John 8:31–36 (EHV)
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples. 32You will also know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 33 “We are Abraham’s descendants,” they answered, “and we have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say, ‘You will be set free’?” 34 Jesus answered, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Everyone who keeps committing sin is a slave to sin. 35 But a slave does not remain in the family forever. A son does remain forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free.
Dear fellow redeemed: This exchange between Jesus and the Pharisees and leaders of the people is critical. Jesus had proclaimed that He is the light of the world, that He is the ONE who was sent into the world to redeem the world, and that salvation is found only in him. He is telling the world the truth about the nature of the world, of God, and of salvation.
He made the ultimate claim, that He is God the Son, is without sin, that He is the one Daniel called “The Son of Man” who would speak the truth of God, and that God the Father is with Him. “So Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one, and that I do nothing on my own. But I speak exactly as the Father taught me. The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what pleases him.” (John 8:28–30, EHV)
John records that due to the power of the Holy Spirit working through the word, and without thunder, lightning, miracles, or signs and wonders at that moment, still, “As he was saying these things, many believed in him. As a result, right in front of our eyes so to speak, we see the break between truth and deceit, reality and delusion, the truth about God, the world, life, and the hereafter, and unbelief that clings to the imaginings of the darkened hearts and souls of men and women. We all come into this world spiritually dead and blind, but God in His mercy reveals Himself to the world, to give life and light to the world, and salvation. He comes through means, through His word in prophets and preachers, and finally in the perfect revelation of His Son, our Savior. He comes through means of word and sacrament so that He can come to us in mercy.
This must be so, for when He comes in person it will be in wrath and judgment. But as perfect a thing as His true word is, the devil tries to hide its light and to cover it with the darkness of lies and unbelief. And so there is the need for us in every age to abide and remain in the true word of God, and even at times to rediscover it in such reformations as our Lord brings about in the world. It is the reformation of 1517, the Lutheran Reformation, that we commemorate today, but it is also THE SPIRIT OF REFORMATION FOR THE AGES that we consider for ourselves today.
THE SPIRIT OF REFORMATION FOR THE AGES
I. The Truth
II. The Deceit
III. The Abiding
I. The Truth
First there is the truth that we have received. 31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples. 32You will also know 3 the truth, and the truth will set you free.” What is that truth? We have spent a year preaching the catechism, but I haven’t assigned an end-of-year capstone essay yet. If you were to write it,
what would you say? It comes out here in this chapter and especially in our text.
The Lord God created all things good, including creatures in his image – with mind, will, and emotions resembling Him. But they rebelled, so all their offspring were born slaves to sin.
Rather than destroy them, the Son was born a man, a son of a woman, to free us from sin and death. He lived a life of righteousness for us to be given righteousness and was lifted up as a sacrifice for our sins. This righteousness and forgiveness, this freedom from sin is given through this gospel, this word of Christ, and is received by faith, the new and spiritual life God gives us. Can anybody really deny the first part of this, that humanity shows evidence of something
good being broken? That we see good things like family, love, life, health, joy, and wonder, but they are all marred by sin, and all of us contribute to the injury. Can anybody deny the result of sin? We rejoice in life itself and are overcome by fear and grief when death intervenes and takes us or those we love. Can anyone deny the power of sin and death?
II. The Deceit
Well, the Pharisees did. Jesus proclaimed the truth that proclaimed freedom from sin, and they let it be known that they had never had that problem. 33“We are Abraham’s descendants,” they answered, “and we have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say, ‘You will be set free’?” It was not by faith, and not by Christ that they were freed from sin, but because
they were such a special chosen people that they claimed freedom from sin. In Luther’s day, the Roman church didn’t need Christ either. They gave him lip service, but they taught that by their efforts, their works, their devotion, their allegiance to the special “holy” observances of the church that they could be free from sin and death. They went so far as to say that the pagans also, without the word of Christ, but with the “lesser light” of their philosophy might even achieve righteousness before God.
And in our day we have reached, it seems, the pinnacle of spiritual absurdity. The deceit of the age is that the troubles in the world aren’t because of sin, but because of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and oppression. Give the power to the right administrative elite and let them tell us what to do and enforce it on us, and all will be well. They claim that we must do what we are told, or we will die. The pandemic, climate change, disarmament, the environment, you name it. This is the new age of humanism, in which man is the measure of all things in a world that is only material stuff, and the only hope is some utopia. Remember “utopia” is Latin for “nowhere.”
Yet even though some of God’s gifts to man may have preserved life for a while, like antibiotics or polio vaccines, always death is at the door. And finally in abortion and euthanasia the world surrenders to the slavery of sin and death.
III. The Abiding
It is to overcome the slavery of sin and death that Jesus promises, “If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples. 32You will also know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” This is the word to those who have forsaken the self-righteousness of the pharisees, the work-righteousness of the Roman Church, the nihilism of the materialists of our age, or any other deceit that enslaves to sin and death. This is the word of Christ to us who are heirs of Christ, 4 and heirs of the reformation – really heirs of every reformation that has restored the words of Christ. Such a reformation is needed now, for the words of Christ have been hidden in the darkness of unbelief, the blindness of cancel culture, the shallowness of secular humanism, and the indifference of a narcissistic culture. For to have the word of Christ is to have life, as He said earlier in the chapter, “When Jesus spoke to them again, he said, “I am the Light of the World. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”” (John 8:12, EHV)
This is yours if you remain in the words of Christ. If you remain, abide, live, in His word, He says. If His word governs your understanding of the world. If His word determines what you know and believe as true. If His word is the full and perfect revelation of God to you. If you hear it, learn it, remember it, and treasure it, then you really His disciple. This freedom from sin and death is yours if you remain in HIS word. There is no replacement for the words of Christ. Everything in conflict with His word is deceit. As Jesus said, He is the only one who has come from heaven to reveal who is the true and living God.
Those who remain in His word truly follow Him, are truly His disciples, His followers and He says, Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”” If we abide in his word we will know the truth. And what does His truth give? 34 Jesus answered, “Amen, Amen, I tell you: Everyone who keeps committing sin is a slave to sin. 35But a slave does not remain in the family forever. A son does remain forever. 36So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free.
The word of this world is not the truth, and those who follow after it are a slave to sin, and therefore a slave to death, and ultimately the slave is cast of. But Christ has made us children of God. Here is the truth of God: “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God, and that is what we are! The world does
not know us, because it did not know him.” (1 John 3:1) When we talk about reformations, it often conjures up pictures of conflict and war. Indeed it should because the world cannot abide the truth. Jesus said that if we follow after him we must
take up our cross and we will be in conflict with the world. Jon Hus, a reformer who predated Luther, was burned at the stake as were many others. Luther lived under the sentence of death. In our day persecution falls upon those who abide in the word of Christ, and we are getting closer and closer to that in our own land. Therefore some of the last words of Jesus recorded in Scripture are these: “Do not fear anything that you are about to suffer. Look, the Devil is about to throw some of you into prison so that you will be tested, and you will suffer for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.” (Revelation 2:10, EHV) That is as much as to say, “Abide in my word to the end of your life, and I will give you the crown of life.”
AMEN