31 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. 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 the works 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 the works 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 does not stand in 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.”
“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free?’”
The Jews were a proud nation, so the question they asked Jesus in verse 33 was nothing short of remarkable. For a nation so proud of their history, how easily they forgot that they had been in bondage to, or occupied by many countries, including Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Syria. In fact, as they asked Jesus their question, they were under Roman occupation. The Romans had taken over their land, forced them to pay taxes to Caesar, and subjected them to Roman laws. They were an occupied nation in slavery to their conquerors, but in their determination to argue with Jesus at every opportunity, they chose to ignore the one thing that dominated almost every current affairs discussion: How are we going to get rid of the Romans?
The reality of their political situation was staring them in the face, yet they had the audacity to tell Jesus that they had never been enslaved to anyone. We might laugh at the absurdity of it all, but it just goes to show that when you believe a lie long enough, eventually you’ll convince yourself that it’s true.
Their denial of the truth is an accurate picture of the fact that the greatest bondage we are enslaved to is the one thing that we’re not even aware of. The greatest bondage is thinking we are free, while we are anything but free. You hear it all the time - people who claim to be “free spirits” and “free thinkers,” when the truth is they are slaves to the sinful culture they live in.
If you want to upset someone, tell them they are not free, but are, in fact, in bondage. And if you really want to press the point home, tell them they are in bondage to sin.
The Jews that Jesus was talking to in John 8 were furious that He would even suggest that He was the one who could set them free, because His implication was that they were not. Their indignation is proof that their bondage to sin was the reason for their refusal to believe who He claimed to be: the Son of God.
In verse 12 Jesus said to them, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life,” and the ongoing conversation with His listeners continues throughout chapter 8. As Jesus claims to be the light of the world, He contrasts this truth with the darkness of bondage, ignorance and depravity. These were God’s chosen covenant people, but because of their bondage to sin and the darkness that brought, they simply would not and could not accept the teachings of the very Messiah they had been hoping and praying for. There is more than a little truth to the old saying, “None so blind as those who will not see.”
Because they assumed their status as God’s chosen people was enough for their salvation, they rejected the Saviour whom God had promised to send. The Christian author Richard Phillips wrote, “Crying out from behind the prison bars of their darkened unbelief, they insisted, ‘We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved.’”
Jesus then gets right to the point in verse 34. “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.” This is our biggest problem, and our greatest need is to be set free from our bondage to sin. Slavery is a terrible thing, something which still continues in some parts of the world, but there is no greater slavery than slavery to sin, and it is the burden of every human being.
We are enslaved by the desires of the flesh, and because of this, we continue to fall into sin every day. Why is sin such a problem? Why do we continue to struggle with sin? The simple answer is that we love our sin, and we want to do the things that we like, regardless of what God or others might say. Sin is an expression of what we incorrectly think is our freedom to do what we like, but in reality, the sins we continue to commit are actually an outward expression of the inner slavery we are in bondage to. Our nature is enslaved to sin - so much so that the true condition of our hearts is far worse than we might think.
In our natural state we are fallen and totally depraved. The prophet Isaiah, in chapter 1 was writing about the people of Judah, but he perfectly encapsulates the universal human condition. “Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken: ‘Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.’ Ah, sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are utterly estranged. Why will you still be struck down? Why will you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it.” (Isaiah 1:2-6)
This is one of the fundamental Biblical doctrines which stands in direct opposition to worldly thinking. The Bible teaches that man is not good, but sinful. God created man good, but we have fallen into evil. Remember, we are not sinners because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners. It is a nature we are born with. David wrote in Psalm 51:5, “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” At the moment of our conception, at the very instant life begins, we are corrupted by sin, and this is something which affects us all.
As Paul wrote in Romans 3:10-12, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
This is what is known as the doctrine of original sin. Original sin is not the very first sin, where Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Rather, it is the condition into which we are all born. Adam and Eve, when they were created perfect, were not affected by original sin, but because they fell into sin, their first child Cain was the first to be born in bondage to original sin, and this has been passed down to every human being since.
We live in a world where we like to think we are free, but we are not. Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “The world is in unutterable slavery. Oh, the power of this darkness! Why do we keep on doing things that we know are wrong? Why do we do things that we know hurt us? Why do we do these things though we know something of their consequences?” The answer to those questions is easy. It is our slavery to sin, or as Jesus said in John 8:34, “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.”
