True Disciples and True Freedom
John 8:30-36
We are in John chapter 8. From our previous studies we know this is the Sabbath after the Feast of Tabernacles has concluded. Jesus is teaching in the temple and He had just made His proclamation that He is the light of the world and that those that follow Him would not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life (vs. 12).
The Pharisees challenged Him and charged Him with being a false witness. Jesus responded with three reasons that His witness was true. First, He was from heaven so He knew what He was talking about. Second, He is in agreement with God the Father who sent Him. God is true and He was revealing what the Father had told Him. Third, God the Father bore witness about Jesus. The level of antagonism increased and Jesus very pointedly told them they would die in their sins unless they believed in Him (vs. 24).
As a result of Jesus’ conflict with the Pharisees, they became more antagonistic while others in the crowd listening believed in Him as they heard Him speak (vs. 30). They were rejecting the arguments of the Pharisees and accepting the arguments of Jesus. This was not saving faith yet, as we shall see in a few minutes, and in fact even this belief was short lived in some of them.
But it is to this group, to those who believed Him, to those with this beginning belief that our Lord addresses in this section of John 8 today. Here He gives them both a warning and an invitation. He is going to show them that the true disciple of Jesus has freedom by abiding in His word.
That’s the message our Lord wants us to take from today’s text. It will begin with those who have believed Jesus in some way. Christ will respond by calling them to be true disciples by abiding in His word that can free the soul. The Jews will protest that they are free already. And the Lord will explain that even now they’re enslaved to sin, but He can make them truly free.
Let’s listen to the scripture and then we will see two clear realities that Jesus teaches here in John 8:30-36:
30 As He spoke these words, many believed in Him.
31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.
32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
33 They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say, ‘You will be made free’?”
34 Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.
35 And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever.
36 Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.
We will consider what Jesus teaches here by asking two main questions: 1) Who is a true disciple of Jesus? and 2) What is true freedom in Jesus?
1. Who is a true disciple of Jesus?
John 8:30 tells us, “As He spoke these words, many believed in Him.” From this statement we might think that these people were true believers. After all, that is the goal of Jesus’ teaching and of John’s Gospel, “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” (John 20:31). John wrote in his introduction to the Gospel, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.” (John 1:12).
But we have also seen in this Gospel that there is a kind of believing that is not yet genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. We met some people like that in John 2:23 when “many believed in His name when they saw the signs which He did.” Yet their faith was superficial so 2:24 says, “But Jesus did not commit Himself to them.”
We also saw in chapter 6 that there were some disciples of Jesus that had been attracted by the crowd and the supernatural, who wanted their needs met, but who walked away (John 6:66) when Jesus taught about giving His flesh for the life of the world (John 6:51). Judas, who will betray the Lord, is an example of this kind of false disciple (John 6:70-71).
Verse 31 tells us who Jesus is speaking to here, “Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him.” Remember, normally when John uses the word “Jews,” he’s talking about the Jewish religious leaders primarily, but it would also encompass those who followed them. Are these true believers or do they also have just a superficial faith as we have seen others have?
The context shows that most of them are not true disciples of Jesus. As we look down through the rest of the dialogue in this chapter we learn that not only are they slaves of sin (8:34), also they are seeking to kill Jesus (8:37, 40); God is not their Father (8:42); in fact, they are children of the devil (8:44); they accuse Jesus of having a demon (8:48); they are liars (8:55); and by the end of the chapter they attempt to kill Jesus (8:59).
All of us have known people who have believed for a while and then fell away. Perhaps they came to faith at a time when many of their friends were professing faith in Christ. It was the cool thing to do. Or, maybe they came to Jesus because they were told that He would give them some blessing or solve some difficult problem that they were wrestling with. Starting to believe in Jesus is easy. But when things didn’t go as they had hoped, they fell away. Some now even deny the faith that they once professed.
MacArthur quotes J.C. Ryle who wrote, “This is the most dangerous spiritual condition any person can ever be in where you’re halfway to Christ; inclined to Jesus, inclined to the truth about Jesus, wanting what Jesus provides and what He offers, but not willing to give in to the full demands that He lays on the sinner of repentance and faith in Him, declaration of His lordship, turning from sin toward righteousness.” (The True Freedom of True Discipleship).
Jesus implies that their believing is not yet genuine faith in verse 31 when He says, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.” A disciple simply defined is someone who follows the teachings of another. There are true disciples and there are false disciples. True disciples are not just those who have a beginning faith, but an abiding faith.
