How can we be truly free?

“Father”

(John 8:12-59, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, May 17, 2009)

John 8:12-59 ¹² Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." ¹³ So the Pharisees said to him, "You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true." ¹⁴ Jesus answered, "Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. ¹⁵ You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. ¹⁶ Yet even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for it is not I alone who judge, but I and the Father who sent me. ¹⁷ In your Law it is written that the testimony of two men is true. ¹⁸ I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me." ¹⁹ They said to him therefore, "Where is your Father?" Jesus answered, "You know neither me nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also." ²⁰ These words he spoke in the treasury, as he taught in the temple; but no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come. ²¹ So he said to them again, "I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you cannot come." ²² So the Jews said, "Will he kill himself, since he says, 'Where I am going, you cannot come'?" ²³ He said to them, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. ²⁴ I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins." ²⁵ So they said to him, "Who are you?" Jesus said to them, "Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. ²⁶ I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him." ²⁷ They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father. ²⁸ So Jesus said to them, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. ²⁹ And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him." ³⁰ As he was saying these things, many believed in him. ³¹ So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in 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 commits 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. ³⁷ I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. ³⁸ I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father." ³⁹ They answered him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing what Abraham did, ⁴⁰ but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. ⁴¹ You are doing what your father did." They said to him, "We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father- even God." ⁴² Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. ⁴³ Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. ⁴⁴ You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. ⁴⁵ But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. ⁴⁶ Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? ⁴⁷ Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God." ⁴⁸ The Jews answered him, "Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?" ⁴⁹ Jesus answered, "I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. ⁵⁰ Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge. ⁵¹ Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death." ⁵² The Jews said to him, "Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, 'If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.' ⁵³ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?" ⁵⁴ Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, 'He is our God.' ⁵⁵ But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. ⁵⁶ Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad." ⁵⁷ So the Jews said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" ⁵⁸ Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." ⁵⁹ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

The Son of the Father (12-29)

In the previous chapter of John’s gospel, at the Feast of Tabernacles, that feast that celebrates God dwelling with His people, our Savior cried out in the temple in Jerusalem that whoever would believe in Him, out of his heart would flow rivers of living water. It is from the heavenly temple of God that a river of life flows. Jesus is the Temple of the Holy Spirit, and He has promised that in Him we shall truly be the temple of the Holy Spirit, of which He is the Cornerstone. Here in John 8, Jesus says, “I am the Light of the world.” He also says that His being the Light of the world will mean something to those who are united to Him. We will walk in light, and have the light of life through our union with Him. In saying these things, Jesus identifies Himself publicly as much more than a teacher, or even a prophet. He is instructing anyone with ears to hear, that they should be spiritually united with Him, in order to share in the benefits of intimate connection with the One who is not only fully man, but also fully God.

When the Son of God came to save, He came to a world that was not universally willing to receive Him. As His claims concerning His identity became clearer to people, the antagonism of those who would not believe also became more obvious. At root, Jesus claimed to be true, and especially that He was true to the Father in the fullest meaning of those words. Those who rejected Him insisted that He was just plain false. He claimed that what He was saying was precisely what the Father would say, because these two are one. Their agreement was not a compromise by two differing parties, but the perfect eternal determination of the one voice of God. The mind of Jesus is the heavenly mind, the divine mind. He told those who were disturbed by His words, “Unless you believe that I-AM, you will die in your sins.” He also spoke of His being “lifted up,” without saying what those words meant on this occasion, though we learn exactly what they mean in John 12:32. What is clear here is that Jesus is definitively asserting that He always does the things that are pleasing to the Father. It is this sinless Son of God who would be lifted up on the cross to die for our sins. Unless you believe in Him, the perfectly obedient Servant of the Lord and the great I-AM, you will die in your sins. These are His own words, and we need to take them seriously.

