This is a study of Jesus being truth and freedom. Jesus sets us free in so many ways because he is Truth, and these ways are dealt with here.

1. JESUS WAS TRUTH AND FREEDOM
EDITED BY GLENN PEASE
John 8:32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth
shall make you free.… If thereforethe Son shall make
you free, ye shall be free indeed.—John8:32;John
8:36.
GreatTexts of the Bible
Truth and Freedom
1. In the text we find united two of the greatestwords in our language. There
are perhaps no words in the language which have been so variously
interpreted, or around which the conflictof opinion has ragedmore fiercely;
no words which have had greaterpowerto call forth the energyand devotion
of human hearts, or which, on the other hand, have more often been employed
to give an ideal colouring to base and selfishends. How many rebels against
just law, or wholesome moral restraint, have maskedtheir caprice under the
name of liberty; how many fires of persecutionhave been kindled in the
pretended cause oftruth! And, on the other hand, what noble battles have
been fought for the most sacredinterests of humanity, which were identified
with these two names! We should blot out half of the heroic pages of history if
we were to erase the deeds done, and the sufferings endured, for Truth and
Freedom. In the text the two words are used to throw light upon eachother,
and, as it were, to exclude the false interpretations which might be given to

2. eachtakenby itself. That is Truth which makes me really free; that is the
genuine and only valuable Freedomwhich is basedupon the Truth.
2. Let us recallthe occasionon which the words were spoken. To some who
had attachedthemselves (slightly, as it would seem)to Him, the Lord had
said, “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Instead of joyfully
accepting, they resentedthis gracious encouragingwordof His, this promise,
“Ye shall be made free,” and rejoined in displeasure—“We were neverin
bondage to any man.” How strangelymen are often blinded by pride and
presumption! Listen to these proud Jews, “We were neverin bondage to any
man”; while yet the whole past history of their nation was the recordof one
bondage following hard on another, they for their sins having come at one
time or another under the yoke of almost every people round about them.
They had been, by turns, in bondage to the Canaanites, in bondage to the
Philistines, in bondage to the Syrians, in bondage to the Chaldeans;then again
to the Græco-Syriankings;and even at the very moment when this indignant
disclaimer was uttered, the signs of a foreignrule, of the domination of a
stranger, everywhere met their eye. They bought and sold with Roman
money; they paid tribute to a Romanemperor; a Romangovernor satin their
judgment hall; a Roman garrisonoccupied the fortress of their city. And yet,
with all this plain before their eyes, brought home to their daily, hourly,
experience, they angrily put back the promise of Christ, “The truth shall
make you free,” as though it conveyedan insult: How sayestThou, Ye shall be
made free? We were never in bondage to any man.
3. These words of the Jews grew out of a total misunderstanding of the
freedom of which Christ was speaking. It was not, in the first place, freedom
from the yoke of the stranger, it was not deliverance from the tyranny of
Rome, that Christ was promising here to as many as continued in His word,
but freedom from the yoke of sin, deliverance from the bondage of corruption,
from the tyranny of their own passions and desires. It was this that Christ

3. promised, for it was this that He came from heavento impart. That other
freedom might and would follow in course of time; for men who are free
inwardly are sure, sooneror later, to achieve an outer freedom as well. It was
not, however, of this that Christ was speaking here, but of quite another
freedom; and therefore, not caring to note that angry rejoinder of theirs, or to
entangle Himself in controversyon so unprofitable a theme, but lifting up the
whole question between Himself and them into a higher sphere, He replied,
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoevercommitteth sin is the servant of
sin.” Every sinner, He would say, is the servant, or slave, of the sin which he
commits—is in bondage to it, and needs liberty, even the liberty which I, the
Truth, alone am capable of giving him; which he can receive from no other
hands save only from Mine. If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free
indeed; otherwise, you are slaves and servants, and such must continue to the
end. The text, therefore, deals with—
I. The Need of Liberation.
II. The Truth that Liberates.
III. The Liberty that the Truth gives.
I
The Needof Liberation
Christ’s aim was to make all men free. He saw around Him servitude in every
form—man in slavery to man, and race to race;His own countrymen in
bondage to the Romans—slaves ofboth Jewishand Roman masters,

4. frightfully oppressed;men trembling before priestcraft; and those who were
politically and ecclesiasticallyfree, in worse bondage still—the rich and rulers
slaves to their own passions. Conscious ofHis inward Deity and of His
Father’s intentions, He, without hurry, without the excitement which would
mark the mere earthly Liberator, calmly said, “Ye shall be free.”
1. First, then, we have to face this fact, that we are in bondage.—The Jews felt
their political position acutely; they writhed under foreign dominion, and
againand againbroke out into rebellion, seeking anexternal freedom by
casting off the hated Roman yoke. It was intolerable to them to be considered
the slaves ofCæsar, and the most horrible scenes attendedtheir several
patriotic uprisings. The purpose of our Lord was to convince them of an
underlying slavery, which accountedfor their political servitude, and to
conferupon them the spiritual liberty which contains the potency and promise
of all freedoms. The essentialslaveryis interior; political coercionmay
imprison the body or intellectual error degrade the mind, but by far the most
abjectand fatal bondage is that of the soul under the dominion of ignorance,
passion, and wilfulness.
(1) The bondage of the mind is one source and method of the essentialslavery,
the bondage of the mind being the tyranny of materialism. Our Lord often
speaks ofsin as unbelief, unbelief in the spiritual universe—blindness to God,
to the spirituality of the law, to the rewards and retributions of the life
beyond; and this unbelief, blocking out the spiritual universe, leaves us slaves
of the senses.We are cagedin by the body, limited by the bars of
circumstance, victims of the material, the worldly, and the temporal. The
carnally-minded may fancy themselves possessedofa large liberty, but earth
and time at their widestare narrow to the spirit. To be governed from below
is the essentialslavery. To obey only animal impulses, to seek sensuous
pleasure, to hope for nothing beyond socialpromotion, to find our motive and
end in earthly things, and, in a word, to surrender ourselves to the fatalism of
circumstance, is an infinitely worse slaverythan to be bound hand and foot. In

5. this cruel bondage thousands live and die without one greatthought,
principle, or hope in their maimed and fettered life.
A recent writer upon the London ZoologicalGardens refers to “the spacious
aviary” provided for the eagles. Spacious aviary!One would like to know
what the eaglesthink of that. Surely the amplest artificial horizon is narrow
and the loftiest dome mean to creatures born to range the skies and seek the
sun. The noble birds must feelin dull, strange ways the loss of their native
heaven; the most spacious aviarycan only grievouslyand mysteriously fret
them. So the world, and the things of the world, painfully cramp the creature
in whose heart God has set eternity; his cage is narrow even when the stars
are its gilded wires. It is saidthat a bird of the north, confined in a yard, and
longing for his arctic haunts, has been known in spring to migrate from the
southern to the northern side of his narrow confines. And, howevermen doom
themselves to the straitenedlife of sense, the instinct of eternity pathetically
asserts itselfwithin absurd limits, and distracts the soul with morbid
repinings.1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson, The Bane and the Antidote, 228.]
(2) The bondage of the will is another part of the essentialslavery. All see
what an awful tyranny sin is when it has once become the habit of life. Some
kinds of sin are coarser, others less offensive, but thousands who have
committed sin find themselves miserably incapable of shaking off its tyranny;
they are victims of vanity, envy, covetousness, ambition, temper, impatience,
or sensualindulgence, and they struggle unavailingly with the despotism
which holds them down. He who unwittingly grasps the handles of an
electrifying-machine soonwrithes in pain and shrieks for deliverance. Why
does he not let go the torturing thing? He cannot;he is at the mercy of the
operator, and is the butt of the crowd. It is thus with multitudes who have
committed sin: they are its slaves;they are astonishedat themselves, ashamed
of themselves, filled with grief and remorse, yet utterly unable to break the
infernal spell. There is often more hope for the poor wretchagonizing in the
tentacles ofthe devil-fish than there is for some of these victims of vice.

6. In the Bay of Naples are severalislands famous for their beauty. The sky of
infinite depth and purity; the sea pure as the sky, and rivalling its manifold
tints of ever-changing glory; the landscapes richwith the silver of the olive
and the purple of the vine; the atmosphere full of the balm of flowers;and the
horizon studded with picturesque spots, as a royal girdle with jewels, conspire
to create a vision of delight. The Greek and Romanin their quest of loveliness
and pleasure built their palaces here, and to this focus of colour and joy the
modern lovers of beauty hasten as butterflies to roses. Now one ofthese fairy
islands is the property of the Italian Government, and its only inhabitants are
convicts. How little to them all this matchless scenery!Fettered, watched,
driven, scourged, they can only be sickenedby the splendour and irritated by
the lavish treasures ofearth and heaven. Is it not much like this with
unregenerate man in regardto the blessings of life and the glory of the
world?1 [Note:W. L. Watkinson, The Bane and the Antidote, 235.]
(3) The bondage of the conscienceis part of the slaveryof sin. Men are built in
three storeys, so to speak. Downat the bottom, and to be kept there, are
inclinations, passions, lust, desires, all which are but blind aimings after their
appropriate satisfaction, without any question as to whether the satisfactionis
right or wrong; and above that a dominant will which is meant to control, and
above that a conscience. Thatis the pyramid; and as the sunshine illumines
the gilded top of some spire, so the shining apex, the conscience,is illumined
when the light of God falls upon it. The commissionof sin defiles the
conscience, andconsciencedegradesus into convicts and cowards. The sense
of dignity, freedom, and confidence is lost in the act of transgression, andwith
the consciousness ofguilt comes fear and bondage. And is not life to the
unregenerate man a harsh and gloomyservitude? We look upon God as “a
hard Master.” Is not that the natural conceptionof God? The heathen look
upon Him in this light and representHim by terrible images in their temples;
and although we do not set up ghastly idols, our pessimistic conceptions ofthe
world’s Creatorand Ruler are equally terrible. We think of Him, and are
troubled. We look upon human duty as inequitable and exhausting, and fulfil