The mark of genuine faith is not just mental assent or a verbal profession that you believe in Christ. The mark of true faith is to “abide” in Jesus’ word. So, we need to understand what Christ’s word is and what it means to continue or abide in it.
Christ’s word is everything that He taught, summed up in all that He is and all that He did for us on the cross. Jesus said that all of Scripture speaks of Him, His suffering, and the glory to follow (Luke 24:25-27, 44-46). This is how we go about making disciples that’s why Jesus said in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20), “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you…” That is true, saving faith, the kind that observes, obeys all that Christ has commanded us.
To “abide” is to “dwell in,” “live in,” “remain in,” or “continue in.” The word is used to describe physically dwelling in a house (John 1:38-39) and living with the people in a home (Luke 1:56). In John 15 Jesus uses it to describe the relationship of God the Father with God the Son and of Jesus’ followers to Him.
To abide in Christ’s word means to dwell or be at home in God’s Word. You don’t just visit the Word as an occasional guest. You move in and live there. You wake up there and you return there every night. The Word governs and guides your thinking, your attitudes, your speech, and your behavior. There isn’t any area of your life that is not subject to God’s Word or influenced by it. Continuing or abiding obviously implies time spent in the Word over the long haul.
Let’s get personal. Are you abiding in God’s Word? How much time do you spend daily reading, studying, memorizing, and meditating on God’s Word? Do you “live” in God’s Word?
So who is a true disciple of Jesus? The one who lives in loving obedience to the Word of God. This is not the condition for getting saved; rather, it’s an evidence that you are truly saved. It’s the evidence that your faith in Christ is genuine.
That brings us to the product of true discipleship: true freedom.
2. What is true freedom in Jesus?
Jesus goes on to say in verse 32, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
This is not a general philosophical statement. Jesus is not talking about truths of physics, math, chemistry, biology, or even history. He is talking about the truth of the revelation of God to man. Jesus emphasizes truth over and over again in this dialogue (8:32 [2x], 40, 44 [2x], 45, 46). Truth here refers especially to saving truth. It is the truth of Christ’s Word from verse 31, the truth that we must abide in.
Those who do not know God are in spiritual darkness (Eph. 4:18). They cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14). They do not know why they’re on earth or what will happen after they die. But when we come to know the truth through knowing Christ, all the riches of God’s grace are opened to us (1 Cor. 2:9-10; Col. 2:2-3).
This truth of Christ’s word brings freedom, “the truth shall make you free.” What freedom is Jesus talking about? What does this truth set you free from? It sets you free from the bondage that comes from living in ignorance according to the course of this world with a mind blinded by the deceit and lies of the god of this age. Jesus is talking about the truth that sets you free from the bondage of sin.
Those listening did not understand what Jesus was talking about. Verse 33 records, “They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can you say, ‘You will be made free’?”” Their blindness to truth is seen in the absolutely false nature of their claim to have never been enslaved to anyone. They celebrated Passover and the Exodus each year, but now they deny they had been in slavery in Egypt? How could they forget the deportation of Israel by Assyria and Judea by Babylon? How could they ignore their current subjugation to Rome?
Even if you assume they understood the spiritual nature of what Jesus said, could they really claim that they had never been in spiritual bondage like the rest of the nations who were enslaved to idols? Could they forget about all the warnings and condemnations by so many prophets because of their idolatry? They were blessed to be descended from Abraham, but that had not kept them free.
Jesus destroys their argument and their hope in being Abraham’s descendants in one pointed sentence in verse 34, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.” Genealogical inheritance did not matter. Anyone who sins is the slave of sin.
These Jews thought themselves superior to all other people, but Jesus quickly showed that they had the same sin problem as everyone else. Sin is a master and the chains it forges on a person must be broken by someone stronger. Jesus Christ is the only one that can do that. People can try to deny they are enslaved to sin, like the drunkard that denies he is an alcoholic, but the truth is the truth. Everyone was born enslaved to sin.
Note that religion can’t free a person from slavery to sin. These Jews were as religious as they could be and yet Jesus asserts that they were slaves to sin. They were trying to kill the sinless Son of God, but they thought that they were spiritually free! The first step to being free from sin is to recognize your slavery to it. These Jews refused to recognize their slavery to sin.
