears God's words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God."

 

- John 8:33–47 

 

In our current readings, Jesus is at the Feast of Tabernacles, an autumn festival.  It is now the final year of His worldly life as Jesus.  He has been in disputes with the religious leaders in Jerusalem, who have unsuccessfully sought to have Him arrested at this feast.  Yesterday we read that Jesus replied again to the religious leaders, "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."

 

  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'?"  Jesus answered them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.  And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.  Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed."  Christ's response builds on His words from yesterday's reading (above), "If you abide in My word,  you are my disciples indeed.  And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

 

 "I know that you are Abraham's descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.  I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father."  They answered and said to Him, "Abraham is our father."  Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham.  But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God.  Abraham did not do this.  You do the deeds of your father."  Then they said to Him, "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father -- God."  My study Bible tells us that to be a child of Abraham, it is not enough to be simply related by blood.  Abraham's true children, by contrast, are those who share his faith and virtue (Luke 3:8).  According to St. John Chrysostom, it notes, our Lord wanted to detach these men from racial pride and teach them no longer to put hope of salvation in being of the race of Abraham's children by nature, but to come to faith by their own free will.  Their notion that being a descendant of Abraham was enough for salvation was in fact the very thing that prevented them from coming to Christ.  

 

 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me."  Proceeded, according to my study Bible, refers not to the Son coming eternally from the Father, but to Christ being sent from the Father to His Incarnation on earth.  

 

 "Why do you not understand My speech?  Because you are not able to listen to My word.  You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do.  He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.  But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me.  Which of you convicts Me of sin?  And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?  He who is of God hears God's words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God."  Just as being a child of Abraham is based on sharing the attributes of Abraham, so it is also that those who reject Christ share the same attributes as the devil (in particular, a hatred for truth).  Therefore, my study Bible explains, they are rightly called in this sense of attributes the devil's children.  

 

 Jesus says, "Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.  And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.  Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed."  These words really do give us pause.  As modern citizens of a very modern world, we in the West, in particular, might consider how important that notion of freedom is to our cultures and communities, and then seek what it is that Jesus had in mind when He taught these words two thousand years ago.  While freedom for us may mean that we have the freedom to do or say just about anything, freedom in the sense that Christ is using this teaching here means something else ("If you abide in My word,  you are my disciples indeed.  And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.")  Jesus expands on what freedom means here by giving us an ever deeper context to His words.  He says that "whoever commits sin is a slave of sin."  So, He is contrasting freedom and slavery.  In Christ's time, slavery was common.  Often people became slaves because their people had been conquered in war, and so they were a subject people.  Still others were slaves due to debt, or perhaps they had been born into slavery.  Slaves were subject to being bought and sold by their masters, and so in this sense, they were not free.  In this sense, Christ says something quite commonly understood when He tells these leaders that "a slave does not abide in the house forever."  A slave also has a master, and so we must understand in what sense committing sin effectively makes someone a slave.  It follows that sin takes on characteristics of a master, commanding and imposing a will upon another.  So, we might understand, sin is a product of a prompting, a desire that takes us away from the freedom found in God, in the Son who can make us free indeed.  St. Augustine points out that the way that "freedom" is used here in the Greek is a verb; that is, this refers to being made free, liberated.   To be free, then, in this sense in which this word appears in the Gospel, is to be made free, saved, released from slavery, from bondage.  And sin cannot set us free nor liberate; only Christ can do that, and only the truth in Christ can give us that kind of liberation. Only Christ the Son can make us free to remain in the master's home.   Just as God showed their Hebrew ancestors freedom from slavery in Egypt, so Christ comes declaring His doctrine of worship in spirit and in truth.  Therefore what Jesus implies here is that to commit sin is to follow a kind of command or will that does not come from the Son, and is not part of the love that gives us grace and truth.  The impulse to sin does not come from a loving master who makes free, but a cruel one which entangles and enslaves more deeply, even to a kind of compulsion or addiction.  Jesus says elsewhere, "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon" (Matthew 6:24).  So there is a choice of which master we would rather serve:  the one who makes free and makes us a home in His house, or the one that would enslave us in hell.  Jesus speaks quite clearly of how we human beings take on the character or attributes of that which we serve.  Is it love or hate we wish to serve?  Truth or lies?  Grace and truth, or condemnation and blindness?  The mercy of God's love is the liberation the Son brings to us; running away from God means turning to a cruel master.