John 8.32-38

John 8:31-38
31 So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?”  34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. 35 “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. 36 “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. 37 “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you. 38 “I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father.”

There are only two types of people on this earth, those who have been saved and those who remain unsaved.  There is only one way to be saved and that is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  In order to have faith in Christ a person must know who He is, know what He has done and believe that the person and work of Jesus is the only means by which He can be saved from sin.  He then must simply ask God to save Him as the desire of His heart.  There are those who know the truth about Christ but refuse to trust Christ.  There are those who understand the Gospel but do not desire to be free from sin.  These people continue to be unsaved.  Jesus stands before these two groups of people and wants to make very sure that they understand to which group they belong.

LIBERATED BY TRUTH: Jesus speaks to those who have claimed to believe in Him and wants to make sure that they truly understand the message of the Gospel and know to which group they belong.  The true test of a disciple is that he will continue in the Words of Jesus.  It is easy to claim to believe, but the true disciple will continue to believe.  They will know what the truth is, trust in the truth and be liberated by that truth and then continue to walk in accordance with the word of God.  Man is a slave to sin without Christ; but He can be set free by the power of Christ.  The idea of being liberated by the truth was offensive to the Jewish people in the days of Jesus and it continues to be offensive to many people today.  It is offensive because being liberated implies being enslaved in the first place.  As descendants of Abraham these Jews who claimed to believe refused to recognize that they were enslaved to anyone.  In reality, what they were saying is that their salvation did not depend upon their faith in Christ but was dependent up their nationality.  Jesus wants to make sure that these people understand that only the truth can liberate them from sin.

CAPTIVATED BY SIN: People can be liberated from prison or liberated from slavery and thanks to the Father sending the Son, we can be liberated from sin.  Most people do not even recognize that they have been captivated by sin.  This is because we are all born as captives to sin.  Sin enslaves us and will eventually condemn those who do not believe to an eternity imprisoned in the lake of fire.  In order to be captivated by sin, man must do absolutely nothing because he is born into that captivity.  This was very difficult for the Jewish man to accept or understand.  They were convinced that as descendants of Abraham, they had been born free from sin.  Jesus wants to make it crystal clear to them that this simply was not the case.  As the Son of God, Jesus has the power to truly set us free from sin.  And those who He does free will truly live in that freedom.  This is where things get very difficult for most people.  Everyone wants to be free from hell, but there are only a very few people who truly want to be free from sin.  In general people love their sin and the true desire of their heart is to continue living in their sin.  They only fear the consequences of sin.  In short, they are captivated by their sin and the worst part of it is that they actually like it.


APPLICATION: Since freedom from sin is found through the truth of God’s Word, we must learn to love God’s Word, live according to God’s Word and dig deeper and deeper into the truth of God’s Word.  Recognize that sin is captivating and that there are very likely areas of sinfulness in our lives that have captivated our hearts and minds to the point that we don’t even recognize it.  Cry out to Jesus for Him to search our hearts, reveal our hearts and free our hearts from sin through faith in His glorious person and work.

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