But it gets worse. We are enslaved not only by our sinful nature, but also by the actual sins that we commit. When we first come face to face with the temptation to sin, we delude ourselves into thinking we are in control, and that we are able to deal with it. We think that we are the masters and the sin is the servant, only to find out later on that the exact opposite is true. Sin always takes us further than we intended to go, and it keeps us in bondage much longer than we ever thought it would, and the reason is that when we sin, we are merely deepening our enslavement to sin. Feed the monster long enough, and eventually it will feed on us.
We might resist temptation at first, but once we give in, the resistance weakens. William Barclay wrote, “Before long, instead of doing what he likes, the man who sins does not do what he likes; he does what sin likes. Far from doing what he likes, the sinner has lost the power to do what he likes. He is a slave to the habits, the self-indulgences, the wrong pleasures which have mastered him.”
This is why we need Jesus. He said in verse 36, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Unless we are set free by putting our faith in Christ, we will die in our sins, and we will have to bear the awful consequences of our sin ourselves for all of eternity. Jesus said in verse 24, “Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” The Father sent the Son into this world to free us from our bondage and slavery to sin, and unless we receive Him in faith, at the end of our lives, all that will be left is the condemnation of God’s just wrath at our sin.
Jesus said something very interesting in verse 35: “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.” The Jews mistakenly believed they were free from bondage because they were Abraham’s children, but Jesus pointed out that not all of Abraham’s children had the privileges of sonship passed down to them. His first son Ishmael was born to the slave woman Hagar. For a while he lived in Abraham’s house, and he was cared for by Abraham.
This is a picture of what is known as God’s common grace. Every human being, whether Christian or not, is a beneficiary of God’s common grace. Jesus said of the Father in Matthew 5:45, “He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
There is an infinite difference though, between God’s common grace and His saving grace. Ishmael was not the heir of the promise, and eventually he was sent away.
Sarah said to Abraham in Genesis 21:10, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir.” By referring to this in John 8, Jesus is teaching the spiritual meaning of this episode. Even a son of Abraham would not be accepted by God while he was a slave to sin.
Abraham’s second son Isaac though, was born of grace. He remained in Abraham’s household and as a true son of faith, Isaac became a beneficiary of the covenant promises of God.
What Jesus was doing here was warning the Pharisees. If they continued to reject the Son of God, they would have no hope of salvation, despite their human ancestry. Just as Abraham and Isaac trusted the promises of God, they needed to do the same if they were to receive the rights of true sons. John wrote in 1:12, “To all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.”
This is what the Gospel is all about. We have fallen into slavery to sin, and our only hope of being set free from the condemnation of our sin is to be adopted into God’s spiritual family, through faith in Jesus Christ. “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Paul writes in Romans 6:23, “The wages of sin is death,” and in 2:5 he gives a stern warning to those who continue to reject salvation through Christ. “Because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.” God is perfectly just and His righteous and holy wrath is promised against all sin. The big question is, how can sinners be set free? The answer is Jesus Christ.
Jesus has redeemed those who trust in Him by the price of His blood shed on the cross. Because of our sin we owe a debt to God that we cannot pay, but Jesus has done it for us. As Peter wrote, “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.” (1 Peter 1:18–19)
Jesus frees us from the guilt of our sin, but He also frees us from its power over us. Romans 6:14 says, “Sin will have no dominion over you.” This is an important point for us to remember as we grow in grace. Paul also writes in Romans 8:2, “The law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.” As His blood frees us from sin’s penalty, Jesus now sends His Spirit to free us from the power of sin. We’ll be singing the hymn Rock of Ages in a moment, which contains the line, “Be of sin the double cure; cleanse me from its guilt and power.”
Now of course, we remain sinners in a sinful world. Until such time as we are in glory and set free from the presence of sin for eternity, we will continue to struggle with temptation and sin, but the Christian is no longer condemned or held captive by sin. It is so important for us to remember this truth, especially when we do feel like we’re being led astray once more. We can take encouragement from passages of Scripture like Ephesians 4:22-24. “Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” In other words, you might continue to sin, but you no longer continue in sin. Jesus Christ has set you free. He has set you free indeed.
This is why as Christians, we no longer fear death. Jesus makes this wonderful promise in John 5:24 - “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes Him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.”
