John 8:31-36 Sermon

First Sunday of End Time (Reformation)

Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church (WELS)

“The Truth Will Set You Free”

John 8:31-36

31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” 34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. (NIV)

                 

Do you want to be free?  That is the question for our consideration on this Reformation Sunday.  Do you want to be free?  That question really assumes two things, doesn’t it?  The first assumption is that a person realizes that he is not naturally free.  The second assumes that freedom is perceived as a good and beneficial thing. Though it might strike the un-Lutheran ear as odd, we are thankful that a part of our Lutheran heritage is a clear awareness from Scripture that we are not in fact naturally free.  Man is born in sin, he is enslaved by it, and he is unwilling and unable to unbound those chains of sin and free himself.  We are at the same time, however, thankful that the greater part of our Lutheran heritage is also a clear awareness from Scripture of what it means to be free from sin, and how alone man can come by that freedom – through faith alone, which is a gift of God’s grace alone, revealed by Scripture alone.  We owe a great debt of gratitude to reformers like Martin Luther, who drove the church back into the Word of God to rediscover those basic truths so essential to the Christian faith.

Yet, basic as those truths of salvation are, it doesn’t mean they are any easier to grasp.  This morning’s Gospel serves as a case in point.  Given Jesus’ audience, “the Jews who had believed him” (v.31), what kind of comment would you expect in response to Jesus’ words, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (v.31,32)?  John tells us that Jesus is speaking to believers in this instance.  Would we not expect to see from a believer some sort of expression of joy or delight at Jesus’ words here?  “Ah, thank you Jesus for opening our eyes to see the freedom that we have through you!  Formerly we were confused, blind, and bound by the words of Scripture which we wrongly took to offer the hope of salvation only through obedience and outward behavior, but you have shown us a better way, indeed, that you are the way!”  But such a heartfelt expression of gratitude and thanks, a Christ-centered confession of faith we do not find.  Instead, we hear, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” (v.33).

Here Jesus was trying to shore up their faith, to build upon the seed of faith that had sprouted in their hearts, and already we find Satan slithering back into the picture and doing whatever he can to suffocate and smother that tender shoot of faith.  Remember, John just told us these were believers – not hardened Pharisees! – but believers, who had just come to faith as a result of hearing Jesus’ teaching!  How quickly the prince of darkness springs into action any time the life-saving work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit is being done!  How he despises the work of conversion and faith-building!  Souls had just joined the ranks of believers, and Satan wanted to yank and pull and drag those souls back into the realm of unbelief. 

He was attempting to do so by appealing to what is the default line of reasoning in the hearts of men, “I don’t need anything from you, Jesus, for I am already free by virtue of my own qualifications and/or connections.”  The Jews who had believed in him were willing to include Jesus as an addendum to their religion and faith, but once Jesus implied that he wasn’t merely an add-on, and that freedom meant letting go of their roots and their history and their ancestry, as if all of that not only amounted to nothing, but actually kept them enslaved, well then that put Jesus’ teaching in a different light.  Indicating that they somehow needed to be freed from something just didn’t sit well with them.

The irony of course was that they didn’t even realize their lack of freedom.  They didn’t realize how enslaved they were by rules taught by men.  They saw their connection to Abraham and their Jewish heritage not as enslaving, but as entitling. They failed to see the prison walls of Moses’ laws towering over them and completely boxing them in.  They didn’t even acknowledge how chained and tied up they were; they didn’t know they needed freeing.

Nevertheless, Jesus came to them as he does to all people – even those who don’t know they need freeing – with words of redemption and release:  “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (v.36).

Many at the time of the Reformation, including Martin Luther himself, didn’t realize they needed freeing either.  The surroundings had changed, but their status had not.  In Jesus’ day the Jewish believers were enslaved by the mosaic law; in Luther’s day the people were enslaved by the church’s law.  So rather than being freed from prison in general, there had merely been a prison transfer from the prison of Old Testament law to the prison of new church law under the Roman Catholic Church. However, it mattered little, for neither one permitted freedom.

The church leaders in Luther’s day were simply the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, and the religious leaders of Jesus’ day; they were just dressed differently and had different titles.  The end result, though, was the same: they imprisoned people with the law.  The Roman Catholic Church added laws that had absolutely no basis in Scripture.  Church laws determined who could marry, when and what could be eaten, what religious rites and ceremonies needed to be followed, to whom prayer should be addressed, requirements needed to receive forgiveness and absolution, and on and on.  Of course, when Luther struggled with all of these and came to an acute and terrifying awareness that he simply could not keep up, the church did not free his burdened conscience by directing him to Christ; instead, it enslaved him even more by directing him to the monastery, by deceiving him into thinking he simply needed to do more, try harder, and be more dedicated, and that some monastery would provide the ideal avenue by which to attain peace.  In short, the answer was building up additional prison walls and entrenching him even deeper into slavery.  So the sad irony of Luther’s day was that the one place people turned to for freedom – the church – only bound them more securely in a prison of laws.

