Truth will set you free
Day 678, Saturday, June 20
John 7:25 – Chapter 8
I remember when I was a child my parents taking me to visit my sisters and brothers at college. There were a lot of strange and memorable sights on the University of Texas campus in the mid-to-late 1960s—I’m sure my parents hoped I’d forget some of them. One of the more edifying sights that I do remember, though, is the inscription on the Main Building, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”
The quotation is from the gospel of John.
In 8:31-32 we read, “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’”
The part of the quotation used on the university building doesn’t exactly reflect the original meaning of the text, though it is valuable in its own right.
The original biblical meaning is about freedom from sin. In verse 34-35 Jesus continues, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who is a sin is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
All the way back to the time of Moses God’s message has been freedom from slavery. At that time it was a message for people suffering from literal slavery—a condition that has been repeated far too many times since.
It’s a message that resonates with many people who have not been in literal slavery, too. I think the reason Christianity resonates so well with many people suffering from addiction is that the message is the same: release from painful bondage.
Some of the most difficult sin to seek freedom from, though, is sin that doesn’t feel like bondage. In verse 33 the people listening to Jesus respond like this, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
C.S. Lewis makes the same point in his book, “The Problem of Pain,” when he says, “Prostitutes are in no danger of finding their present life so satisfactory that they cannot turn to God: the proud, the avaricious, the self-righteous, are in that danger.”
Sin often disguises itself as freedom, luring its victim into bondage before revealing itself as the destructive force that it is. Only when we see it for what it really is—when we see the truth—can we find freedom.
Saturday meditation
Psalms 146:1-10
Praise the Lord.
Praise the Lord, my soul.
I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.
He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them—he remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.
The Lord reigns forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations.
Praise the Lord.
Prayer focus
Free us from our self-delusions and from the lies of our culture so that we may find truth and freedom.
-Rev. Mark Fleming