7. our task with the discontent and bitterness of a slave. Finally, we look forward
to the issues oflife with deep misgiving. Through fear of death we are all our
lifetime subject to bondage. At the bottom of all our pessimism, abjectness,
and hopelessnessis the consciousness ofsin and guilt. Neverdid Shakespeare
write a greater, deeperline than the one he puts into the mouth of Hamlet—
“Thus conscience doesmake cowards ofus all.” The unintelligible
wretchedness ofhuman life and the vague terrors which haunt us are not in
any wise mental in their origin and strength and to be abolished by fuller
intellectual light; they arise in the accusing conscience, andhere primarily
must our bondage and cowardice be dealt with.
The evils that we do, and that we cherish undone in our hearts, are like the
wreckers onsome stormy coast, who begin operations by taking the tongue
out of the bell that hangs on the buoy, and putting out the light that beams
from the beacon. Sin chokes conscience;and so the worse a man is, the less he
feels himself to be bad; and while a saint will be tortured with agonies of
remorse for some slight peccadillo, a brigand will add a murder or two to his
list, and wipe his mouth and say, “I have done no harm.” We are ignorant of
our sins because we bribe our consciences, because we drug our consciences,
and will not attend to the facts of our own spiritual being.1 [Note:A.
Maclaren.]
2. The secondthing that claims attention is that we may be unconscious ofour
bondage. This unconsciousness maybe due to our never having consciously
enjoyed freedom, or it may be due to the long time that has elapsedsince we
lost it, so that slaveryhas become a secondnature.
(1) We may never have opened our hearts to the joy of being free. There is
nothing about us that is more remarkable and more awful than the power that
we have, by not attending to something, of making that something practically
non-existent. The greatsearchlights that they now have on battleships will

8. fling a beam of terrible revealing poweron one small segmentof the vast
circle of the sea;and all the rest, though it may be filled with the enemy’s
fleet, will be lying in darkness. So just because we will not think of the facts of
our slaveryto sin, the facts are non-existent as far as we are concerned. Surely
it is not a thing worthy of a man never to go down into the deep places of his
own heart and see the ugly things that coil and wrestle and swarm and
multiply there.
Ezekielwas once led to a place where, through a hole broken in the wall, there
was shownhim an inner chamber, on the walls of which were painted the
hideous idols of the heathen. And there, in the presence ofthe foul shapes,
stoodvenerable priests and official dignitaries of Israel, with their censers in
their hands, and their backs to the oracle of God. There is a chamber like that
in all our hearts; and it would be a greatdeal better that we should go down,
through the hole in the wall, and see it than that we should live, as so many of
us do, in this fool’s paradise of ignorance of our own sin.1 [Note:A.
Maclaren.]
(2) The unconsciousnessmay be due to the force of habit. A slave may be only
all the more a slave that he is insensible to his bondage. There is no sense of
bondage when the instincts of freedom are unrepressed;but neither is there
any when despotism has lasted long enough to kill them out. A man’s nature
may have become so thoroughly habituated to slavery that he has ceasedto
know or think of anything better. On the other hand, the very consciousness
of bondage is a kind of emancipation. He who has begun to know and feelthe
irksomeness ofhis limits, is already, in a sense, beyondthem. There must be in
him at leastsome measure of, and sympathy with, what transcends the bounds
that hem him in, before he can feel them as bounds. Pain is the proof that
vitality is not extinct. Shame is the witness that the soul is not utterly lost to
goodness.And the blush on the slave’s cheek andthe sense ofdegradationin
his heart are at leastthe sign that he is not all a slave.

9. In the closing stanzas of that most graphic yet touching poem, “The Prisoner
of Chillon,” Byron wellexpresses the deadness of soul, the hopelessness, and
even carelessnessconcerning life and freedom, begottenin those who have too
long worn the chains of slavery. Forthe cankerof such fetters eats more
deeply into the soul than into the enchained limbs.
It might be months, or years, or days,
I kept no count, I took no note,
I had no hope my eyes to raise
And clearthem of their dreary mote;
At last men came to set me free,
I askednot why, and reck’d not where,
It was at length the same to me,
Fetter’d or fetterless to be
I learn’d to love despair.

10. And thus when they appear’d at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage—and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a secondhome.
II
The Truth that Liberates
All truth gives freedom. We hardly need to prove this in the present day. We
know that in every sphere ignorance is bondage, and knowledge is power. So
sure are we of it that we fearlesslyargue from effectto cause. Thatwhich
fetters is not true, that which frees us and gives us powercannot be false.
1. The craving for liberty lies deep in human nature, and many means have
been tried to satisfy it.

11. (1) Force has been tried. Wherever force has been used on the side of freedom
we honour it; the names which we pronounce in boyhood with enthusiasm are
those of the liberators of nations and the vindicators of liberty. Israelhad had
such—Joshua, the Judges, Judas Maccabæus. Hadthe Son of God willed so to
come, even on human data the successwas certain. Let us waive the truth of
His inward Deity, of His miraculous power, of His powerto summon to His
will more than twelve legions of angels. Let us only notice now that men’s
hearts were full of Him, ripe for revolt; and that at a single word of His, thrice
three hundred thousand swords would have started from their scabbards. But
had He so come, one nation might have gained liberty; not the race of man.
Moreover, the liberty would only have been independence of a foreign
conqueror. Therefore as a conquering king He did not come.
Cromwellwas strong that things obtained by force, though never so goodin
themselves, are both less to the ruler’s honour and less likely to last. “What
we gain in a free way is better than twice as much in a forced, and will be
more truly ours and our posterity’s”;and the safesttestof any constitution is
its acceptanceby the people. And again, “It will be found an unjust and
unwise jealousyto deprive a man of his natural liberty upon a supposition he
may abuse it.” The root of all external freedom is here.1 [Note:John Morley,
Oliver Cromwell, 513.]
(2) Legislationhas been tried. Perhaps only once has this been done
successfully, and by a single effort. When the names of conquerors shall have
been forgotten, and modern civilization shall have become obsolete,when
England’s shall be ancient history, one Act of hers will be remembered as a
record of her greatness, thatAct by which in costlysacrifice she emancipated
her slaves. Butone thing England could not do. She could give freedom, but
she could not make fit for freedom, she could not make it lasting. The stroke
of a monarch’s pen will do the one, the discipline of ages is needed for the
other. Give to-morrow a constitution to some feeble Easternnation or a horde

12. of savages, and in half a century they will be subjected again. Therefore the
Son of Man did not come to free the world by legislation.
(3) Civilization has been tried. Civilization does free; intellect equalizes. Every
step of civilization is a victory over some lowerinstinct. But civilization
contains within itself the elements of a fresh servitude. Man conquers the
powers of nature and becomes in turn their slave. The workman is in bondage
to the machine which does his will; his hours, his wages, his personalhabits
are determined by it. The rich man fills his house with luxuries, and cannot do
without them. A highly civilized community is a very spectacle ofservitude.
Man is there, a slave to dress, to hours, to manners, to conventions, to
etiquette. Things contrived to make his life more easybecome his masters.
Therefore Jesus did not talk of the progress ofthe species orthe growth of
civilization. He did not trust the world’s hope of liberty to a right division of
property. He freed the inner man, that so the outer might become free too.
“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
If there were any doubt as to Christianity being truth, that complete freedom,
which cannot be oppressedby anything, and which a man experiences the
moment he makes the Christian life-conceptionhis own, would be an
undoubted proof of its truth.1 [Note:Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within
You (Complete Works, xx. 220).]
2. Only the Truth canmake us free. We must be true in our attitude to
ourselves and to our fellow-men.
(1) Of course the Truth meant is not mere information. In that sense, the
wisestof men canknow only a little; he has to content himself with being
ignorant of all but a fraction of what is knowable. And, what is more
important, true wisdom does not depend upon the extent of a man’s

13. information. There cannot indeed be wisdom without information, gathered
from books and from communication with others; but such information is but
the raw material out of which wisdom has to be extracted;and often a mind
that is not possessedofany greatstore of knowledge, and whose experience is
very limited, shows itself able to draw more light out of it than others who
have had a wide intercourse with men and things.
(2) Nor, again, is the Truth referred to the holding of correctdoctrines in
theology, or in any other subject. It has been one of the most fatal mistakes to
regard such correctnessaccording to some standard of orthodoxy as the root
of the matter, and to suppose that the one thing needful was, by whatever
measures might be necessary—byviolence or constraint, by hindering men
from speaking and thinking freely, by narrowing their lives, and so preventing
the natural action of their minds—to confine them to one setof opinions.
Opinions, howeverright, are mere prejudices, unless they spring from a living
root in our own experience and thought. We have many opinions which have
come to us, we might almost say, in our sleep—byimitation of those around
us, by the fact that we have heard things said and never heard them
controverted, or at best, by a superficial exercise ofour understanding upon
first appearances. Suchopinions therefore sit upon us very lightly, and we
could part with them without much loss or change. We should not feel
diminished, nor would our lives be essentiallyaltered, if they were turned into
their opposites.
(3) There is, however, a deeper kind of conviction than this, which is
continually forming itself within every man, and constitutes for him the
genuine result of his experience;a conviction as to the realmeaning of his life
in this world, what is most to be soughtfor, and what is most to be avoided,
what he himself would wish to be, and what attitude he should take up in
relation to his fellow-men; a convictionwhich may be said to constitute his
real religion or to determine what he really worships. This conviction may not
come readily to our lips, and indeed it often needs a kind of self-analysis, to

14. which most men are very averse, to recognize it at all; yet it is continually
shaping itself more and more definitely within us, and every actwe do, and
every serious thought we think, is a contribution to its growth. Every one is
continually, by every action and thought, building up within him a true or a
false view of his own nature and of the world, a view which puts him into a
right or a wrong attitude to himself and to his fellow-men. Now, if we ask the
secretof success orfailure in this process, looking atconspicuous instancesof
either, what do we find? It is that successseems to depend upon a certain
inward sincerity of soul, a willingness to apprehend the real facts of the case
and to accepttheir lesson, upon a hatred of falsehoodand illusion and a desire
to stand in the clearlight of day, and to understand the realmeaning of the
experience which life brings to us; while failure seems to be the result of a
certain unwillingness to admit anything we do not like, a readiness to accept
anything as true that flatters our desires, and an obstinate shutting of our ears
to anything that opposes them.
“O ye hypocrites,” saidChrist to the Pharisees, “ye candiscern the face of the
sky; but canye not discern the signs of the times?” At first it seems hard that
men should be condemned for not having insight enough to discern the signs
of the times, that is, to see whatwere the really important circumstances in
their surroundings and what was the line of conduct, of thought and action,
which would make them useful to their day and generation. But the justice of
the condemnationbecomes evident when we realize that such want of
discernment is due, not to merely intellectual limitations, but to that lack of
truthfulness of soul which alone makes a man open to the inner meaning of
the facts before him. In truth, men often go through life only half-awake,or
seeing as in dreams only the pictures evokedby their own desires and feelings;
and thus that which is most important in the experiences oftheir own lives is
all but entirely lost to them.1 [Note:E. Caird, Lay Sermons Delivered at
Balliol College,30.]

