So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:31-32
Free to Obey
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered Him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never 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 practices sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:31-36
Truly His Disciples
According to Jesus, He says that we are truly His disciples if we continue in His Word / adhere to His teachings. True disciples of Jesus go beyond mere intellectual assent to the historical facts of the gospel. Through authentic faith, true disciples demonstrate our trust by not only acknowledging Jesus’ words as truth but also by putting them into practice. This highlights the importance of actions as evidence of faith, as clarified in James 2:14-26.
True disciples of Jesus believe that He speaks the truth about God and the Scriptures. True disciples also know that Jesus is who He claims to be: The Messiah. Therefore, true disciples trust everything Jesus says and commands, and we desire to demonstrate that trust. (Of course, not perfect trust and obedience, but genuine trust and loving obedience, by the power of His grace). True disciples of Jesus will practice righteousness rather than sin. We will live out the Truth by our actions. What's in our hearts will be manifest in the way we live and conduct ourselves. We won’t merely profess Jesus as Lord with empty words and continue to live in sin and unbelief (Titus 1:16). True disciples will show the evidence of the grace of God working in our hearts and the transforming work of the Holy Spirit through His Word.
Jesus says, “Then you will know the truth.” (v 32) “You” refers to those who are true disciples of Jesus. True disciples will not only know the Truth, but our eyes will be opened to a greater and greater understanding of it (1 John 5:20).
Free from What?
Jesus’ disciples find freedom in the truth they receive. Jesus goes on to say, “And the truth will set you free” (v 32). During that period, the Jews were living under Roman rule. They were under Roman oppression through soldiers, governors, and kings. Jesus, however, was not referring to political freedom when He spoke about the truth setting them free. In verse 34, Jesus clarifies His statement by saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” Being enslaved by sin represents the ultimate form of bondage.
The freedom Jesus offers is not an earthly freedom from government oppression but a spiritual freedom from the bondage of sin— the ultimate release from a lifestyle of sin (freedom from living in unbroken patterns of ongoing, unrepentant sin). Jesus continues with the analogy: “The slave does not remain in the house forever, but the son remains forever” (v 35). Someone is not a member of God’s family simply because of their biological offspring to Abraham (v 37). Someone is not a member of God's family simply because they profess to be one. Someone is not a member of God's family who is a slave to sin. If we are to become true disciples of Jesus, we would know the truth of our sinful condition and the truth about Jesus, and we would believe in Him, and Jesus would set us free from the bondage of sin.
As believers, we are freed from our bondage of sin and welcomed as members into God's family, where we live under grace; where we are finally free to obey Jesus. Before we believed in Jesus, we couldn’t obey Him because we were enslaved to another master…sin. We can only have one master, and as believers, our Master is Jesus now. Amen! We are now obedient from the heart, committed to the teachings of Jesus, set free from sin, and slaves to righteousness (Romans 6:17-18).
Christian Liberty
Jesus died for our sins and rose again, so that by grace through faith in Him, we may have eternal life. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:16) Believing in Jesus brings freedom — freedom from sin, freedom from the tyranny of the Law and working for our salvation, freedom from God’s righteous judgment and eternal wrath against sin, freedom from His condemnation, and freedom from death itself (Romans 6:22, 8:1-2). We are free because Jesus paid it all on the cross for us, and we believe in Him.
Jesus came to earth to proclaim liberty to the captives (Luke 4:18). We all were once captives, working for our salvation under the high demands of the Law, but now as believers, we are free to obey God. We are no longer under the Law. We are under His grace. Our faith demonstrated through our actions is evidence that we have been given new hearts, new natures, and new desires through the new birth. We once didn’t desire to obey God, but now we do. Now we are members of God’s family, children of God, servants of God and slaves of righteousness, and we are truly Jesus' disciples. This is the Christian's liberty. We are free to obey Jesus.
By the power of the Holy Spirit, may we demonstrate our freedom in Christ by obeying our Lord Jesus, through the kind of faith that works through love (Gal 5:6).
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. Romans 6:17-18
Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 1 Peter 2:16