They should have understood Jesus’ comments in John 8:35-36, “And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.”
A slave can enjoy the privileges of his master’s house while he is there, but he has no right to remain and could be thrown out at anytime. Hagar’s son, Ishmael, enjoyed the privileges of Abraham’s home until the son of promise, Isaac, was born after which Hagar and Ishmael were cast out. The Jewish nation had enjoyed the special privilege of relationship with God through the Mosaic Law, but the Law was a tutor to lead to the truth, not the final truth itself. Jesus had already been making the claim that He was the promised Messiah, the light of the world, and with that light would come the new covenant. The slave was about to be cast out to make room for the son who would remain forever and could not be cast out.
Only in Jesus Christ can there be true freedom because the one He frees from sin is indeed freed from it. Sin is no longer the master, but righteousness. Until that happens, the person remains a slave to sin.
Paul addresses this issue in Romans 6 in his charge to Christians to no longer live under sin’s slavery:
[Romans 6:16-18] 16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin [leading] to death, or of obedience [leading] to righteousness? 17 But God be thanked that [though] you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
True freedom is freedom from the sin that enslaves. W.A. Criswell asks,
What kind of freedom is that? Soul freedom, conscience freedom, freedom of life, deliverance in Christ from the galling yoke of driving sin. That’s the kind of freedom that Paul and Silas knew: when thrust inside of an inner dungeon, they prayed and sang praises unto God [Acts 16:23-25]. That’s the kind of freedom that John Bunyan had, when for twelve years he was incarcerated in Bedford Jail; but his soul saw visions of God! (Slavery and Freedom).
As Americans we think of ourselves as the land of the free. But just like the Jews of Jesus’ day, our claim to freedom is often empty. Criswell points it out saying,
We pride ourselves in our freedom from want, but we are slaves to appetite and indulgence—consume more liquor, enter more orgies and revelries than all the other nations put together in the world. We pride ourselves on our freedom of speech, and are slaves to profanity and blasphemy and foul and dirty language! We pride ourselves on our freedom of press, and grind out untold tons of pornographic literature … Freedom of worship; but we are slaves to amusement and entertainment.
Isn’t that an astonishing thing, to see a free nation, and yet its citizens enslaved? The sad truth is that there are many people that think themselves to be believers in Jesus Christ, but the reality is that they are still enslaved to sin. For some, their rejection of Christ will become apparent even to themselves even during their life. For others, they may never realize their false belief until they enter eternity and are turned away by Jesus because He never knew them.
True spiritual freedom is not the freedom to sin, but the freedom not to sin. Steven Cole gives an illustration that shows how abiding in Christ’s word sets you free from slavery to sin.
Say that a young man from a pagan, immoral background makes a profession of faith in Christ, but he doesn’t know what the Bible says about how to resist temptation. He still feeds his mind on gross TV shows and movies where couples quickly jump into bed. So he has professed faith in Christ, but he hasn’t learned to abide in Christ’s word. Meanwhile, a cute girl where he works flirts with him every day. She invites him over to her apartment where he yields to her advances. Soon, he’s living the same way he used to live, in slavery to sin.
But take the same young man and say that after he trusts in Christ he begins to abide daily in God’s Word. He reads the Word often and begins to memorize key verses. He listens to sound preaching of the Word. In the process, he reads the story of Joseph and how he resisted the advances of Potiphar’s wife, even though he could have found many excuses for yielding. He learns from Joseph’s Godward focus when he says (Gen. 39:9), “How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?”
He also reads the Book of Proverbs, with its many plain warnings about the dangers of sexual sins. He reads Jesus’ warnings about lust beginning in the heart (Matt. 5:27-30). He memorizes Paul’s warning (1 Cor. 6:18), “Flee immorality,” and the promise in 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” So when the young woman at work acts seductively toward him, he is able to resist and remain pure. Abiding in the Word set him free from his former slavery to sin. (True Freedom).
It works the same way with any sin: anger, jealousy, bitterness, drunkenness, selfishness, or whatever. If you abide in God’s Word, you will be freed from bondage to those sins. If you do not abide in the Word, you will remain enslaved.
That’s the true freedom that comes from being a true disciple of Jesus that abides in His word! If you’re still a slave of sin, Jesus offers you true freedom: “Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (8:36).
Jesus is not just giving you information in this message. He is giving you an invitation. Trust him. He died and he rose again to make you free indeed.