15. 3. What, then, is the Truth which Christ says shall make us free? Truth is the
vital law or principle of life. “If ye continue in my word … ye shall know the
truth.” Clearly, this sequence of ideas regards truth as the vital principle of
life. It is not a theory, a calculation, an abstraction, a logicaldeduction, but a
practicalcontinuing in the word of life. When a man has discoveredthe word
which fulfils his life he has found the very soul and essenceoftruth. In no
other way can truth be found, in no other way can it be satisfactorilytested.
(1) The essentialtruth for the seedthat is sown in the ground consists in the
vital principle in virtue of which it germinates and unfolds its own proper life.
By this principle it is distinguished from all the other products of the world,
and receives its own charter of individual existence. The truth of the barley
seedlies in that principle by which it unfolds its particular and distinctive
qualities, and produces wholesome barley, and not something else. The truth
of the rose tree is held in the principle which distinguishes it from all other
flowering plants, and causes it to produce the beauty of the rose. Plainly
enough, the truth of any and every plant does not consistin what botany
discourses aboutthem, but in the vital principle which gives them distinctive
existence and perfection of life. The principle is, of course, as wide as creation.
The essentialtruth for all createdthings lies in the potent principle in which
they “live and move and have their being.” In the last issue, universal truth is
the eternalpulse of the life of God.
(2) The truth of intellect lies, therefore, not in any discoveries ortheories of
the human mind, but in the deeperlaws by which the mind itself is constituted
and developed. The things that are essentialto mind, not the theories that are
incidental to it, are its truth. The things that cannot be denied without
contradicting the being of thought are indisputable truth. Among these are
the ideas of order, arrangement, cause and effect, and universal relation.

16. (3) When we carry this principle into the province of the human spirit, we
reachthe deepesthome of truth, the last word upon which all others depend,
to which all others are subjugated, and in which all others are completed. The
truth for the human spirit is that which is experiencedand realizedby it as
the energyand satisfactionofits own life; that which, in flowing through its
being, imparts inspiration, expansion, and potency. For example, the
consciousnessofan indwelling God, the pulse of a universal moral law, and
the potencies ofimmortality, are vital elements of our spiritual nature, being
essentialto spiritual self-realization. The spirit of man cannot deny these
without committing spiritual suicide. These are as fundamental a part of
spiritual being as order and relation are of intellectual being. It is in spiritual
life, and there alone, that the truth of the spirit canbe testedand approved.
The word of Jesus Christ answers this test; for it has been proved by man’s
spiritual nature to give life, and to give it abundantly. No arguments in the
world can countervail a fact like this. As the principle of life for a tree
constitutes the truth of that tree, so the proved principle of life for the spirit of
man constitutes the truth for his spirit. In the word of Christ the vital
principle of spiritual life is given in its perfect form; the indwelling God is
invested with supreme glory, the consciousnessofmoral law is uplifted into its
perfectedgrandeur, and the pulse of immortal life is flushed with the final
energy of demonstration and revelation. In Jesus Christ the spiritual life of
man has experienceda powerand development unknown to it before. “As
many as receivedhim, to them gave he powerto become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his name.” For the spirit (which is the only rightful
judge), this proof is irrefragable, for it lies in undeniable potencies of life. The
question, “Whatis truth?” is satisfactorilyanswered. Jesus said, “Iam the
way, the truth, and the life.”
4. Christ is “the Truth,” and His teaching, acceptedby the will and expressed
in the life, is the Truth that makes us free. The truth which He taught was
chiefly on three points—

17. (1) God.—Blotout the thought of God, a Living Person, and life becomes
mean, existence unmeaning, the universe dark, and resolve is left without a
stay, aspirationand duty without a support. The Son exhibited God as Love:
and so that fearful bondage of the mind to the necessityof Fate was broken. A
living Lord had made the world; and its dark and unintelligible mystery
meant good, not evil. He manifestedHim as a Spirit; and if so, the only
worship that could please Him must be a spirit’s worship. Not by sacrifices is
God pleased;nor by droned litanies and liturgies; nor by fawning and
flattery: nor is His wrath bought off by blood. Thus was the chain of
superstition sent asunder; for superstition is wrong views of God; exaggerated
or inadequate, and wrong conceptions ofthe way to please Him.
(2) Man.—We are a mystery to ourselves. Go to any place where nations have
brought togethertheir wealth and their inventions, and before the victories of
mind you stand in reverence. Then stop to look at the passing crowds who
have attained that civilization. Think of their low aims, their mean lives, their
conformation only a little higher than that of brute creatures, and a painful
sense ofdegradation steals upon you. So greatand yet so mean! And so of
individuals. There is not one whose feelings have not been deeper than we can
fathom, not one who would venture to tell out to his brother man the mean,
base thoughts that have crossedhis heart during a single hour. Now this
riddle He solved. He lookedon man as fallen, but magnificent in his ruin. We,
catching that thought from Him, speak as He spoke. Butnone that were born
of woman ever felt this or lived this like Him. Beneaththe vilest outside He
saw this—a human soul, capable of endless growth; and thence He treated
with what for want of a better term we may callrespectall who approached
Him; not because they were titled Rabbis, or rich Pharisees, but because they
were men. Here was a germ for freedom. It is not the shackle onthe wrist that
constitutes the slave, but the loss of self-respect, to be treated as degraded till
he feels degraded, to be subjectedto the lash till he believes that he deserves
the lash. And liberty is to suspectand yet reverence self, to suspectthe
tendency which leaves us ever on the brink of fall, to reverence that within us
which is allied to God, redeemedby God the Son, and made a temple of the
Holy Ghost.

18. (3) Immortality.—Christ taught that this life is not all; that it is only a
miserable state of human infancy. He taught that in words, by His life, and by
His Resurrection. This, again, was freedom. If there is a faith that cramps and
enslaves the soul, it is the idea that this life is all. If there is one that expands,
and elevates, itis the thought of immortality; and this is something quite
distinct from the selfish desire of happiness. It is not to enjoy, but to be that
we long for; to enter into more and higher life—a craving which we can part
with only when we sink below Humanity, and forfeit it. This was the martyrs’
strength. They were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might
attain a better resurrection. In that hope, and the knowledge ofthat truth,
they were free from the fear of pain and death.
5. We must know the Truth. A servant may obey his master’s will without any
intelligent apprehensionof its meaning, or sympathy with his intentions and
aims. If he is sent on an errand, he may carry correctlythe words of a
messagewhichhe does not understand. He may go on a mission the nature of
which is quite above his apprehension, simply following out certain precise
directions without any discretionary powerof action. He may construct, if he
has mechanicalskill, an elaborate piece ofmechanism, simply working, bit by
bit, according to the detailed plan or drawing placedbefore him. But suppose
that by diligent study the workman’s mind has become developedand his
knowledge increased, so as to enable him to understand the principle and
enter with intelligent appreciationinto the idea of the thing; or even more
than that, suppose advancing knowledge and culture have raised him
generallyinto a capacityof sympathy and fellowshipwith the master’s
mind—then, in that case, thoughhe might continue to obey the master’s
behests, there would be a complete change in the characterof the work.
Only then have I reachedthe deepestconviction, only then does faith stand on
the impregnable rock of certitude, when I can say, “I know this to be the truth
of God; its teaching has touched the deepestsprings of thought and feeling

19. within my breast, it has awakenedmy conscience, movedmy heart, kindled
my aspirations aftera, purer, better life, brought peace and restto my spirit,
and though a thousand authorities should contradict it, though Paul or an
angelfrom heaven should teachanother doctrine, I will not, cannot receive
it.”1 [Note: John Caird, University Sermons, 206.]
(1) To desire the truth is the beginning. We might almost callit the end as
well. The desire, if it is genuine, will inevitably teach a man the true road to
follow. For the genuine desire to see and hold the truth is bound up with the
longing for excellence whichour Lord calls the hunger and thirst after
righteousness. “Ifany man willeth to do God’s will,” our Lord says, “he shall
know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.” To desire to see the truth is one
condition of seeing it; to will to do God’s will is the other. The truth is
revealedto those who are straining towards their Father in heaven. Heavenly
aspirations, earnestdesire for goodness,the face turned towards Christ, the
desire ever to live by whateverwithin us is highest and best, the willing
obedience to our own best thoughts, the cheerful, the glad resolutionto do
whatevershall seemto us kindest, truest, justest, purest, noblest—thatis the
life which opens the eyes, and, wheneverGod reveals any part of the
excellence ofHis holiness, as He will assuredlyrevealit to eachman in fitting
time, that is the life which catches the light, and that is the man whom the
truth conducts to perfectfreedom.
(2) The light of truth is, in some degree, like the light of heaven. It comes by
God’s ordinance for the most part, and not wholly by man’s seeking. The
pearl of great price was found by the man who was seekinggoodlypearls. He
sought for truth, and he found in the course of his searchthe one truth of all.
But the treasure hid in a field was found by one who was not seeking atall.
The truth was given in the course of God’s Providence, and lookedas if it
came by chance.