The freedom of sons (30-32)

There were some, we are told, who believed in Him as He was saying these things. His instruction to them was clear and wonderfully simple. “Abide in my Word, and you are truly my disciples.” Many people may be interested in the Word of this Man who makes such great claims of connection with the Father, but some stay with that Word, and live in that Word, they settle their lives upon that Word, and they are called disciples, learners, followers of Jesus Christ. To them, Christ made a great promise. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

We were created to be free, but sin has made us slaves, and foolish slaves at that. Foolish slaves of sin think that they have reached the height of freedom when they are perfectly autonomous, free to choose what they want. Yet when they choose sin, they are not free at all. Real freedom comes through finding our place as servants of God, and even sons of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, and then in pursuing the fullest obedience to God’s commandments from a heart that has been freed by God to willingly and eagerly do what we were created to do. The Agent of such a change of life in a human being can been none other than God Himself, but He indicates here that He does this work through people coming to know the truth as they hear and even abide in the Word of Christ.

Sons of Abraham? (33-55)

It is very plain that Jesus was insisting that God was His Father. Those who rejected this Word, made two claims about themselves. They first claimed that Abraham was their Father, and then insisted that God was their Father. Both of these claims were part of a larger effort to deny the claim of Jesus, that through His Word they could become free. Their response was very direct. As children of Abraham, and even children of God, they did not need Jesus of Nazareth to make them free. They already were free without any help from Him.

The problem with this claim of freedom is that our sin is a plain fact, and the one who sins is not really free, he is living a life against the will of the Father, because He is sinning against the Father. We can call that freedom, but it leads only to God’s judgment. To be eternally judged by God is not to be free. According to the fullest understanding of freedom, there is only one Man who is free in Himself, and that Man is Jesus Christ, because Jesus did not sin. The rest of us, after the fall of mankind, are by nature slaves of sin, even though we may be the most autonomous creatures on the face of the planet. We may do whatever we want, or perhaps we dream of doing whatever we want, and we think that makes us free. Yet we sin, and we are slaves of sin. Jesus was truly free, and only in Him can we call God our Father and find the true freedom of the sons of God that we were created to be.

This free Man became the Servant of the Lord to win our true freedom. He died for sin that was not His own. But in that death, He won for us freedom in Him. Just as we are the temple of God because He is the Temple of God, and we are the light of the world because He is the Light of the world, it is in freedom Christ that we are free.

If the enemies of Christ that day were really sons and followers of Abraham, and sons of followers of God, then they would have done what Abraham did. They would have heard the Word of God and believed. They showed themselves to be sons and followers of the devil, who rebelled against the Word of God. They needed the Son of God, the One who was so radically free of sin, to become a sin offering for them, to atone for their sins, in order that they might truly be free, but they would not hear Him and believe. They could not bear to hear His Word.

I-AM (56-59)

Abraham did not hate the Messiah to come. Abraham did not resent Melchizedek, the mysterious Christ-like figure of Genesis 14, the King of Righteousness, and the King of Peace who seemed to come out of nowhere. Abraham did not reject the Voice of God when God provided a Messiah-like ram in the thicket as a substitute for His Son Isaac. Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Jesus, because He knew that the Messiah was greater than Him. He believed, and it was counted to Him as righteousness.

When our Lord said to those against Him that day, “Before Abraham was, I-AM,” He stood on the truth that He not only knew Abraham, and that He knew God His Father, but that He was and is God forever. They got the point, so they picked up stones to stone Him as a blasphemer.

We hear the Word of this Jesus, and we rejoice with Abraham. We are content to be united with Him and to honor Him forever. Because He is the Son of God, we are sons of God through Him, for He was lifted up on the cross for our transgressions, and He was raised for our justification.

1. In what sense is Jesus the Son of the Father? What does that mean for us?

2. What does it mean to abide in the Word of Jesus Christ?

3. What is the difference between complete autonomy and perfect freedom? How does sin enslave us?

4. How can we (and others) be truly free?