Slavery to Freedom to Slavery
John 8:31-36
3 July 2016
Sometimes books and movies that are works of fiction seem to be inspired by the Bible or at least a certain account or theme from it. And I don’t mean the “Passion of the Christ” or even the “Ten Commandments.”But the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.Aslan, the good and powerful lion basically gets sacrificed to save Narnia from the evil witch. It’s not just good vs. evil; there are definite parallels to Scripture. “Avatar” is similar to the story of Rahab and the spies. Harry Potter appears to be a normal person but it turns out he’s been chosen for a special task, to defeat the evil lord once and for all, even if he has to sacrifice himself. Then there’s the “Matrix.” The last movie in the trilogy can be compared to Christ and His sacrifice for the good of mankind, but there’s actually a parallel in the first, 1999 Matrix. Sometime in the future machines have taken over and most humans are stuck in a pod, wired to the Matrix for energy. Their brains are plugged into a fictional world where they go on thinking the world never changed. Most never know any better, just go on believing that they are making their own choices and living their lives the way they please. But really their minds are just being manipulated. They have no independence; they are slaves to a fictional world. And the few who realize this fight to gain back humanity’s mental independence. That situation parallels our spiritual lives. We live our lives thinking that we are in control, thinking that this life is all there is, but really we are enslaved and we’ll never know any better unless someone frees us. Of course in the Matrix, people are surprised to hear that everything around them is a computer generated figment of their imagination. In John 8, some Jews were surprised to hear Jesus talk about setting them free. 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?”
Martin Luther King famously said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Sometimes we prejudge negatively based on skin color, but other times we expect others to prejudge us based on pretty much the same thing, on bloodlines. “You should know that I’m a good cook because I’m Italian.” No, no one should know that. People should know you’re a good cook because you’ve made good food. “Oh, that’s just my Irish temper coming out.” No, that’s you losing control of your emotions and expecting people just to deal with it because your great grandmother was born on a certain island. So we confuse culture with DNA. The Jews had a dream that they would be judged not by the content of their character, but by the blood in their veins and the content of Abraham’s character, who had lived 2000 years ago. It’s also very interesting that you can’t get from Abraham to 1st century Jews without going through hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt. And not only that, but they were currently subject to the Roman Empire. They certainly fancied themselves more free and independent than they actually were. Jesus told them that they needed to be set free, but not from physical overlords, from falsehood.They needed to hold to His teaching.
And what was His teaching? In the previous chapter He had said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” Jesus spent a lot of time teaching specifics to His Twelve Apostles and anyone else who would listen. He taught about heaven, about the last days, about the corruption and misguidance of the religious leaders. He taught about loving God and loving one another and how this is essentially the entire law. But at the end of the day His teaching was simple: believe in Me. It seems odd that it took the Revolutionary War for America’s freedom and the Civil War for blacks’ freedom but Jesus says it just takes believing in Him for spiritual freedom. That seems odd, especially given what He says next: 34 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.
That’s not good news for people who sin. The last thing a teenage boy wants to hear from his buddies is “Your girlfriend owns you.” You don’t want people to think that cigarettes own you or a certain junk food owns you. But the reality is that sin owns us. Isn’t that what a slave is, someone owned by someone else? Sin owns us and that means it can do to us as it pleases. So we do not have independence or freedom. We are in a Matrix where we think we are making our own choices and good choices, but we’re just fulfilling sin’s wishes. Remember what Paul said in Romans: “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing” (7:18-19).
Jesus said the truth will set you free. There’s a lot of talk about truth lately because it’s being questioned by some, redefined by others, and ignored by others yet. There’s a Youtube video series called College Kids Say the Darndest Things. In one of them a 5’9” adult white man asks college students to believe that he is a 6’5” Asian female 7-year-old, and they pretty much refuse to tell him he’s wrong. In another video most of the college students interviewed say there is no difference between male and female other than social constructs and even appear to feel guilty about assuming that the interviewer is male. So what is the truth? Well, in the book of John are 26 occurrences of Jesus using the phrase “I tell you the truth” (or something similar in different versions). In John 3:3 He said, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” In John 5:24 He said, “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. In John 8:34, as you heard, He said, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” Then in verse 58, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am!” In John 10:7 He said, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep.” In John 13:21 and 38 He said, “I tell you the truth, one of you is going to betray me…. I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!
So when Jesus says it’s the truth, we know it’s the truth, and the truth is that He is God and He is the only way to salvation. For that reason independence is overrated. If we don’t depend on Jesus, we are going to be slaves forever, but 35a slave has no permanent place in the family. Slave is kind of a dirty word in our society, so we often point out that the slaves of the Bible often sold themselves into slavery. They were often treated fairly well and not abused or considered subhuman. But at the end of the day, they were property with no permanent place in the family. We have no place in God’s family if we remain slaves to sin. And we are. There’s no sense denying that. When you look back on your years, what have you done about the bondage of sin? You finally get over one pet sin just to realize that you’ve got another. Your sins of immaturity and ignorance are replaced by sins of apathy and arrogance. But all of those sins are replaced by the righteousness of Christ, Who Himself took on flesh and lived as a free person among the slaves. Yet He subjected Himself to harsher treatment than any to set us free,because a son belongs to [the family] forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
But being free has two parts: you are free from something and you are free for or to something. One of the freedoms America was established to stand for is freedom from tyranny. That means freedom to have government of the people, by the people, for the people. Another great freedom of America is freedom from religious persecution. At least that’s why many immigrants came originally. The freedom that we have in Christ, freedom from sin, is also freedom to something. Freedom to what? To sin all we want? To pave our own way to heaven? No, here’s the paradox. We were set free from the slavery of sin in order that we might be slaves to Christ. True freedom is being a slave to Christ. That is the mentality of a mature faith: “I’m so glad I’m independent of sin so I can be dependent on Christ instead.” We have a long way to go, but really there’s nothing in between. We cannot have independence. We are either dependent on sin or we are dependent on Christ. If we try to be independent, we are dependent on sin. But depending on Christ is true freedom.
So as you celebrate your nation’s independence, remember that freedom is freedom from something and freedom to something. Use your freedom to serve Christ and serve one another. We didn’t come out of the Matrix of sin to serve ourselves. In fact, we didn’t come out at all. We were brought out to serve Christ and be a permanent member of His family.