To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32
This passage from John 8 is set in the temple during the observance of the Feast of Tabernacles. He was attempting to help the crowds understand who He was and the nature of His relationship with the heavenly Father. The reactions were mixed. Most of the crowd and especially the religious leaders rejected His message. Some even wanted Him arrested. But according to John 8:30, many believed in Him.
On the surface we would assume that the positive response toward Jesus was a good thing. But Jesus realized that their so-called belief was not grounded in the truth. So Jesus wasted no time in exposing their false belief by telling them that only by continuing in His word would they experience spiritual freedom.
Their reaction was telling. They immediately began to appeal to their relationship with Abraham. Because of their biological connection with their founding patriarch, they assumed that they had no need to be made free. It was this very resistance that proved Jesus’ point. They weren’t as free as they thought they were.
In reflecting on this passage there are two truths that we must embrace if we are to experience our own spiritual freedom. The first truth is about the uniqueness of the Son in relationship with the Father. Throughout this section of the scripture Jesus insists that His words are the Father’s words, that His works are His Father’s works, and that to be in right relationship with the Father requires being in a right relationship with the Son.
Obviously, that was a big shift for Jesus’ first century listeners as it is for many in our day. But assuming that we are willing to make this shift, it is the second truth that often determines just how much spiritual freedom we will enjoy. This has to do with the truth about ourselves.
Just like Jesus’ listeners, we are often resistant to facing difficult truths about ourselves that expose our spiritual neediness. We have a pervasive need to present ourselves as being better than we are. Bruce Milne, in his commentary on this passage, put it this way:
The human heart is seldom so spiteful as when it perceives its self-esteem threatened. There is almost nothing we will cling to with greater vehemence than the props by which we will bolster ourselves.For the Christian this is especially challenging. We assume that because we have committed ourselves to Christ that we are fully free. In one sense that is true. We are free from the eternal consequences of sin. However, we may still be in bondage to all kinds of sinful patterns whether recognized or not. The possibilities seem endless. Greed, pride, self-centeredness, lack of compassion, harsh language, dishonesty and more can hold us in chains until we face the truth about them. Only then are we in a position to being freed from them.
It would be wise for all of us to sit with this before God, so He can reveal to us the areas where we are still in bondage. As we face that truth, we then must come to the reality that freedom is not something we can gain by our own willpower but by opening our souls to the transforming work of the Spirit to unlock the door and set us free.