Following our honeymoon back in the spring of 1974, Sue and I made a home together. Until then, we were building a relationship. After, we were living in one. And although aspects of the building process continue to this day, when we began living out our love under the same roof – abiding with each other – we began to discover the liberty that results from knowing and being known by someone in the context of loving intimacy. And that’s what calls to me from John 8:30-36.
It tells us that many of the Jewish bystanders overhearing Jesus’ clear, firm, direct, and poignant responses to their leaders in the preceding verses chose to place their faith in him as a result. And that isn’t surprising. The words of Jesus are always deeply compelling. But he challenged these new believers to become followers not simply fans. He invited those who’d been moved by what he’d said to become true disciples by living in his message. He welcomed them to abide in it – to linger, dwell, be present, and make their home within its depths.
And he went on to describe the powerful progression that results. He said that abiding results in knowing and knowing produces freedom.
From it’s opening verses, John’s Gospel has revealed Jesus to be the word of God made flesh – the message of God in person. So, abiding in it means much more than intellectually exploring a set of principles or philosophies. It means daily exposing your deepest self to the Lord’s influence. He said that exposure results in a type of knowledge that’s far more than just comprehension or understanding. The Greek word translated here as know describes a relationship, and not just with truth in the sense of ideas or concepts. In fact, in John 14:6, Jesus described himself as the truth.
When we live under the sway of the living word of God, our relationship with him becomes deeper, more intimate, more, well, personal. And Jesus was saying relationship with him is what produces true freedom in our lives.
That provoked a strong rebuttal from the religious leaders who shouldered their way back into the conversation at this point. They were offended that Jesus would insinuate they needed to be set free from anything. They claimed that as Abraham’s descendants they had never been in bondage.
This is both comic and tragic. It’s funny in the sense that they seem to have forgotten about the Jews’ long history of various periods of enslavement including the hundreds of years they were captives in Egypt not to mention their current status as subjects of Roman authority. The tragedy is, their insistence on a delusion of freedom kept them from being incented to pursue the real thing.
This is all too familiar. For most of us, our pride makes it very difficult to admit we could be bound by anything even though we are. And the Lord went on to explain how. He said that every time we sin – behave in ways that dishonor God, pollute ourselves, or hurt others – we demonstrate the depth of our bondage. Even though we’d like to think otherwise, our actions reveal that we are powerless against our own fallen natures.
But in verse 36, Jesus declared his authority as the Son of God to end our captivity and liberate us fully. When we walk the path that leads from believing on to abiding in and, ultimately, to experientially knowing the love of the one who is truth, the dark deceptions that grip us collapse and we experience true release.
What lie of Satan and/or prideful self-delusion constrains your life and holds you in a cycle of sin you can’t seem to escape? Jesus invites you to move beyond baseline belief and learn to abide in him so you can know the truth that will set you free…free indeed.