20. He acceptedwith his whole heart and soul the Christian representationof
man as originally a child in the house of the Infinite Father, who speaks truth
to him in a voice he canrecognize as His. This representationhe was well
aware rests upon two vast assumptions, 1st, that man actually knows God,
and, 2nd, that he is able to recognize His voice. He always frankly admitted
that he could not prove these positions, but he held them fast as the main
support of his intellectual and moral life. He strongly held that man reaches
highest truth only when God utters it to his soul by His Word and Spirit.
Through learning and science we getsubordinate truths; but through Divine
teaching alone the highest truth. This conviction, which took full possessionof
him, produced a beautiful intellectual humility. No one ever imbibed more of
the levelling spirit of the Gospelthat calls the sage to sit beside the little child
in the schoolof Christ.1 [Note:David Brown, Memoir of John Duncan, 381.]
III
The Liberty that Truth Gives
The whole Bible is a book of liberty. It rings with liberty from beginning to
end. Its greatmen are the men of liberty; and the Old Testamentis the
emancipator, leading forth out of imprisonment the people of God, who were
to do the greatwork of God in the very much largerand freer life in which
they were to live. The prophet and the psalmist are ever preaching and
singing about liberty, the enfranchisementof the life of man. When we turn
from the Old Testamentto the New Testament, how absolutely clearthat idea
is! Christ is the very embodiment of human liberty. In His own personallife
and in everything that He did and said, He was for ever uttering the great
gospelthat man, in order to become his completest, must become his freest;
that what a man did when he entered into a new life was to open a new region
in which new powers were to find their exercise, in which he was to be able to
be and do things which he could not be and do in more restrictedlife.

21. 1. What is Liberty? Try to give a definition of liberty, and it will be something
of this kind: Liberty is the fullest opportunity for man to be and do the very
best that is possible for him. There is no definition of liberty, that oldest and
dearestphrase of men, and sometimes the vaguestalso, exceptthat. It has
been perverted; it has been distorted and mystified, but that is what it really
means—the fullest opportunity for a man to do and be the very best that is in
his personalnature to do and to be. It immediately follows that everything
which is necessaryforthe full realizationof a man’s life, even though it seems
to have the characterofrestraint for a moment, is really a part of the process
of his enfranchisement, is the bringing forth of him to a fuller liberty.
(1) Man thinks of every change that is to come to him as in the nature of
denial of something that he is at the present doing and being, as the laying
hold upon himself of some sort of restraint, bringing to him something which
says:“I must not do the thing which I am doing. I must lay upon myself
restraints, restrictions, commandments, and prohibitions. I must not let
myself be the man that I am.” The Old Testamentcomes before the New
Testament, the law ringing from the mountain-top with the greatdenials, the
greatprohibitions, that come from the mouth of God. Thou shalt not do this,
that, or the other. Thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not steal. Thoushalt not
commit adultery. Thou shalt not covetthy neighbour’s goods. Thatis the first
conceptionwhich comes to a man of the wayin which he is to enter upon a
new life, of the way in which the denial in his experience is to take effect. It is
as if the hands were stretched out in order that fetters might be placedupon
them. The man says:“Let some powercome that is to hinder me from being
this thing that I am.” And the whole notion, is the notion of imprisonment,
restraint.
So is it with all civilization. It is perfectly possible for us to represent
civilization as compared with barbarism, as acceptedby mankind, as a great
mass of restrictions and prohibitions that have been laid upon human life, so

22. that the freedom of life has been castaside, and man has entered into a
restricted, restrained, and imprisoned condition. So is it with every fulfilment
of life. It is possible for a man always to representit to himself as if it were the
restriction, restraint, and prohibition of his life. The man passesonwardinto
the fuller life which belongs to a man. He merges his selfishness in that richer
life which is offered to human kind. He makes himself, instead of a single,
selfishman, a man of family; and it is easyenough to considerthat marriage
and the family life bring immediately restraints and prohibitions. The man
may not have the freedom which he used to have. So all development of
education, in the first place, offers itself to man, or seems to offer itself to man,
as prohibition and imprisonment and restraint. There is no doubt truth is
such an idea. We never lose sight of it. No other richer and fuller idea which
we come to by and by ever does awaywith the thought that man’s advance
means prohibition and self-denial, that in order that man shall become the
greaterthing he must cease to be the poorerand smaller thing he has been.
You capture a fish in the stream, and place it in a confining globe or bowl of
water. You have takenawayits liberty by restriction. But suppose that,
instead of placing it in the globe, you fling it far awayupon a far-stretching
lea. You have not confined it. You have given it more free space than it had
before. It was previously confined within the waters of the stream, but now all
the wide world is an open space around it. Have you given it freedom? No;
you have enslavedit by depriving it of its vital constraint. Within the
constraint of the waters it flashed along joyously like a beam of light. On the
open meadow, it gasps and writhes in pitiful helplessness anddistress. It has
lost its liberty in the lawlessness oflicence. You have takenit out of those vital
relations that controlled and perfected its activities.1 [Note:J. Thomas.]
In a lecture given at Woolwich, Ruskinrecalledan incident of his early
childhood which his mother was fond of telling him. “One evening when I was
yet in my nurse’s arms, I wanted to touch the tea-urn, which was boiling
merrily. It was an early taste for bronzes, I suppose;but I was resolute about

23. it. My mother bade me keepmy fingers back;I insisted on putting them
forward. My nurse would have takenme away from the urn, but my mother
said—“Lethim touch it, Nurse.” So I touched it,—and that was my first
lessonin the meaning of the word Liberty. It was the first piece of Liberty I
got, and the lastwhich for some time I askedfor.2 [Note:E. T. Cook, The Life
of Ruskin, i. 10.]
(2) But when a man turns awayfrom his sins and enters into energetic
holiness, when a man sacrificeshis own self-indulgence and goes forth a pure
servant of his Godand his fellow-men, there is only one cry in the whole
gospelof that man, and that is the cry of freedom. As soonas I cancatchthat,
as soonas I can feel about my friend, who has become a better man, that he
has become a larger and not a smaller, a freer and not a more imprisoned
man, as soonas I lift up my voice and say that the man is free, then I
understand him more fully, and he becomes a revelationto me in the higher
and richer life which is possible for me to live. The man puts aside some
sinfulness. He breaks down the wall that has been shutting his soul out of its
highest life. He has been a drunkard, and he becomes a soberman. He has
been a cheatand becomes a faithful man. He has been a liar and becomes a
truthful man. He has been a profligate, and he becomes a pure man. What has
happened to that man? Shall he simply think of himself as one who has
crushed this passion, shut down this part of his life? Shall he simply think of
himself as one who has taken a course ofself-denial? No. It is self-indulgence
that a man has really entered upon. It is an indulgence of the deepestpart of
his ownnature, not of his unreal nature. He has risen and shakenhimself like
a lion, so that the dust has fallen from his mane, and all the greatrange of that
life which God gave him to live lies before him. This is the everlasting
inspiration. This is the illumination.1 [Note: Phillips Brooks,Addresses, 82.]
(3) It is no wonder that, if the negative, restricting, imprisoning conceptionof
the new life is all that a man gets hold of, he should still linger on in the old
life. For just as soonas the greatworld opens before him he is like a prisoner

24. going out of the prison door—is there then no lingering? Does not the baser
part of him cling to the old prison, to the ease and the provision for him, to the
absence ofanxiety and of energy? There can hardly be a prisoner who, with
any leap of heart, goes outof the prison door, when his term is finished, and
does not even look into that black horror where he has been living, or cast
some lingering, longing look behind. He comes to the exigencies,to the
demands of life, to the necessityof making himself once more a true man
among his fellow-men. But does he stop? He comes forth, and if there be the
soul of a man in him still, he enters into the new life with enthusiasm, and
finds the new powers springing in him to their work.
When I bring a flowerout of the darkness and setit in the sun, and let the
sunlight come streaming down upon it, and the flower knows the sunlight for
which it was made and opens its fragrance and beauty; when I take a dark
pebble and put it into the stream and let the silver watergo coursing down
over it and bringing forth the hidden colour that was in the bit of stone,
opening the nature that is in them, the flowerand the stone rejoice. I can
almost hear them sing in the field and in the stream. What then? Shall not
man bring his nature out into the fullest illumination, and surprise himself by
the things that he might do?1 [Note:Phillips Brooks, Addresses, 88.]
2. What is that Liberty which the Truth gives?
(1) Is it political freedom?—Christ’s gospeldid not promise political freedom,
yet it gave it; more surely than conqueror, reformer, or patriot, that gospel
will bring about a true liberty at last. And this, not by theories or by schemes
of constitutions, but by the revelationof truths. God is a Spirit: man is His
child—redeemed and sanctified. Before that spiritual equality, all distinctions
betweenpeer and peasant, monarch and labourer, privileged and
unprivileged, vanish. A better man, or a wiserman than I, is in my presence,
and I feelit a mockery to be reminded that I am his superior in rank. Let us

