Jesus is talking with the Pharisees. He has just said in v. 32 – “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” We ended last time talking about how we are bound by our sins. We talked specifically about prejudice, hate, unforgiveness, loneliness and others. And we said that if we have any of these bad qualities, then we are not abiding in God’s Word.
Because Jesus told us that if we will abide in His Word, as a Christian is supposed to do, then we will know the truth and the truth will set you free. If, for instance, you are prejudice against another race or religion or culture or social class, then you are not free and it’s obvious to everyone that you don’t know the truth because you are not abiding in God’s Word.
Let’s face it. Sin enslaves us. We might deny it, but we are still enslaved by sin. Just think about it, greed enslaves people, lust and selfishness enslave us. Let’s break down this passage and see what it tells us.
READ 33. These guys misunderstood Jesus. They thought He was referring to being conquered and enslaved by a foreign nation. So, they denied it. But if the truth were told, the Jewish nation HAD been conquered by many nations and was in fact being ruled by the Romans at that very time. Nonetheless, they denied it.
What they meant by not ever being enslaved is that they had never surrendered their will to any ruler. They had always given their allegiance to God, not to men, no matter how powerful the men were.
We know that Jesus meant something entirely different. He meant that the Jews and all other men were enslaved by sin. They couldn’t help sinning no matter how much they tried not to sin. And people will tell you, that because they come from a godly heritage, (maybe it’s a Christian family, or a family line of preachers, whatever), that that makes them acceptable to God.
The Jews claimed they were the seed, the descendants or the children of Abraham, the children of one of the godliest men who ever lived. They felt that his godliness and the godliness of those who followed him made their nation and its people very special to God. They felt acceptable to God no matter how they lived. They believed that every true Jew was covered by the godliness of their forefathers.
Most people today believe the same thing. They deny being so enslaved by sin that they are unacceptable to God. They say, “I feel that I am a good person.” People believe that God will accept them, that they have enough good heritage to receive God’s approval. They feel they haven’t done enough bad to be enslaved to sin nor to be rejected by God. They feel that their heritage—their parents, their family, their friends, their good works, something in their lives—is good enough to keep them from being enslaved and doomed.
READ 34-36. Jesus is trying to prove His point that these guys are enslaved to sin. So He starts off by saying “everyone who sins” insinuating the all sin. By the way, this is a continuous action verb in Greek. Man continues to commit sin. I guess we could even say that we can’t keep from sinning so that makes us a slave to sin.
The word slave means a slave or bond-slave. The bond-slave was purchased and bound to the person who bought him. The idea is that man is bought by sin. When a person sins, they are giving themselves over to sin. They become enslaved to sin.
Jesus continues. A slave is not a permanent member of a family, but the Son is. The slave has no rights and no claims to privileges within the family. He is a slave and can be rejected and cast out of the house anytime, but not the Son.
The Son is always the Son. He has all the rights and privileges to the house. Now Jesus takes it a step further. He says that there is a way the slave can become a member of the house. The Son can free the slave and ask the Father to adopt him, and if the Son makes the slave free, the slave is free indeed.
Intertwined in all this are four significant things that Jesus expresses: Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Man is in slavery to sin. Jesus Christ can free man. Man can be adopted.
READ 37. A second proof that a person is enslaved in sin is when that person opposes and makes no room in their heart for Jesus’ Word. Why does a person, in general reject Christ?
1. He doesn’t believe the claims that Jesus makes.
2. He refuses to deny himself and take up the cross as Christ asks.
3. The person doesn’t want the claims of Jesus to control his life; he wants to do his own thing and to live as he pleases.
4. So he rejects Christ and goes about trying to fulfill his own desires.
5. Some even go to the extent of speaking against Christ and those who follow Christ.
6. So he wants little to do with Christ.
7. He wants Christ to have little if any say-so in his life.
So, a person fills his heart with so much worldly stuff that he leaves no room for Christ.
READ 38. What Jesus is telling them is that they are following the wrong father—in this case, the devil. There’s a strong contrast between the Father of Christ and the father of man, the devil.
Jesus says that what He speaks is what He has seen in His Father’s presence. Christ came from the very presence of God so what He saw came from the Father. Again, Jesus is saying that what He spoke was God’s Word.
Then Jesus goes on to say that what man does is what he sees and hears with his father. Jesus identifies the father of man as the devil. We don’t see it in tonight’s passage but in v. 44 He specifically identifies the father of man as the devil.
And what Jesus is saying is that Man, walking in sin, is by the very side of the devil. So much of what man does is of the devil. What are the deeds of the devil that man does? Lust, murder, failure to hold the truth. No man is free from these deeds of the devil. Once again, man is enslaved by sin and desperately needs to be set free. Just think! If people were freed of these devilish deeds, what a different world this would be!
READ 39-40.
The fourth proof that man is enslaved by sin is that he fails to do the works of Abraham. What is said at this point is crucial.
1. The Jews cried out, “Abraham is our Father. Our Father was a good man, a man of great goodness. And our people have done enough good through the years for us to claim God as our father. Our father is certainly God, not someone else.”
Few people would ever say the devil is their father. But some would say that there is too much good that is done on earth for the devil to be called the father of the world or of man.
2. So Jesus replies, “If you were Abraham’s children then you would do the things that Abraham did. Two works in particular are mentioned.
a. Abraham didn’t attempt to kill the messengers of truth. He didn’t oppose the messengers of the truth but received and accepted the truth whenever a messenger crossed his path. But many of the people were set on getting rid of Jesus.
b. Abraham believed God and the truth of God.
The point Jesus was making is this: a person cannot claim the goodness of others for himself. If a man is a child of Abraham’s faith, that is, of God:
He will do the things Abraham did which was to believe and diligently seek God and continue in the truth.
He wouldn’t do the works of the devil which Jesus was pointing out to them that it was the work of the devil for them to be thinking of killing Him.
So, we close tonight with Jesus’ thoughts.
The true child of God does the things of the Lord. He believes the truth and receives it on faith. A person who is not a child of God is always contesting what the Word of God says. They don’t believe it because they don’t have faith.
And a true child of God doesn’t try to kill or eliminate the greatest truth God has given to this earth, the truth of His own Son.
