(36) If the Son therefore shall make you free.--Now the thought of John 8:31-32 is repeated in special reference to the position they had claimed for themselves. There is need for the emancipation of which He has spoken, and His mission in the world is to proclaim it. If they will enter into spiritual union with Him, and abide in this new spiritual relation, it will make them new creatures, freed from sin by the power of truth. In the language of St. Paul, as quoted above, "Christ will be formed in them." They will become "members of Christ" and "children of God." The Son of the divine household will make them free, and in Him they will become members of the great family of God Himself. (Comp. the same thought of the divine household as addressed by St. Paul specially to Gentiles, in Ephesians 2:11-22. See also in this Gospel, John 14:2-3.)

Ye shall be free indeed.--Or, ye shall be free in reality.--The word is not the same as that rendered "indeed," in John 8:31. They claimed political freedom, but they were in reality the subjects of Rome. They claimed religious freedom, but they were in reality the slaves to the letter. They claimed moral freedom, but they were in reality the bondmen of sin. The freedom which the Son proclaimed was in reality freedom, for it was the freedom of their true life delivered from the thraldom of sin and brought into union with God. For the spirit of man, that in knowledge of the truth revealed through the Son can contemplate the Father and the eternal home, there is a real freedom that no power can restrain. All through this context the thoughts pass unbidden to the teaching of St. Paul, the great apostle of freedom. There could be no fuller illustration of the words than is furnished in his life. He, like St. Peter and St. John (Romans 1:1, e.g.; 2Peter 1:1; Revelation 1:1), had learnt to regard himself as a "bondservant," but it was of Christ, "whose service is perfect freedom." We feel, as we think of him in bonds before Agrippa, or a prisoner at Rome, that he is more truly free than governor or Caesar before whom he stands, and more truly free than he himself was when he was armed with authority to bind men and women because they were Christians. The chains that bind the body cannot bind the spirit, whose chains have been loosed. He is free indeed, for the Son has made him free. . . .

Verse 36. - Therefore if the Son - who abideth ever in the Father's bosom, and fills the house with his glory, and is the Heir of all things - make you free, ye shall be free indeed (ὄντως, "essentially," only here used by St. John, who elsewhere uses the word ἀληθῶς, ver. 31; John 1:48; John 4:42; John 7:40; John 6:14). The Son is he who gives power to become the sons of God. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus frees from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2). Only by acquiring the true spirit and regenerated life of a son can any man be delivered from the bondage induced by ignorance of the actual truth about God, about man, and about the relation between God and man. This knowledge is produced by the Son of God, who is the Truth. A full and believing apprehension of the Son of God, a realization of what he is, confers a new life and reveals the wonderful possibilities and relations of human nature. The incarnation of the Son of God as a veritable Son of man emancipates the soul fettered by the tyranny of nature and baffled by the mastery of time and sense, inasmuch as it discloses the august majesty of its own origin. Essential freedom accrues to him who knows that sin is pardoned, that death is vanquished, that the prince of this world is cast out. The eager Jew might look through the battered walls of Zion and the charred fragments of its gorgeous temple, and still see the adamantine structure and its agelong triumph. But the disciples of Jesus, with John as their leader, when these words were recorded by him as they fell from the Lord in their true connection, saw the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven as a bride adorned for her husband, with its open gates, its crystal stream, and the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb as the Light of it. The freedom of a perfect service and the glorious liberty of the sons of God was theirs, in proportion as they accepted their emancipation from the Son himself (1 Corinthians 7:22; Romans 8:35, 36; 2 Corinthians 3:18). The sons are "free indeed," whatever the world, or the Hebrew Christians, or the philosophers might think or say.

Parallel Commentaries ...


So
οὖν (oun)
Conjunction
Strong's 3767: Therefore, then. Apparently a primary word; certainly, or accordingly.

if
ἐὰν (ean)
Conjunction
Strong's 1437: If. From ei and an; a conditional particle; in case that, provided, etc.

the
ὁ (ho)
Article - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 3588: The, the definite article. Including the feminine he, and the neuter to in all their inflections; the definite article; the.

Son
Υἱὸς (Huios)
Noun - Nominative Masculine Singular
Strong's 5207: A son, descendent. Apparently a primary word; a 'son', used very widely of immediate, remote or figuratively, kinship.

sets you free,
ἐλευθερώσῃ (eleutherōsē)
Verb - Aorist Subjunctive Active - 3rd Person Singular
Strong's 1659: To free, set free, liberate. From eleutheros; to liberate, i.e. to exempt.

you will be
ἔσεσθε (esesthe)
Verb - Future Indicative Middle - 2nd Person Plural
Strong's 1510: I am, exist. The first person singular present indicative; a prolonged form of a primary and defective verb; I exist.

free
ἐλεύθεροι (eleutheroi)
Adjective - Nominative Masculine Plural
Strong's 1658: Free, delivered from obligation. Probably from the alternate of erchomai; unrestrained, i.e. not a slave, or exempt.

indeed.
ὄντως (ontōs)
Adverb
Strong's 3689: Really, truly, actually. Adverb of the oblique cases of on; really.


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NT Gospels: John 8:36 If therefore the Son makes you free (Jhn Jo Jn)