One of the most misquoted Bible verses (paralleled only by "Judge not" said in a scolding tone) is John 8:32 - "The truth will make you free." It's usually used to refer to any truth, a general principle of truth. But as you can see in the context Jesus was referring to a particular truth - Himself and the message of forgiveness He preached that was conditioned on believing the truth about Him.
So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, "If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." They answered Him, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, 'You will become free'?"
Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the Son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed."
Jesus' claim that the "truth will make you free" only refers to a particular truth, the truth of who He was and the sacrifice for us we can believe. Only then will we be free of the wages of our sin. Only Jesus paid our debt, He died and raised from the dead, so only He via our conviction in that truth can set us free from our sin.
Do a word search on "truth" in the Gospels and you'll see that the truth being refered to is a specific one. It's an objective truth. It's not truth in general, or a personal, subjective truth. Indeed, Jesus called Himself "the Truth" because He is the only Truth that can set us free.
Truth of any sort save for false sort or the nonsense sort, that is, truth that has a correspondence relationship with reality is empowering and thereby liberating if one does not shrink back into denial or delusion. The Truth of Christ is the only one that can do this absolutely and for all eternity. It is freedom from the slavery of sin that is preached by Jesus.
Posted by: Alvin | March 26, 2008 at 06:41 AM
Thank you Melinda, Ive been saying the same thing for years.
Posted by: scott | March 26, 2008 at 04:21 PM