John 8:36

"The servant abideth not in the house, but the Son abideth forever." Gently too from this He casts down the things of the Law, alluding to former times. For that they may not run back to them and say, "We have the sacrifices which Moses commanded, they are able to deliver us," He addeth these words, since otherwise what connection would the saying have? For "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace," even the priests themselves. Wherefore Paul also saith of the priest, that "he ought as for the people so also for himself to offer for sins, for that he also is compassed about with infirmity." And this is signified by His saying, "The servant abideth not in the house." Here also He showeth His equal honor with the Father, and the difference between slave and free. For the parable has this meaning, that is, "the servant hath no power," this is the meaning of "abideth not."

The Son has the power to free us; so he adds, If therefore the Son frees you, you will be truly free: "We are not the children of the slave woman, but of the free, by whose freedom Christ has freed us" (Gal 4:31). For …

So then, those priests of yours, being slaves, had no authority to forgive sins. But I, the Son, abiding in the house, that is, having authority and independent sovereignty, the Master of the house, shall grant you freedom, because all things are Mine, and I …

"If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed," that Son, I say, alone is free, because he alone is without sin: whence in the Psalm: "I have become as a man without help, free among the dead." And the reason …

If the Son therefore shall make you free,.... Alluding to the custom of adoption by the sons or brethren in the family, which obtained in Greece, called αδελφοθεσια, "the adoption of brethren", as Grotius, and others have observed; or rather to a custom among the Romans, of a son's making free after his Father's death, such as were born slaves in his house.

If I therefore make you free, ye - shall partake of the same privilege: being made free from all guilt and sin, ye shall abide in the house of God forever.

If the Son ... - The Son of God - heir of all things - who is forever with God, and who has therefore the right and power to liberate men from their thraldom. Shall make you free - Shall deliver you from the bondage and dominion of sin. Free indeed - Truly and really free. You shall be blessed with the most valuable freedom; not from the chains and oppressions of earthly masters and monarchs, but from the bondage of sin.

How can you say, ‘You will become free’?" Jesus answered them, "I tell you the solemn truth, everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the family forever, but the son remains forever. So if the son sets you free, you will be really free." These verses show us, for one thing, the importance of steady perseverance in Christ's service. There were many, it seems, at this particular period, who professed to believe on our Lord, and expressed a desire to become His disciples.

How can you say, ‘You will become free’?" Jesus answered them, "I tell you the solemn truth, everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the family forever, but the son remains forever. So if the son sets you free, you will be really free." These verses show us, for one thing, the importance of steady perseverance in Christ's service. There were many, it seems, at this particular period, who professed to believe on our Lord, and expressed a desire to become His disciples. There is nothing to show that they had true faith. They appear to have acted under the influence of temporary excitement, without considering what they were doing. And to them our Lord addresses this instructive warning—"If you continue in My word, then are you My disciples indeed." This sentence contains a mine of wisdom. To make a beginning in religious life is comparatively easy. Not a few mixed motives assist us. The love of novelty, the praise of well-meaning but imprudent professors, the secret self-satisfaction of feeling "how good I am," the universal excitement attending a new position—all these things combine to aid the young beginner. Aided by them he begins to run the race that leads to heaven, lays aside many bad habits, takes up many good ones, has many comfortable frames and feelings, and gets on splendidly for a time. But when the newness of his position is past and gone, when the freshness of his feelings is rubbed off and lost, when the world and the devil begin to pull hard at him, when the weakness of his own heart begins to appear, then it is that he finds out the real difficulties of vital Christianity. Then it is that he discovers the deep wisdom of our Lord's saying now before us. It is not beginning, but "continuing" a religious profession, that is the test of true grace.

BLESSED is that word "free," and blessed is he who spends himself to make men so. You did well to crowd your streets and to welcome with your joyous acclamations the man who has broken the yoke from off the neck of the oppressed. Many sons of Italy have done valiantly, but he excels them all and deserves the love of all the good and brave. Political slavery is an intolerable evil. To live, to think, to act, to speak at the permission of another! Better have no life at all!

BLESSED is that word "free," and blessed is he who spends himself to make men so. You did well to crowd your streets and to welcome with your joyous acclamations the man who has broken the yoke from off the neck of the oppressed. Many sons of Italy have done valiantly, but he excels them all and deserves the love of all the good and brave. Political slavery is an intolerable evil. To live, to think, to act, to speak at the permission of another! Better have no life at all! To depend for my existence upon a despot's will is death itself. Craven spirits may wear the dog collar which their master puts upon them and fawn at his feet for the bones of his table, but men who are worthy of the name had rather feed the vultures on the battlefield. The burden of civil bondage is too heavy for bold spirits to bear with patience and therefore they fret and murmur beneath it. This murmuring the tyrant loves not and therefore he throws the sufferers into his dungeons and bids them wear out their days in captivity. Blessed is he who hurls down the despot, bursts the doors of his dungeons and gives true men their rights. We have never felt, and therefore we know not the bitterness of bondage. Our emancipators have gone to the world of spirits, bequeathing us an heirloom of liberty for which we should love their names and reverence their God. If they could have lived on till now, how we should honor them! But as they are gone, we do well to applaud our illustrious guest as if we saw in him the spirit of all our glorious liberators worthily enshrined. Political liberty allows scope for so much of all that is good and ennobling and its opposite involves so much that is debasing, that the mightiest nation destitute of it is poor, indeed, and the poorest of all people, if they are but free, are truly rich.

By a practiced abiding in his words we come to know the truth and the truth does, sure enough, make us free.

This is not partial freedom, not temporary freedom, but complete freedom—freedom from fear, freedom from bondage, freedom from every chain of the enemy.

Civilisation in the best sense merely means the full authority of the human spirit over all externals. Barbarism means the worship of those externals in their crude and unconquered state. Barbarism means the worship of Nature; and in recent poetry, science, and philosophy there has …