“Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’” (CSB – Read the chapter)

There is a pulse of freedom that beats in every human heart. We weren’t made for slavery. And yet so many find themselves there. And I don’t just mean physical slavery. People are trapped by all sorts of different things…often in ways they don’t even realize or understand. And yet we know inside that something is keeping us from being able to do what we want. Then Jesus comes along promising freedom. Freedom comes with truth, but that idea comes with context. Let’s talk about it.

Jesus was a pretty quotable guy. There are several lines He is recorded as having said in the Scriptures that have captured the hearts and imaginations of people the world over. Even people who don’t have any idea who He is, let alone a desire to follow Him, have heard of some of His most quotable lines. This is because Jesus was a master teacher. The last part of our brief passage here sits among His more famous sayings.

The truth will set you free.

In a sense, that line lies at the heart of every public educational system that has ever existed. Of course, Christians invented the public education system. It started with Sunday school, but gradually developed from there. And driving its development forward was this idea that there is freedom in truth.

When we know what really is, we can live in light of that. To live in light of anything else does the opposite. When we live in light of something that isn’t true, we wind up having to construct more and more flights of fancy in order to support the delusion. In the end, our house of cards may wind up looking truly impressive. The problem with a house of cards, though, is that even a slight provocation from the winds of reality, and the whole thing comes tumbling down. Not knowing what is true serves as a kind of prison from which we often cannot escape without help. More specifically, we can’t escape without the help of someone who is not similarly bound as we are. Only a free person can set a captive free.

Actually, that’s not quite right. At least, not according to Jesus. Only the truth will truly set you free. Until you are willing to live within the bounds of reality, freedom will forever be an impossible dream.

This, of course, begs a rather important question: How do we determine what is true? There are several lines of argument in pursuit of an answer here. Before declaring the freeing power of truth, Jesus gave us one line we can follow: His words.

You see, when Jesus declared that the truth will set us free, He wasn’t actually making a general observation about the nature of truth and freedom. He was making an entirely more specific point than that. When you read the whole passage in context, it is clear that His audience understood Him to be making this more specific point. What’s more, they very clearly didn’t appreciate His making this more specific point.

Jesus’ invitation into freedom was rooted in a person’s decision to accept and obey His teachings. Making sure you could see this is why I included v. 37 here. Jesus was talking to a group of Jews who were just starting to think that this intriguing teacher might be onto something. He wanted to encourage them to keep moving in the intellectual direction they were heading. “Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'”

In other words, knowing the truth is connected with knowing Jesus’ teachings. But we can’t simply know those teachings and experience the freeing power of truth. We have to continue in those teachings. We have to keep those teachings. That is, we have to do what Jesus says if we want to find real freedom. Every other path we might take through life is going to lead us into a slavery of some kind. It could be a slavery to the ideas and whims of another person. Or it might be a slavery to self in which we can’t escape doing only the things we want even when we know those aren’t the best and wisest things for us to be doing. Sometimes slaves are aware of their slavery, but sometimes they aren’t. Those are the most tragic cases.

I just heard a story yesterday about a legal ministry helping mostly women in Uganda who have been caught up in an unjust legal system navigate their way through those needlessly complex waters. One woman they helped had stolen money from her employer. But the reason she stole the money is that the employer had promised her a certain wage, convinced her to leave her home and family and travel some distance to take the job, but when she arrived there, the employer withheld her wages and wouldn’t let her leave work to see or even communicate with her family. She didn’t realize that she had been made a slave. It took the compassionate intervention of someone who was not enslaved to help her find freedom.

Jesus offered up His words as an invitation into real freedom. If we are willing to accept His offer, freedom is indeed what we will find. This isn’t merely a freedom from the way we so often are trained to think about freedom, though. It is a freedom for. It is a freedom for loving the people around us. It is a freedom for showing genuine compassion and care to the hurting. It is a freedom for taking a path of humility and gentleness. It is a freedom for boldly proclaiming the Gospel to those most in need of hearing it. It is a freedom for aligning our lives with one who is greater than we are, and making His ends our own regardless of the hardships our pursuit of those ends might invite. This freedom isn’t like the freedom the world offers. It is better. And it can be yours if you simply receive His offer and make His words your guide.