New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of John vol. 2. William Barclay
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They answered him: ‘We are the descendants of Abraham and we have never been slaves to any man. How do you say: “You will become free”?’ Jesus answered them: ‘This is the truth I tell you – everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave is not a permanent resident in the house; the son is a permanent resident. If the son shall make you free you will be really free.’
JESUS’ talk of freedom annoyed the Jews. They claimed that they had never been slaves to anyone. Obviously there was a sense in which this was simply not true. They had been captives in exile in Babylon; and at the moment they were subjects of the Romans. But the Jews set a tremendous value on freedom, which they held to be the birthright of every Jew. In the law, it was laid down that no Jew, however poor, must descend to the level of being a slave. ‘If any who are dependent on you become so impoverished that they sell themselves to you, you shall not make them serve as slaves: . . . For they are my servants, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold as slaves are sold’ (Leviticus 25:39, 42). Again and again, Jewish rebellions flared up because some fiery leader arose who insisted that the Jews could obey no earthly ruler because God was their only King.
Josephus writes of the followers of Judas of Galilee who led a famous revolt against the Romans: ‘They have an inviolable attachment to liberty, and they say that God is to be their only Ruler and Lord’ (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 18:1, 6). When the Jews said that they had been no one’s slaves, they were saying something which was a fundamental article of their creed of life. And even if it was true that there had been times when they were subject to other nations, even if it was true that at that very moment they were subject to Rome, it was also true that even in servitude they maintained an independence of spirit which meant that they might be slaves in body but never in soul. In the fourth century, Cyril of Jerusalem wrote of Joseph: ‘Joseph was sold to be a bond slave, yet he was free, all radiant in the nobility of his soul.’ Even to suggest to the Jews that they might be regarded as slaves was a deadly insult.
But it was another slavery of which Jesus was speaking. ‘Everyone’, he said, ‘who commits sin is the slave of sin.’ Jesus was reiterating a principle which the wise Greeks had stated again and again. The Stoics said: ‘Only the wise man is free; the foolish man is a slave.’ Socrates had demanded: ‘How can you call a man free when his pleasures rule over him?’ Paul was later to thank God that the Christian was freed from slavery to sin (Romans 6:17–20).
There is something very interesting and very suggestive here. Sometimes when we are rebuked for doing something wrong or warned against such a thing, our answer is: ‘Surely I can do what I like with my own life.’ But the point is that those who sin are not doing what they like; they are doing what sin likes. It is possible to let a habit get such a grip of us that we cannot break it. We can allow a pleasure to take hold of us so completely that we cannot do without it. We can let some self-indulgence so dominate our lives that we are powerless to break away from it. We can get into such a state that in the end, as Seneca said, we hate and love our sins at one and the same time. So far from doing what they like, sinners have lost the power to do what they like. They are slaves to the habits, the self-indulgences, the wrong pleasures which have taken hold of them. This is precisely Jesus’ point. No one who sins can ever be said to be free.
Then Jesus makes a veiled threat, but one which the listening Jews would well understand. The word slave reminds him that in any household there is a difference between the slave and the son. The son is a permanent dweller in the household, but the slave can be ejected at any time. In effect, Jesus is saying to the Jews: ‘You think that you are sons in God’s house and that nothing, therefore, can ever banish you from God. Have a care: by your conduct you are making yourselves slaves, and the slave can be ejected from the master’s presence at any time.’ Here is a threat. It is a terrible thing to trade on the mercy of God – and that is what the Jews were doing. There is warning here for more than the Jews.
REAL KINSHIP
John 8:37–41
‘I know that you are the descendants of Abraham, but you are trying to find a way to kill me, because there is no room in you for my word. I speak what I have seen in the presence of the Father. So you must do what you have heard from the Father.’ ‘Our father is Abraham,’ they answered. ‘If’, answered Jesus, ‘you are the children of Abraham, act as Abraham acted. But, as it is, you are trying to find a way to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you, truth which I heard from God. That Abraham did not do. As for you, you do the works of your father.’
IN this passage, Jesus is dealing a death-blow to a claim which to the Jews was all-important. For the Jews, Abraham was the greatest figure in all religious history; and the Jews considered themselves safe and secure in the favour of God simply because they were descendants of Abraham. The psalmist could address the people as: ‘O offspring of his servant Abraham, children of Jacob, his chosen ones’ (Psalm 105:6). Isaiah said to the people: ‘But you, Israel, [are] my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend’ (Isaiah 41:8). The admiration which the Jews gave to Abraham was perfectly legitimate, for he is a giant in the religious history of the world, but the deductions they drew from his greatness were quite misguided. They believed that Abraham had gained such merit from his goodness that this merit was sufficient, not only for himself, but for all his descendants also. In the second century, the Christian apologist Justin Martyr had a discussion with Trypho the Jew about Jewish religion, and the conclusion was that ‘the eternal kingdom will be given to those who are the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, even though they be sinners and unbelievers and disobedient to God’ (Justin Martyr, The Dialogue with Trypho, 140). Quite literally, the Jews believed that they were safe because they were descendants of Abraham.
The attitude of the Jews is not without parallel in modern life.
(1) There are still those who try to live on a pedigree and a name. At some time in the history of their family, someone performed some really outstanding service to church or state, and ever since they have claimed a special place because of that. But a great name should never be an excuse for comfortable inaction; it should always be an inspiration to new effort.
(2) There are those who try to live on a history and a tradition. Many a church has a quite undue sense of its own importance because at one time it had a famous ministry. There is many a congregation living on the spiritual capital of the past; but if capital is always drawn upon and never built up anew, the day inevitably comes when it is exhausted.
No individual or church or nation can live on the achievements of the past. That is what the Jews were trying to do.
Jesus is quite blunt about this. He declares in effect that the real descendant of Abraham is the person who acts in the way in which Abraham acted. That is exactly what John the Baptist had said before. He had told the people plainly that the day of judgment was on the way and that it was no good pleading that they were descendants of Abraham, for God could raise up descendants to Abraham from the very stones, if he chose to do so (Matthew 3:9; Luke 3:8). It was the argument which again and again Paul was to use. It was not flesh and blood which made someone a descendant of Abraham; it was moral quality and spiritual fidelity.
In this particular matter, Jesus ties it down to one thing. They are seeking a way to kill him; that is precisely the opposite of what Abraham did. When a messenger from God came to him, Abraham welcomed him with all eagerness and reverence (Genesis 18:1–8). Abraham had welcomed God’s messenger; the Jews of the present were trying to kill God’s messenger. How could they dare call themselves descendants of Abraham, when their conduct was so very different?
By calling to mind the old story in Genesis 18, Jesus is implying that he too is the messenger of God. Then he makes the claim explicit: ‘I speak what I have seen in the presence of the Father.’ The fundamental thing about Jesus is that he brought to men and women not his own opinions but a message from God. He was not simply a man telling other men and women what he thought about things; he was the Son of God telling people what God thought. He told them the truth as God sees it.
At the end of this passage comes