Freedom in a nation that proclaims worship to God and Christ begins with a life expressing praise for the freedoms He has already established. True freedom is responsible Christian living involving a new enslavement. Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” (John 8:34) Galatians 5:13-15 says, “You, my brothers were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature…”
When Jesus spoke truth, “…everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (John 8:34) He was speaking to a group of people who were claiming to not have been slaves to anyone. They were finding their righteousness in the fact they were from the seed of Abraham and they said God was their Father. (John 8:33;39;41) These Jews assumed they should have all the liberties or freedoms that come with being the children of God, through the blood lines that trace back to Abraham. Jesus boldly showed them that they did not have the faith of Abraham because they did not do as Abraham did, and He exposed the truth that their real father was the Devil. (John 8:39-47) Originally the Jews were meant to be a nation of people reflecting a life as being holy to the Lord. (Deuteronomy 26:16-19) They needed only to obey His commandments.
The people the Lord is speaking to in John 8 are like those the Apostle Paul wrote about in 2 Corinthians 3. When the Law of God was read a veil covered their hearts and it was there because only Christ can take the veil away. They were rejecting the claims of Christ. Therefore, the unbelieving Jews remained in their oppression of spiritual blindness. (2 Corinthians 3:13-16)
It must be noted, there is not one man on this earth who has not and cannot slip into sin. Therefore, whoever slips into sin is not a slave to sin. If this was so the Lord would have no servants. The Lord is not speaking to those who slip into sin here. (Matthew Henry Commentary: The Pulpit Commentary)
The type of people the Lord is referring to have spiritual hearts like the people of Jeremiah’s time. God had given the Prophet Jeremiah a message to be spoken for the purpose of calling the people of God out of Idolatry. Listen to their response to His message, “We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the Name of the Lord! We will certainly do everything we said we would: Will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as our fathers, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and [we] were well off and suffered no harm.” (Jeremiah 44:16-17)
A depraved heart leads to an inability to understand God’s spoken Word and this hard heart toward the Lord moves unrepentant mankind into idolatry. This causes people to say, “I will do it my way and I do not care what the Word of the Lord says. We are enjoying all that we have and we will worship the god we feel provides for our wants.” Idolatry causes men and women to act as the people who lived in the time of
the prophet Jeremiah and it is just as dangerous today. Everyone is enslaved to someone or something. Who are you enslaved to?
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