Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
John 8:32 NIV
To understand this verse, we need to look at all of chapter 8
The chapter begins with the story of the woman caught in adultery.
According to the law of Moses, she was to be stoned.
However, Jesus appeals to the conscience of the Pharisees who had brought her before him.
None of them are without sin, that’s why none of them have the courage to condemn her.
Left alone before Jesus, he frees her from condemnation.
Jesus explains this sentence as follows:
34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.36So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
John 8:34-35
So there are two conditions for man. One of slavery to sin. The other of freedom through the truth.
So we can summarize that: first man sins and becomes a slave to sin. But later he believes Jesus, and perseveres in his teachings of him (verse 31).
In this way he knows the truth, and this makes him free from sin.
Because whoever sins is a slave to sin?
If the word of God is the truth, sin is the opposite, then it is a lie. If we believe a lie, we walk away from the truth. The farther we go the more we believe these lies of the enemy.
Our behavior is generated by what we think. As well as our decisions.
This deviation from the truth leads us into a cycle that reinforces the enemy’s lies and further distances us from the truth.
In this way, spiritual chains are created, which bind us in our actions, and oblige us to do the will of the devil, instead of that of God
From this cycle results our bondage, from which we cannot free ourselves by our own strength.
Verse 36 tells us that the only one who can free us from these chains is the Son
If we don’t believe in the Son and we die in our sins (verse 24), we will be judged according to the law of Moses, that is, the moral law that God has given us.
If we are judged according to this law, we are all guilty. Indeed no one has ever lived without sinning at least once, if not Jesus Christ.
But the good news is that if we believe in him, obey him and follow him, Jesus will set us free from this sin.
With the sacrifice on the cross, Jesus paid the price for our sins, and bought us to set us free.
Once free from the chains of sin, We no longer have to obey fear and all the negative feelings that come from the enemy., but we can fulfill the plan that God has placed in our hearts.
Devotional
When you believe Jesus, and the word of God, you know the truth. When it’s time to make a decision, you know the right thing to do.
However, sometimes it is difficult to make the right decision, and you end up making the wrong one instead
This tension comes from the old sinful person that is still in you
But there is a way out, and that is to persist in Jesus’ teachings. Find the lies, and reject them through the truth.
Real change happens not from our actions, but from what we think. In this way, knowing the truth makes us able to think in the right way. And this produces the real change in us