25. hold that truth; let us never weary of proclaiming it: and the truth shall make
us free at last.
(2) Is it intellectual freedom?—Slaveryis that which cramps powers. The
worstslavery is that which cramps the noblestpowers. Worse therefore than
he who manacles the hands and feet is he who puts fetters on the mind, and
pretends to demand that men shall think, and believe, and feel thus and thus,
because others so believed, and thought, and felt before. There is a tendency
in the masses alwaysto think—not what is true, but—what is respectable,
correct, orthodox: we ask, Is that authorized? It comes partly from cowardice,
partly from indolence, from habit, from imitation, from the uncertainty and
darkness of all moral truths, and the dread of timid minds to plunge into the
investigationof them. Now, truth known and believed respecting Godand
man, frees from this, by warning of individual responsibility. But
responsibility is personal. It cannotbe delegatedto another, and thrown off
upon a church. Before God, face to face, eachsoulmust stand, to give account.
We hear much about “free-thought”;but free-thought is realized only in Him
who delivers from the illusions of time and matter, and persuades us of the
real and abiding universe. He fres the understanding from the most fatal of
errors. He opens our eyes that we may see;strikes from the soulthe fetters of
sense;cleanses ourwings from the clogging bird-lime of earthliness;and for
the first time we are free, gloriouslyfree like the eagle “ringedround with the
azure sky.”1 [Note:W. L. Watkinson.]
(3) Is it freedom of the will?—It is not enoughto define the liberty which
Christ promises as freedom from sin. Many circumstances willexempt from
sin which do not yet confer that liberty “where the Spirit of the Lord is.”
Childhood, paralysis, ill-health, the impotence of old age, may remove the
capacityand even the desire for transgression:but the child, the paralytic, the
old man, are not free through the Truth. Therefore, to this definition we must

26. add, that one whom Christ liberates is free by his own will. It is not that he
would, and cannot; it is that he can, and will not. Christian liberty is right
will, sustained by love, and made firm by faith in Christ. Wherever a man
would and cannot, there is servitude. He may be unable to control his
expenditure, to rouse his indolence, to check his imagination. Well—he is not
free. He may boast, as the Jews did, that he is Abraham’s son, or any other
greatman’s son;that he belongs to a free country; that he never was in
bondage to any man; but free in the freedom of the Son he is not.
An actis free when it is the expressionof our ownthought and will, when our
own nature and our whole nature goes with it. If in what we do we are merely
doing blindly another’s bidding, following mechanically the directions laid
down for us, we may be a useful tool, a convenient instrument of a master’s
purposes, but our work is not our own, but his; we are not free. To make us
free, the work itself must constitute or contain the motive of our activity. The
satisfactionordelight of doing it, and not any ulterior end or object, must be
all in all to us. In the measure in which any other motive,—hope or fear,
desire of honour or reward, dread of punishment or disgrace, nay, even a
sense ofduty or obligation,—interferes orintermingles with our activity, in
that measure we are not free.2 [Note:John Caird, University Sermons, 208.]
“A man,” said Epictetus, is free only when “whateveris the will of God is his
will too, and whateveris not God’s will is not his will.” This was a true
definition of the highest freedom, provided that acceptanceofthe will of God
is not a matter of necessityand submissionmerely, as it was with many of the
Stoics. This would be the self-contradictorything, freedom under compulsion.
A man is truly free only when the will of God is not merely accepted, but loved
and desired as that which is wholly good;when the love of God, of His Will,
and of all that He is, becomes the active principle of the life. Then God’s will is
for the man not merely law but love and life. He has the will of God, as far as
may be, as his will; in the highest sense possible to man he is one with God.1
[Note:W. L. Walker, The True Christ, 27.]

27. (4) Is it freedom of the conscience?—Isit freedom of the inner self, carrying
with it the fulness of moral freedom, and the superiority to all fears? Fear
enslaves, courageliberates—andthat always. Whatevera man intensely
dreads, that brings him into bondage, if it be above the fear of God, and the
reverence of duty. The apprehension of pain, the fear of death, the dread of
the world’s laugh, of poverty, and the loss of reputation enslave alike. From
such fear Christ frees, and through the power of the truth. He who lives in the
habitual contemplation of immortality cannot be in bondage to time or
enslavedby transitory temptations. Do not say he will not; “he cannot sin,”
saith the Scripture, while that faith is living. He who feels his soul’s dignity,
knowing what he is and who, redeemed by God the Son, and freed by God the
Spirit, cannot cringe, or pollute himself, or be mean. He who aspires to gaze
undazzled on the intolerable brightness of that One before whom Israelveiled
their faces, will scarcelyquail before any earthly fear.
Of truth, as wellas of love, it may be said that there is no fear in truth, but
perfect truth castethout fear. The eye which is strong enough to pierce
through the shadow of death is not troubled because the golden mist is
dispelled and it looks on the open heaven.2 [Note:Benjamin Jowett.]
A lady with whom he was slightly acquainted assailedhim for “heterodox
opinions,” and menacedhim with the consequence whichin this world and the
next would follow on the course ofaction he was pursuing. His only answer
was, “I don’t care.” “Do youknow what don’t care came to, sir?” “Yes,
madam,” was the grave reply, “He was crucified on Calvary.”3 [Note:S. A.
Brooke, Life and Letters of F. W. Robertson, 353.]
Then he stoodup, and trod to dust

28. Fearand desire, mistrust and trust,
And dreams of bitter sleepand sweet,
And bound for sandals on his feet
Knowledge and patience of what must
And what things may be, in the heat
And cold of years that rot and rust
And alter; and his spirit’s meat
Was freedom, and his staff was wrought
Of strength, and his cloak wovenof thought.
For what has he, whose will sees clear,
To do with doubt and faith and fear,
Swift hopes, and slow despondencies?

29. His heart is equal with the sea’s
And with the sea-wind’s, and his ear
Is level with the speechofthese,
And his soul communes and takes cheer
With the actualearth’s equalities,—
Air, light, and night, hills, winds, and streams,
And seeksnot strength from strengthless dreams.1 [Note:Swinburne.]
(5) It is the freedom of fellowshipwith God.—Freedomis perfect harmony
betweenour souls and God’s law. Jesus is the truth that shows us God and
gives us hearts to love Him; teaches us our relations to Him and enables us to
live in harmony with those relations. “If the Son therefore shall make you
free, ye shall be free indeed.” The choice is before us—the bondage of Satan
or the liberty of the sons of God; slaves ofsin or freemen in Christ Jesus. No
other choice is open to us. We cannotsay, “I will be free, but not in Christ.”
We cannotfree ourselves, else the Son would never have come to free us. We
can be made free only by the truth as it is in Jesus.

30. “If the Son shall make you free.” We can all admit that what the Son of the
King does, He does with an authority and delegatedpowersecondonly, if
second, to the King Himself. But this is not all. This parallel will go only a very
little way to meet the case.To the Christ, the crucified and risen Christ, and
because He was crucified, the Fatherhas committed the whole government of
our world. This Son, the Sonof God, became the Sonof man, that He might
do this very thing; so that the word is doubly true and doubly emphatic, the
Son, the Son of God, being the Son of man. “If the Son shall make you free, ye
shall be free indeed.” It is all to be attributed to the promise of God’s
incarnate Son; there is no other way in which it canbe accomplished.
“Ye shall be free indeed.” It is a grand word, “indeed.” It is very comforting
in its simplicity; and it is a word for wonder—“indeed.” There are many
kinds of liberty, but not “indeed.” There is the liberty of forgetfulness;there is
the liberty of licentiousness;but “indeed” means so much behind it, “Ye shall
be free indeed.”1 [Note:J. Vaughan.]
“I was one of a party who visited Chatsworththe other day. We were allowed
the privilege of going through the noble house. But our liberties were severely
restricted. We were allowedto pass rapidly through what is called“the
showrooms,”but we were rigidly excluded from the “living-rooms.” In many
places there were red cords stretched across inviting passages,and our
progress was barred. If I had been a son of the house, I could have passedinto
the living-rooms, the place of sweetand sacredfellowships, the home of genial
intercourse, where secrets pass from lip to lip, and unspoken sentiments
radiate from heart to heart.”2 [Note:J. H. Jowett, British Weekly, Dec. 29,
1910.]
Truth and Freedom

31. BIBLEHUB RESOURCES
Pulpit Commentary Homiletics
The Liberating Truth
John 8:32
D. Young
There are two kinds of freedom: the freedom of the liberated prisoner and the
freedom of the manumitted slave. Living in a country like England, we are
most likely to think of the former kind. But it is quite evident that Jesus was
thinking of servitude rather than captivity. Many may have to be under
restraint because they have broken laws;it is right that they should be
prisoners for a time, perhaps even for all their lives. But servitude never can
be right; it has had to remain awhile because ofthe hardness of men's hearts,
and as men have got more light upon human equality, they have seenthat no
man should be legallycompelled into the service of another, whether he would
or not. In the time of Jesus there were many bond slaves, and he had no magic
process wherebyhe could liberate them. But there were bond slaves besides,
unconscious oftheir servitude, deluded with the notion that they were already
free, and therefore all the harder to liberate. To such Jesus spoke here. He
spoke to slaves, andtold them what would liberate them.
I. THE PROCESS OF LIBERATION MAY BE REAL, THOUGH FOR A
WHILE WE ARE NOT CONSCIOUS OF IT. The prisoner is free when no
longerin prison; the slave is free when no longerunder the legalcontrol of his
owner. But Christian liberty cannotthus be made up of negations;it would be
a poor thing if it could. It is of no use to attempt a definition of Christian
liberty; it is a thing into which we must grow. We must grow until, even as
Paul did, we look back on the days once counted free as days of the worst
servitude. Going where Christ wants us to go, being what Christ wants us to
be, we shall see in due time what a real and blessedthing spiritual freedom is.