Nevertheless, as a result of the Reformation, Jesus came to them as he does to all people – even those who don’t know they need freeing – with words of redemption and release:  “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (v.36).

As far as spiritual slavery is concerned, what was the case in Jesus’ day and Luther’s day is no different than in our day.  Countless souls are stuck enslaved in prison.  Again, the makeup of the prison may have changed, but it is prison nonetheless.  Some continue to be held captive in the church by its man-made laws, as if the only freedom one can ever hope to attain is made certain only insofar as one measures up and fits the mold of the Christian.  Live the right way, speak the right way, treat others the right way, and then you can be sure you have freedom in Christ.  But behind the façade of freedom is either a fool hardy Pharisee who is no more free than the Pharisees of Jesus’ day, or an insecure and unsure soul doubting and questioning whether enough has really been done.

The other prison that is far too overpopulated in our day is the prison made up of those who fall for a fabricated freedom that they believe exists when one is able either to divorce himself entirely from any religious ties whatsoever, or establish his own version of spirituality.  One hardly feels compelled to address such an approach as being anything short of asinine.  Try that approach with the officer who pulls you over for speeding and see how he responds when you close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears, shouting “I can’t see you.  I can’t see you.  I choose to believe you don’t exist and that I’ve done no wrong.”  Or try to explain to him that your take on the law is that as long as you weren’t going more than 10 miles per hour over the speed limit, you don’t think you should get a ticket.  That individual can fool himself into thinking that his is free by ignoring the law or getting to write his own version of it, but in the end it will be clear: that isn’t freedom at all.

Nevertheless, as a result of the Reformation, Jesus comes to such individuals as he does to all people – even those who don’t know they need freeing – with words of redemption and release:  “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (v.36).

False ideas of freedom can creep in among us, too, can’t they?  We wrongfully apply our freedom if we think it means freedom from Word and Sacrament.  “I am free in Christ,” we say.  “I do not have to go to Bible class.  I do not have to worship weekly.  I do not have to commune every time it is offered.  I do not even have to read my Bible.”  Ah, but such an attitude would do well to consider what happened to the French army as it retreated from Moscow, when soldiers froze to death in substantial numbers.  Their practice was to gather anything they could that would burn, and then surround the fire as they went to sleep.  In the morning, those on the outer fringe of the circle around the fire would be found frozen dead.  They were simply too far away from the source of heat.  So it will be with the Christian who wrongly presumes his freedom in Christ is a freedom from the means of God’s grace in Word and Sacrament.  Removed too far from the source of faith, he will eventually be found spiritually dead.

Nevertheless, as a result of the Reformation, Jesus comes to such us as he does to all people – even when we abuse our Christian freedom – with words of redemption and release:  “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (v.36).

Brothers and sisters, let’s use that freedom to take to heart Jesus’ promise: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (v.31,32).  Jesus did not and does not say we’re free from his teaching, but freed through it, for it points us to the work he did.  His teaching, his Word, is where we have the promise, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (v.36).  How odd to run from that message instead of to it, how confusing to avoid the repeated reassurance of that grace-filled promise instead of longing to hear it over and over and over.  Jesus said we’re not slaves, but sons, and if we’re sons, then we’re in the family forever.  If we’re in the family forever, we cling to that which put us there in the first place – the truth and teaching of Jesus, which says his blood unlocked the gates of prison and hell.  He died so that we might be free.  He rose so that we might be free.  He lives and intercedes for us so that we might remain free.

We are free.  From our disinterest in the Word, we have been forgiven and set free.  From our avoidance of God’s house, we have been forgiven and set free.  From even the abuse of our Christian freedom, we have been forgiven and set free.  Let’s reflect what we are – sons – free sons!  We aren’t slaves.  We aren’t fools who think freedom is found somewhere else; we know it is found in Christ, just as he revealed to the new Jewish believers, just as Luther rediscovered at the Reformation, just as we believe, teach, and confess in our congregation and synod. 

Do you want to be free?  You are in Christ.  Freedom is found nowhere else.  The Word proclaims that freedom.  Baptism bathes us in that freedom.  The Supper feeds us that freedom.  Be fed and remain as Christ has made you, set free, for “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (v.36). Amen.

                                                              

“For the freer confidence is from one’s own works, and the more exclusively it is directed toward Christ alone, so much better is the Christian it makes.” (Luther)