[A]nd you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. (John 8:32)
This phrase adorns the buildings and statues on many college campuses. The message is that knowledge of the truth will liberate one’s mind. While that may be true, is that what Jesus was trying to communicate in John 8:32? Let’s take a look at the context.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide 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. (Jn 8:31-36)
The first thing we should notice is that Jesus offered a qualifier. To know the truth one must abide in Jesus’ words as one of His disciples. The truth Jesus had in mind, then, was not any and all truth, but spiritual truth in particular. The truth that will set one free can only be obtained by being a disciple of Jesus and following His teachings.
The second thing to notice is that Jesus was very specific about the kind of freedom He had in mind: freedom from sin. We are slaves to sin, but the truth that Jesus provides will set us free from sin (34-36). Jesus was not referring to liberation of thought or feeling, but freedom from sin.
The meaning of John 8:32, then, is that when we follow Jesus’ teachings we will know spiritual truths that will lead to our freedom from sin.
Keep it in context…
Thinking to Believe 
December 16, 2016 at 7:36 pm
I wish I came up with this series title first! Great idea and great post!
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December 18, 2016 at 7:34 pm
Belief is the deepest black hole of humanity.
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December 21, 2016 at 12:17 pm
A lot is made of the word “abide” these days.
In context, to abide means to dwell or live in. If the word of God is “in” us we will be set free. This is what Jesus is saying to those Jews who had begun to believe in Him. Notice that this is before Pentecost and the Spirit did not “abide” in them yet, only they had begun to believe in Jesus’ teachings.
Jesus goes on to make a distinction between those who “practice” sin (slaves to sin) to those who are sons and are set free from sin.
So how are we set free ? We are set free when the Son sets us free. So its something that someone (Jesus) does to us, henceforth calling us sons. As sons we don’t “practice” (try to get good at it by repetition) sin because we have the Word, the Spirit, living in us when we are born again. So if Jesus sets us free, we are free indeed because He’s the one setting us free and if He remains in the house forever, then we also remain in the house forever as sons and not slaves.
Again, the setting free Jesus is referring to is a future time when the Holy Spirit would be poured out and people could receive Christ living in them.
What is the “truth” that sets us free ?
In those days the Jews did not have the full picture yet when Jesus spoke these words to them. Those that began to follow Him would need to continue in order to receive the truth that would set them free. That would not happen until Jesus was crucified and raised again. Only those that continued to believe unto salvation would be set free. There is no doubt that some of them fell away from the grace of God and resorted back to the temple after the death of Christ.
The truth that sets us free is the gospel, the death and resurrection of Christ. It is important that we make a distinction between the truth that sets us free versus Christian principles, character and conduct, otherwise we could read these verses and walk away thinking that as long as I live according to Christian principles then I will be set free from sin. This is not freedom but bondage since you will never measure up.
Freedom from sin is to be loosed from sin and no longer be under the power of sin. The power of sin is death so even when we stumble and commit a sin, sin has no power to bring spiritual death upon us. We are truly set free from sin !
Naz
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December 22, 2016 at 12:03 pm
Naz:
You might think that “The truth that sets us free is the gospel, the death and resurrection of Christ.” but I think you’d be wrong with that simplistic view.
You see Naz, truth and knowledge go hand in hand, not truth and belief. So to say that “Only those that continued to believe unto salvation would be set free.” is to miss the point of what Jesus was saying. Abide means to accept or act in accordance with a rule, decision, recommendation. Or in the case of Jesus, his word, his message, is acted upon—practiced.
There is a parallel verse in Hebrews that emphasizes this truth that will set you free, and that truth is the truth of knowledge. When you follow Jesus’s word you will discover the knowledge that clarifies what truth is, that it actually works but you can only discover the truth of knowledge by practice.
When my daughter was in high chair age, after eating she would ask to be set free from the high chair and I would lift her up and set her on the floor; she had only recently started walking by herself. Eventually however there came a time when I had to teach her to release herself from the high chair. And when that eventful day came she needed to trust my word; she had to believe in what I was saying, in order to free herself from the high chair by herself but she could only arrive at that point, of the truth of knowledge, by doing it herself, by practicing it herself.
And so I coaxed her to slide down under the hinged table top she ate from, slowly, and edge herself downward until she reached the floor. But that did not come easy because she was scared she could not reach the floor that way. She wanted me to lift her as usual but I said “it’s okay, just a little bit more and you’ll touch the floor”, and slowly she nudged herself, hesitantly an inch at a time as she desperately tried to touch the floor with her toes extended. “It’s okay” I assured her, “you’re almost there” amidst a few more sounds of “awes & ahh’s”…and a few more coaxes of “come on”………. Suddenly her eyes went wide and her whimpering ceased and a smile creased her face…her toes touched the carpet and wow! she knew my word was true but it was her, by practice, that set herself free from the high chair and she went wobbling away skipping to the bathroom where she started to pull down her panties wanting to use her potty….not only was she set free from the highchair, she was at that very moment free of diapers; she was toilet trained from that moment forward.
The parallel verse I mentioned earlier is found in Hebrews chapter 5——————Hebrews, chapter 5 in the 14th verse……You will never be able to eat solid spiritual food and understand the deeper things of Jesus’s Word abiding in you until you become better and learn right from wrong by practicing doing right.
I like it the way it’s rendered in the New American Standard Bible(NASB)
“But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained up to discern good and evil.”
And who by practice choose the good. This is where the rubber meets the road; where the toe touches the floor, .
This is not belief anymore; this is truth; this is knowledge, sought after because of the belief in Jesus’s word but attained only, by practice———– and then that truth will set you free.
From drinking baby milk to eating solid food.
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December 29, 2016 at 9:52 am
Heb 5:9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,
Heb 5:10 being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.
Heb 5:11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing.
Leo, in the correct context this is not about acquiring knowledge so that I can practice good deeds and know right from wrong. While practicing good is a good thing, this is not about that. That interpretation is lifting one verse out of context. Discerning good and evil here can be thought of discerning what is true and what is false, what is of God and what is of man, what is of grace versus what is of Law. The focus here is doctrine or the correct knowledge and understanding of what Jesus did and what it means.
The Hebrews had become dull of hearing and did not believe and/or understand the elementary concepts of the doctrine of Christ (see Hebrews 6:1-2). Solid food is the deeper things of God which these Hebrews could not receive because they did not ingest the milk of the gospel yet and were on the fence with respect to Christ.
So YES, I agree the gospel is “simplistic”, as you said, yet it is this simple milk we need to ingest so we can be born again.
Naz
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