32. Still, though it must be a time before we know this properly, yet we may know
something of it at once in studying the very greatestillustration of real liberty
we can find, namely, the Lord Jesus himself. It is not abstracttruth that
liberates, but truth as embodied in the wisdom and powerof Jesus.
II. TRUTH BRINGS US INTO THE LIBERTY OF DOING GOD'S WILL.
Christ's own liberty was not that of doing as he liked. He went by the likings
of his Fatherin heaven. He did nothing without liking to do it; yet he also did
nothing just because he liked to do it. To desire what God desires, that is
liberty, without a check, a jar, or a fret. Sowing just what we like, we shall
certainly reap what we do not like. Christ wants to liberate us from the
thraldom of our own strong, foolish desires. The psalmist exactly expressesthe
Christian's privilege and attainment, when he says so cheerfully. "I will run
the wayof thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart."
III. TRUTH BRINGS US INTO THE LIBERTYOF SEEING THINGS
WITH OUR OWN EYES. The reputed wise in Jerusalemwould only have led
Jesus into a bondage of falsehoods and delusions. What a Pharisee they would
have tried to make him! Reallyfreethinking is the only right thinking, and our
Teacherwas the freest thinker that ever lived. It is our duty as much as our
right to judge everything in connectionwith Christ for ourselves. By that rule
we shall be judged at last. Others may help us in the way when chosen, but
they are not to choose it for us.
IV. TRUTH BRINGS US INTO THE LIBERTYOF A LOVING HEART.
The heart of Jesus could not be kept within rules and precedents and
prejudices. It was a Divine love, shed abroad in his heart, that kept him safe,
pure, and unspotted, in a world abounding with things to pollute.
V. TRUTH BRINGS US INTO THE LIBERTY OF A GRACIOUS LIFE.
That is, the liberty of Jesus never interfered with the true liberty of others,
but increasedand establishedit. He never broke awayfrom the beaten track
for the mere sake ofdoing it. - Y.

33. Biblical Illustrator
Then said Jesus unto those Jews which believed on Him.
John 8:31-59
A glorious liberator
Sunday SchoolTimes.
I. FREEDOM PROFFERED.
1. Sin makes bondage (ver. 34; Matthew 6:24; Luke 16:13;Romans 6:16, 17;
Galatians 4:25; 2 Peter2:19).
2. Truth brings freedom (ver. 32; Romans 6:14, 18; Romans 7:6; Galatians
5:18; James 1:25; 1 Peter2:16).
3. Christ gives freedom (ver. 36;Psalm 40:2; Psalm118:5; Romans 6:23;
Romans 8:2; 1 Corinthians 7:22; Galatians 5:1).
II. BONDAGE DEMONSTRATED.

34. 1. By doing evil deeds (ver. 44;Genesis 3:13;Genesis 6:5; Matthew 13:38;
Mark 7:23; Acts 13:10; 1 John 3:8).
2. By disbelieving the Lord (ver. 45; Isaiah53:1; Luke 22:67;John 4:48; 5:58;
6:36; 8:24).
3. By not hearing truth (ver. 47; Isaiah6:9; Matthew 13:15, Mark 4:9; John
3:12; John 5:47, 1 John 4:6).
III. DEATH VANQUISHED.
1. A dying race (ver. 53; Genesis 3:19;Psalm89:48; Ecclesiastes12:5;
Zechariah 1:5; Romans 5:12; Hebrews 9:27).
2. A life-giving obedience (ver. 51; Deuteronomy 11:27;Jeremiah7:23; Acts
5:29; Romans 6:16; Hebrews 5:9; 1 Peter1:22).
3. An ever-living Saviour (ver. 58; Psalm90:1; John 1:1; John 17:5;
Colossians 1:17;Hebrews 1:10; Revelation1:18).
(Sunday SchoolTimes.)
Bondage and freedom
I. PHYSICAL BONDAGE.
1. An ancient institution (Genesis 9:25, 26).
2. Calledbondmen (Genesis 43:18;Genesis 44:9).
3. Some born in bondage (Genesis 14:14;Psalm116:16).
4. Some captured in war (Deuteronomy 20:14;2 Kings 5:2).
5. Subject to sale (Genesis 17:27;Genesis 37:28-36).
6. Debtors soldinto bondage (2 Kings 4:1; Matthew 18:25).
7. Thieves soldinto bondage (Exodus 22:3).
8. Bondage ofIsraelites not perpetual (Exodus 21:2; Leviticus 25:10).

35. II. SPIRITUAL BONDAGE.
1. Is to the devil (1 Timothy 3:7; 2 Timothy 2:26).
2. Is to fear of death (Hebrews 2:14, 15).
3. Is to sin (John 8:34; Romans 6:16).
4. Is to corruption (2 Peter2:19; Romans 8:21).
5. Is to iniquity (Acts 8:23).
6. Is to the world (Galatians 4:8).
7. Is to spiritual death (Romans 7:24).
8. Is unknown by its subjects (John 8:83).
III. SPIRITUAL FREEDOM.
1. Promised(Isaiah 42:6, 7; Isaiah61:1).
2. Typified (Exodus 1:13, 14 with Deuteronomy4:20),
3. Through Christ (John 8:36; Romans 7:24, 25).
4. Profferedby the gospel(Luke 4:17-21).
5. Through the truth (John 8:32).
6. Testifiedby the Spirit (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:5, 6).
7. Enjoyed by saints (Romans 6:18-22).
8. Saints should abide in it (Galatians 5:1).
(Sunday SchoolTimes.)
The Kingdom of the Truth
C. S. Robinson, D. D.

36. I. THOSE WHO ARE NOT ITS SUBJECTSTHOUGH THEY SAY THEY
ARE.
1. Accepting a mere dead orthodoxy does not constitute one a genuine subject
of the Kingdom of Truth (vers. 31-33). This declarationis levelled againstthe
traditional faiths and old maxims which those Jews were holding as their
birthright blessing.
2. Norbeing born of respectable and even believing lineage. Our Lord was
confronted with the dry statementthat they descendedfrom Abraham, and
that they were never slaves evenin morality. "Professing themselves wise,
they became fools." Christansweredwith directness that the plain reasonwhy
they did not believe in Him, was that they were not born of God. All there was
of goodin their boastedancestorwas due to his having by faith seenChrist's
day. And when this maddened them, He raised His word to an imperial
utterance, such as only the King of the Kingdom of Truth could make (ver.
58). There are two things in this:(1) He that is not in Christ's kingdom is in
Satan's.(2)He who is not a Christian cannotbe a true man in life, thought,
temper, etc.
3. Norfollowing mere blind formulas of performance. Educationhas value;
but the truest men in an age like ours must sometimes turn back upon their
training with a free judgment. Antiquity is no proof of soundness in the right.
The devil has all the force of the argument in that direction, and Jesus told
these Jews that Satanwas their first father.
4. Norinsisting on mere sincere convictions. One may have honest preferences
for an absolutely false standard. It is possible that the affections have grown
perverted. The later history of Turner canbe explained only on the
supposition of a disease in his eyes;this threw all his work out of drawing. He
was as honest and industrious as ever; his sense of colourwas as fine as in his
early days, but his eyes had become mechanicallyuntrustworthy. The men,
arguing here with our Lord, did not believe in Him, not because whatHe told
them was not true, but because they, in their innermost hearts, were not true;
there was a distorted image upon their souls.
II. THOSE WHO ARE ITS SUBJECTS.

37. 1. A true man will accepttrue doctrines. "As he thinketh in his heart, so is
he." The two grand divisions of our race have always been ranged around
Christ and Anti-Christ (1 John 4:2-6).
2. A true man will cherish true principles. Josephsaid he must refuse sin
because he could not offend againstGod. Hazael had no more to offer in
objectionthan that he was afraid he might be thought only a dog. Expediency
is not enough, genuineness of principle is needed.
3. A true man will cultivate true tastes. He may not always getin love with
some forms and phases of religion. He may find that he has to gethimself into
a more amiable and trustful frame of mind before he is anything but the
artificial being that training for a bad lifetime has made him. If he does not
love gentleness,orhumility, or charity, or temperance, or godliness, whenhe
sees it, it is a task for him to set about to grow to love it as soonas he can. For
a critic who does not like a true painting is not himself true. If one prefers
Turkish jargon to a harmonious tune, he is not true. And when one turns
awayfrom a true child of God, it is because he is not true.
4. A true man will manifest true consistency. Christgave us the Word of God
as the standard of reference. The New Testamentis the book of manners in
the socialcircle ofthe Kingdom of Truth.
5. A true man will live a true life. There will be a fine, high unconsciousness
that anything else could be expected of him. He never will seek to pose;he
means to be. Pure and noble, he wishes only for a career"without fearand
without reproach." Cananyone tell why the old college song still thrills us
when we are quite on in life? There is a wonderful power in the famous
"IntegerVitae" of our early days. We would like to be reckonedas integers —
whole numbers — when the world adds up the columns of its remembered
worthies (Psalm 15:1-4).
(C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Jesus and Abraham

38. H. A. Edson, D. D.
I. THE RELIGION OF THESE JEWS.
1. It was a matter of blood and ancestry. There were, it is true, certain
ceremonies to be observed, but it was enough to be "Abraham's seed" to
secure the favour of Jehovah. Without that the most diligent piety could not
avail. Goodparentage no one will despise. If we have got our vigour from
virtuous ancestors,we may well be thankful. Even if prodigal of such an
inheritance, we shall still have an advantage in the battle of life. Aaron Burr
was a stoutersinner because his mother was JonathanEdward's daughter.
Robert Burns exhausted himself at thirty-eight, but what did he not owe to an
honest and frugal parentage? The first generationof sinners lasts longerthan
the second;much longerthan the third. But it will not do to trust blood as a
substitute for religion. "Who is your father?" may be the first question, but
"Who are you?" comes next. Many a boy disclosing his father's. name has
excited surprise in the police court, but the father's goodname does not keep
him out of prison. Absalom was David's son, and Judas Abraham's.
2. Christ told the Jews thatthis dead faith in our ancestorwas reallya
bondage to the devil (vers. 34-44). Theirancestors hadbeen slaves in Egypt
and Babylon, and now the Roman Eagle had them in its talons. Yet by some
legerdemainof logic they reasonedthat to be a Hebrew was to be a free man.
At once Jesus setthem on a deepersearch(ver. 44). What a hard masterthe
devil is! For Paradise Eve gets an apple. See this illustrated in the case of
Cain, Esau, Samson, Saul, Judas, Agrippa. The prodigal is sure to be set on
the lowesttasks,and left to crave even husks. Norhas the devil grownkinder
since.
3. Of course the bondsmen of Satan"cannotbear" the truth (vers. 43, 45, 47),
neither receive nor recognize it. Paul thought he was doing God service when
killing Christians, and perhaps these Jews were sincere, but with the
maladroitness of those who give themselves to the service of evil they reserve
their criticisms for that which was most fair, and direct their assaults when
the line was most secure. Our Lord's treatment of the woman was apparently