Without salvation in Christ, there is no escape from the penalty and power of sin. Jesus’ words in John 8:24 again, “Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”
The Presbyterian minister John Flavel wrote in the 17th century, “How could it be imagined that ever those who owed unto God more than ever they could pay by their own eternal sufferings; those that were under the dreadful curse and condemnation of the law, in the power and possession of Satan; those that were bound with so many chains in their spiritual prison; their understanding bound with ignorance, their wills with obstinacy, their hearts with impenetrable hardness, their affections with a thousand bewitching vanities. For such persons to be set at liberty notwithstanding all this, is the wonder of wonders, and will be deservedly marvellous in the eyes of believers forever.”
Jesus though, was not finished with the Pharisees. In verse 33 they said, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone.” But how mistaken they were. Their heritage and ancestry would not save them. Jesus said to them in verse 37, “I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.” Paul addressed the same issue in Romans 9:6-7. “Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring.”
Romans 4:11 says that Abraham is “the father of all who believe.” Abraham trusted the promises of God, and in so doing, he is our spiritual model. We become God’s children when we exercise the same faith that Abraham did. In John 8, Jesus points out the difference between the Pharisees and Abraham when He says, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me.” (John 8:39–40). In verse 37, He said to them, “My word finds no place in you,” despite their claims that Abraham was their father.
Jesus then raises the bar even higher by telling them that not only were they not Abraham’s spiritual children, but He says in verse 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 does not stand in 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.”
We can only imagine their consternation when they heard these words, but His statement is true of all those who reject Jesus and who do not turn to Him in repentance and faith. I said earlier that if you want to offend people, tell them they are in bondage to sin. Jesus here, goes even further. Sinners do not like being told they are lost and are on the road to eternal destruction, but our opinions of the truth do not alter the truth.
The reason so many do not believe in Jesus is that they are not children of Abraham, the man of faith, but are children of Satan. Of course, no one likes to hear this, but look around you. Look at what history has taught us about the human condition. The evidence is there to see. The world is a dark place, and it is getting darker - not brighter - with each passing day.
When Jesus says in verse 44, “Your will is to do your father’s desires,” He is describing the bondage of human will in sin. We like to talk about our freedom to do what we like, but Jesus tells us that we are enslaved to serve our father, the devil. That’s the reality of those who live without Christ as their Saviour.
He continues in the next verse. “Because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.” (John 8:45)
In Jesus Christ, the truth is staring us in the face, just as it did for the Pharisees all those years ago, but because of our slavery to sin, we will not hear the truth, or as Paul writes in Romans 1:18, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.”
The Bible teacher Arthur Pink wrote, “Unbelieving man will give credence to the most grotesque absurdities, but will regard with skepticism what comes to him with a thousand fully authenticated credentials. Some will believe that there are no such things as sin and death. Some will believe that instead of being the descendants of fallen Adam, they are the offspring of evolving apes. Some believe they have no souls and that death ends all. Others imagine that they can purchase heaven with their own works. O the blindness and madness of unbelief!”
In the last verse we’re looking at today, Jesus says, “Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” (John 8:47) There is an echo here of Jesus’ words in 6:44. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws Him.” Pamela McQuade, in her book “How Do I Get To Heaven” wrote of this verse, “The truth is that if we were left to our own desires, caught in our own sin, we would never come to Him at all.”
Salvation, from start to finish, is by the grace of God alone. As Jonathan Edwards said in a sermon once, “You contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”
Jesus tells us in verse 47 that because of our slavery to sin we are so spiritually blinded that we are not able to understand or receive God’s Word. Yet people are still coming to salvation in Christ! How does this happen? By the grace of God, and all to the glory of God.
Because of His amazing gift of grace, you can become a child of God through faith in Jesus Christ. “To all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (John 1:12–13)
That is the hope of the Gospel of Christ. Believe in Him, and you will no longer be a child of the devil but a child of God. As Jesus promised in John 8:31-32, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Homegroup Study Notes
Read John 8:31-47
The answer given by the Pharisees to Jesus in verse 33 was simply not true. Israel had a history of being oppressed and enslaved (they were under Roman occupation at the time).
How does their denial of the facts reflect the reality of the world today – a world which thinks it is free, but is enslaved to sin?
What is the doctrine of original sin, and how does it affect us all?
The Jews mistakenly believed that they were heirs of the promise because they were the physical descendants of Abraham. We often hear the saying that we are all God’s children.
How does John 1:12-13 stand against this false teaching?
How do you feel about non-believers being called children of the devil (see verse 44)?
How would you approach this when sharing the Gospel with someone who is genuinely seeking the truth?
Read verse 36 again.
What, exactly, does Jesus set us free from, and how do we receive this freedom?