One of my favorite quotes from the life of Christ is when he said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32) This message resonates deeply with humanity because we all have a desire to be free. No one wants to live in captivity. No one wants to live in bondage. No one wants to be imprisoned to humans who we think are worse than ourselves.
When Jesus spoke about being set free, he was referring to a bondage that all humans experience. He was talking about the spiritual bondage to sin. In John 8:34 he wrote, “Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin… If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” The bondage of sin is a spiritual reality that all humans are not able to live up to God’s standards by their own power. Humans were created to live in relationship with a holy God, but sin has separated people from God. Without a Savior, there is no hope of restoring this relationship with Him because of people’s bondage to sin.
The sense of being in bondage to sin is a universal reality because regardless of wealth or education or power, no human is able to break free from their human frailty and limitations. Bill Gates knows he can not buy perfection. Mother Theresa knew she could never attain it because God’s standards go beyond outward action to inward thoughts and motives.
Today we see a novel strategy to dealing with the problem of sin. Instead of acknowledging the problem of sin, many people in positions of power are trying to change the definition of morality so that it lines up with their own definition of right and wrong. They want abortion to be thought from one perspective so that there is no moral dilemma. They want questions of social justice, human sexuality, and environmental equity to be framed in such a way that ignores God’s standards. The irony is that the desire to set people free from God’s morality is actually moving them deeper into the bondage to sin.
The only hope humanity has of being set free from the human condition is to look for a supernatural solution that only God provides. The only perfect solution for sin comes from the Savior. God the Father sent the Son, Jesus Christ, who by the power of the Holy Spirit was able to live a perfect, sinless life on the earth and then die on the cross for our sins. His resurrection from the dead proved what he taught was true. When he said, “the truth will set you free” he backed it up by breaking free from the power of death! Death is the ultimate sign of human sin because it proves that humans are imperfect and finite. Jesus Christ conquered death and thus made it possible for us to be truly set free.