39. the cause oftheir hostility. The truth and goodness whichangeredthem
angers sinners now.
II. CHRIST'S DISCIPLES.
1. They are those who abide in Christ's Word. The dead religion was a mere
name, an accidentof birth; the new religion laid hold of the soul and was light
and life (vers. 31, 32, 47). What the mind must have is truth. A man who
believes a lie warms a serpent in his bosom. Christ's heelhas crushed the head
of the serpent of falsehood, and for His disciples its charm is broken. Having
come to the light the real children of Abraham continue in it. Bartimaeus has
no wish to return to his blindness. The Christian's love of the truth is one that
lasts. And Christians obey the truth (ver. 31; cf. Peter1:22; Galatians 3:1, 5,
7). The truth not only touches their intellect, judgment, conscience, but
quickens, guides and establishes their will (ver. 39).
2. Yet they enjoy a real freedom — a further contrast(vers. 32, 36; cf.
Romans 6:14-22). Subjectionto Christ's word is not slavery. Freedomdoes
not destroylaw nor overturn authority. The best liberty finds its satisfaction
within the limits of a law which is loved. Note the Divine order; first a change
of heart, then morality and piety. To require these bloodthirsty children of
Abraham to do his works wouldbe to put an intolerable yoke upon them. The
Bible is a weary book to a bad man. Prayer to the worldly is a burden. For the
dissolute no shacklesso heavyas the rules of virtue. But change a man's mind,
and his world is changed. Obedience becomes a song. Besidesthis, there is the
liberty from the penalty of sin by Christ's Cross.
3. As a result of all comes an assurance ofendless life (ver. 51, etc.).
(H. A. Edson, D. D.)
The grace ofcontinuance
A. T. Pierson, D. D.
I. A PREPARATORYSTAGE OF DISCIPLESHIP. The mind, heart, will,
moved, but the soul not yet made new in Christ. The vestibule of salvation. All

40. depends on holding on. The seedis in the soil, but needs to getroot and grow.
Satanthen tries to check it.
II. THE RESULTS OF CONTINUANCE.
1. Confirmation of discipleship.
2. Revelationof truth.
3. Emancipationfrom sin.
III. OUR LORD GIVES HIS FOLLOWERS SOMETHING —
1. To do.
2. To prove.
3. To know.
4. To become.
(A. T. Pierson, D. D.)
Disciples indeed
T. G. Horton.
I. THE CHARACTER OF A DISCIPLE INDEED. Letus look at Christ's first
disciples.
1. They forsook allthey had. See the case ofPaul (Philippians 3:7, 8). Every
sin, idol, circumstance inconsistentwith Christ's claim must be renounced.
2. They were docile. Christ taught them as they were able to hear. They had
much ignorance and many prejudices, but they willingly satat Christ's feet.
This is requisite in all true disciples (Matthew 18:2, 3).
3. They had a spiritual knowledge ofChrist (John 17:6-8), although the world
knew Him not. So it is still (2 Corinthians 4:6).

41. 4. They enjoyed the friendship of Christ (John 15:15). The secretofthe Lord
is with them that fear Him (1 John 1:3).
5. They were engagedin Christ's service (John 15:16). "None of us liveth to
himself."
II. THE PRIVILEGE PROMISED TO CHRIST'S DISCIPLES. "Ye shall
know the truth."
1. The truth referred to. Christ is the truth (John 14:6). We read (Ephesians
4:21) of the truth as in Jesus — the truth full of Christ's personalglory, love,
powerto save. There is truth in His holy character, in His sublime life, in His
vicarious death. He speaks here ofthe redemptive truth of which He Himself
was the sum and substance!
2. The knowledge spoken, of"Ye shall know," not as mere theory, but living
power, spiritually, experimentally. The inner eye is opened, the inner car is
unstopped, the heart is melted, the soul is subdued. Truth must be engrafted
in the soul (James 1:21).
3. The result predicated. The truth in Jesus emancipates the soul from the —
(1)Condemnation (Romans 8:1);
(2)the power and depravity of sin (Romans 6:23; Romans 8:30);
(3)harassing fearof the wrath to come (1 Thessalonians 1:9, 101;
(4)the depressing anxieties of life;
(5)from the dark and gloomy forebodings of death (Hebrews 2:14, 15).
III. THE CROWNING EVIDENCETHAT ONE IS A DISCIPLE INDEED.
"If ye continue in My word." Many of Christ's professing disciples do not
continue in His word. See the parable of the sower. But all Christ's true
disciples do.
1. His word is engraftedin their souls. The gospelis a living shootthat
produces fruit of its own. That soul thus Divinely operated on continues in
Christ's word, and Christ's word continues in it.

42. 2. They are joined to the Lord in an everlasting covenant. Every true disciple
has enteredinto a perpetual covenantto be Christ's, having found that he is
interestedin God's everlasting covenant, ratified and establishedforever by
the blood of the Surety! His motto is, "I am not My own!"
3. They are sealedby the Holy Spirit of promise. Without the indwelling, ever-
abiding Spirit, there is no spiritual life, power, worship or service;without
Him there is no safety. He comes as our life, and He seals us as God's forever
and ever.
4. They are kept by the power of God through faith unto final salvation(Peter
1:15; John 13:1, 2). His Almighty arms of unchanging love are placed
underneath, and round about (Deuteronomy 33:27; Isaiah27:3). God's true
people are kept not in mere safety, but in a life of holy love and devotedness;
not in sloth and indolence, but in holy activity and spiritual diligence.
(T. G. Horton.)
Continuous piety is piety indeed
J. Trapp.
It is the evening that crowns the day, and the lastact that commends the
whole scene. Temporaryflashings are but like conducts running with wine at
the coronation, that will not hold, or like a land flood, that seems to be a great
sea, but comes to nothing.
(J. Trapp.)
Constancya severe testof piety
J. Spencer.
Many who have gone into the field, and liked the work of a soldier for a battle
or two, soonhave had enough, and come running home again; whereas few
can bear it as a constanttrade: waris a thing that they could willingly woo for

43. their pleasure, but are loath to wed upon what terms soever. Thus many are
easilypersuaded to take up a professionofreligion, and as easilypersuaded to
lay it down. Oh! this constancyand persevering is a hard word; this taking up
the cross daily; this praying always;this watching night and day, and never
laying aside our clothes and armour, indulging ourselves to remit and unbend
in our holy waiting upon God, and walking with God, this sends many
sorrowfulfrom Christ; yet this is the saint's duty, to make religion his every
day's work, without any vacationfrom one end of the year to the other.
(J. Spencer.)
The best service is constant
After a greatsnowstorma little fellow began to shovel a path through a large
snow bank before his grandmother's door. He had nothing but a small shovel
to work with. "How do you expectto get through that drift?" askeda man
passing along. "By keeping at it," said the boy, cheerfully. "That's how." That
is the secretofmastering almostevery difficulty under the sun. If a hard task
is set before you, stick to it. Do not keepthinking how large or how hard it is,
but go at it, and little by little it will grow smaller, until it is done. If a hard
lessonis to be learned, do not spend a moment in fretting; do not lose breath
in saying, "I can't," or "I don't see how;" but go at it, and keepat it — steady.
That is the only way to conquer it. If you have entered your Master's service
and are trying to be good, you will sometimes find hills of difficulty in the way.
Things will often look discouraging, andyou will not seemto make any
progress atall; but keepat it. Neverforget"that's how."
Evidence of discipleship
H. C. Trumbull.
A soldier's confidence in his commander is evidencedby the soldier obeying
his commander's orders. A patient's trust in his physician is shownby the
patient following the physician's directions. A disciple's sincerity in his

44. professions ofdiscipleship is proved by the disciple walking according to the
Master's teaching. It is not that there is any merit in the obedience itself;but
it is that there is no sincerity in a professionof faith where there is no
obedience.
(H. C. Trumbull.)
Truth and liberty
H. Bonar, D. D.
Faith cometh by hearing (ver. 30). It is in connectionwith the word of truth
that the Holy Spirit works in us.
I. THE RECEPTION OF CHRIST'S WORD BEGINSDISCIPLESHIP.
There may be alarm, disquietude, inquiry, before this, but these are not
discipleship. They are but inquiries after a schooland a teacherwhich will
meet the wants, capacities, and longings. All men are saying, "Who will show
us any good?" Discipleshipbegins, not with doing some greatthing, but with
receiving Christ's word as the scholarreceives the master's teaching. What
does He teach?
1. The Father.
2. Himself. From the moment that we acceptthis we become disciples —
taught not of man, but of God.
II. CONTINUANCE IN THAT WORD IS THE TEST OF TRUE
DISCIPLESHIP. This is not continuance in generaladherence to His cause;
but continuance in the word by which we become disciples. As it is by holding
the beginning of our confidence that we are made partakers of Christ, so by
continuing in the word we make good the genuineness ofour discipleship.
"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" — in that word is everything we
need.
1. It is an expansive word: ever widening its dimensions; growing upon us;
never old, evernew; in which we make continual discoveries;the same tree,

45. but ever putting forth new branches and leaves;the same river, but ever
swelling and widening — loosing none of its old water, yet ever receiving
accessions.
2. It is a quickening word: maintaining old life, yet producing new — "Thy
word Lord hath quickened me."
3. It is a strengthening word: nerving and invigorating us; lifting us when
bowed down; imparting health, courage, resolution, persistency.
4. It is a sanctifying word: it detects the evil and purges it away, pouring
holiness into the soul. Let us continue in this word; not wearyof it, not losing
relish for it.
III. KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH IS THE RESULT OF DISCIPLESHIP.
All that enter Christ's schoolare taught of God. Consequently they know the
truth; not a truth or part of it, but the truth — not error — Him who is the
Truth. They shall know it; not guess at it, speculate onit, get a glimpse of it;
but make choice of it, realize it, appreciate it. Blessedpromise in a day of
doubt and error!
IV. THIS TRUTH IS LIBERTY. All truth is, so far, liberty, and all error
bondage;some truth is greaterliberty, some error greaterbondage. Bondage,
with many, is simply associatedwith tyranny, bad government, evil or
ecclesiasticaldespotism. Christ's words go deeper, to the root of the evil. The
real chains, prison, bondage are within — so true liberty. It springs from what
a man knows of God and of his Christ. Seldom do men realize this. Error,
bondage!How can that be if the error be the man's own voluntary doing —
the result of his intellectualeffort? But the Masteris very explicit. The truth
shall make you free. There is no other freedom worthy of the name. "He is a
free man whom the truth makes free;and all are slaves besides."
(H. Bonar, D. D.)
Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.
True freedom

46. O. F. Gifford.
1. Three mighty thoughts — knowledge, truth, freedom.
2. Men claim to be free born or to attain freedom at a great price; yet he who
sins is a slave of sin.(1) Politicalfreedom is but the bark, intellectual freedom
but the fibre, of the tree spiritual: freedom is the sap. Men contend for bark
and fibre, Christ gives the sap. Sometimes we have political freedom, but
formal, sapless, as deadas telegraph poles strung with the wires of politicians.
3. Circumstances cannotfetterfreedom or conferit. Josephwas as free in the
dungeon as on the throne. "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a
cage."The Israelites in the desertwere a nation of slaves despite their liberty.
It matters not where I place my watch, so I wind it, it is really free; if I
interfere with the works, whereverit may be, it is in bondage. So of man —
bind, chain, imprison; if the soul be in sympathy with God, sustained by truth,
you have a free man; if the reverse, you have a slave. John, though in prison,
was free; Herod, though on the throne, was a slave — Christ and Pilate.
Freedom, like the kingdom of heaven, is within. The text teaches a threefold
lesson— man may know;truth is: the knowledge ofthe truth brings freedom.
I. The word KNOW carries us back to the dawn of history.
1. Two possibilities are placed before man — life or knowledge. Full of life, he
choosesknowledgeatthe risk of life.
2. The race is true to its head — exploration, geographical, scientific,
philosophical.
3. Yet men were then setting up altars to the unknown God: men now to God
unknowable. The greatTeachersays:"Ye shall know."
4. The promise implies that man can trust himself and the results of his
researchand experiences.
II. THE SUBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE IS TRUTH. Truth stands in contrast
—

47. 1. With a lie. Christ accusesHis hearers of being children of the devil. Today
as then men lie; wilfully misrepresentin business, political, and sociallife.
Truth is consistencybetweenwhat we
2. With veracity, think and say and what is. Veracity is consistencybetween
what we sayand think; but we may think wrongly.
3. Truth is reality as opposedto a lie and to appearance. Christ, as Son of God
and Son of Man, sets forth certain realities regarding both, and the relation
betweenthe two. That God is, what God is, and what man is: alienationand
possible reconciliation;regenerationby the Spirit; the results of separation
from and reconciliationwith God. These facts, relations, results, are truth,
and may be known,
III. THE RESULTS OF SUCH KNOWLEDGE IS FREEDOM.
1. Freedomfrom the past, "Son, remember;" but the knowledge ofGod's
reconciliationblots out the sin-stained past as a cloud.
2. Freedomfrom fears for the future basedupon the past.
IV. THE ONE CONDITION OF ALL THIS IS BELIEF IN CHRIST. Faith as
a grain of mustard seedgrows into knowledge,etc.
(O. F. Gifford.)
Freedomby the truth
F. W. Robertson, M. A.
Observe —
1. The greatness ofChrist's aim — to make all men free. He saw around Him
man in slavery to man, race to race;men trembling before priestcraft, and
those who were politically and ecclesiasticallyfree, in worse bondage to their
own passions. Conscious ofHis Deity and His Father's intentions, He, without
the excitementof an earthly liberator, calmly said: "Ye shall be free."

48. 2. The wisdom of the means. The craving for liberty was not new, nor the
promise of satisfying it; but the promise had been vain. Men had tried —(1)
Force:and force in the cause of freedom is to be honoured, and those who
have used it have been esteemedas the world's benefactors — Judas
Maccabaeus,etc. Had Christ willed so to come, successwas certain. Menwere
ripe for revolt, and at a word, thrice three hundred thousand swords would
have started from their scabbards;but in that case one nation only would
have gained independence, and that merely from foreign oppression.(2)
Legislative enactments. By this England could and did emancipate her slaves;
but she could not fit them for freedom, nor make it lasting. The stroke of a
monarch's pen will do the one — the discipline of ages is needed for the other.
Give a constitution tomorrow to some feeble Easternnation, and in half a
century they will be subjectedagain. Therefore Christ did not come to free the
world in this way.(3) Civilization. Every stepof civilization is a victory over
some lowerinstinct; but it contains elements of fresh servitude. Man conquers
the powers of nature, and becomes in turn their slave. The workman is in
bondage to his machinery, which determines hours, wages, habits. The rich
man acquires luxuries, and then cannot do without them. Members of a highly
civilized community are slaves to dress, hours, etiquette. Therefore Christ did
not talk of the progress of the species;he freed the inner man that so the outer
might become free. Note —
I. THE TRUTH THAT LIBERATES. — The truth Christ taught was chiefly
about:
1. God. Blot out that thought and existence becomes unmeaning, resolve is left
without a stay, aspiration and duty without a support. Christ exhibited God as
—(1) Love; and so that fearful bondage to fate was broken.(2)A Spirit,
requiring spiritual worship; and thus the chain of superstition was rent
asunder.
2. Man. We are a mystery to ourselves. So where nations exhibit their wealth
and inventions, before the victories of mind you stand in reverence. Thenlook
at those who have attained that civilization, their low aims and mean lives,
and you are humbled. And so of individuals. How noble a given man's
thoughts at one moment, how base at another I Christ solved this riddle. He

49. regardedman as fallen, but magnificent in his ruin. Beneaththe vilest He saw
a soul capable of endless growth; hence He treated with respectall who
approachedHim, because they were men. Here was a germ for freedom. It is
not the shackle that constitutes the slave, but the loss of self-respect— to be
treated as degradedtill he feels degraded. Liberty is to suspectand yet
reverence self.
3. Immortality. If there be an idea that cramps and enslaves the soul it is that
this life is all. If there be one which expands and elevates it it is that of
immortality. This was the martyrs' strength. In the hope and knowledge of
that truth they were free from the fear of pain of death.
II. THE LIBERTY WHICH TRUTH GIVES.
1. Politicalfreedom. Christianity does not directly interfere with political
questions, but mediately it must influence them. Christ did not promise this
freedom, but He gave it more surely than conqueror, reformer, or patriot.
And this not by theories or constitutions, but by truths. God a Spirit, man His
redeemedchild; before that spiritual equality all distinctions vanish.
2. Mentalindependence. Slavery is that which cramps powers, and the worst
is that which cramps the noblestpowers. Worse therefore than he who
manacles the body is he who puts fetters on the mind, and demands that men
shall think and believe as others have done. In Judaea life was a setof forms
and religion — a congeries oftraditions. One living word from Christ, and the
mind of the world was free. Later a mountain mass of superstition had
gatheredround the Church. Men said that the soul was to be savedonly by
doing what the priesthood taught. Then the heroes ofthe Reformationsaid the
soul is savedby the grace of God; and once more the mind of the world was
setflee by truth. There is a tendency to think, not what is true, but what is
respectable, authorized. It comes partly from cowardice, partly from habit.
Now truth frees us from this by warning of individual responsibility which
cannot be delegatedto another, and thrown off on a church. Do not confound
mental independence with mental pride. It ought to co-existwith the deepest
humility. Forthat mind alone is free which, consciousofits liability to err,

50. and, turning thankfully to any light, refuses to surrender the Divinely given
right and responsibility of judging for itself and having an opinion of its own.
3. Superiority to temptation. It is not enough to say that Christ promises
freedom from sin. Childhood, paralysis, impotence of old age, may remove the
desire of transgressions.Therefore we must add that ode whom Christ
liberates is free by his own will. It is not that he would and cannot; but that he
can and will not. Christian liberty is right wellsustained by love, and made
firm by faith in Christ. This may be seenby considering moral bondage. Go to
the intemperate man in the morning, when his head aches and his whole
frame unstrung: he is ashamed, hates his sin, and would not do it. Go to him
at night when the power of habit is upon him, and he obeys the mastery of his
craving. Every more refined instance of slavery is just as real. Wherever a
man would and cannot, there is servitude.
4. Superiority to fear. Fearenslaves, courageliberates. The apprehensionof
pain, fearof death, dread of the world's laugh at poverty, or loss of
reputation, enslave alike. From all such Christ frees. He who lives in the
habitual contemplation of immortality, cannot be in bondage to time; he who
feels his soul's dignity cannot cringe.
(F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
Spiritual and scientific truth
Aubrey L. Moore, M. A.
There is a well-knownpicture by Retzsch, in which Satanis representedas
playing at chess with a man for his soul. The pieces on the board seemto
representthe virtues and the deadly sins. The man is evidently losing the
game, while in the backgroundstands an angelsad and helpless, and statue-
like. We need not stayto criticize the false theologyimplied in that picture,
because our immediate concernis with a meaning which has been read into
that picture by a greatscientific teacherof our day. We have been told by
ProfessorHuxley, that if we "substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture a
calm, strong angelwho is playing, as we say, for love, and would rather lose

51. than win," we shall have a true picture of the relation of man to nature. "The
chessboardis the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the
rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other
side is hidden from us, We know that his play is always fair, and just, and
patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or
makes the smallestallowance forignorance." Suchis the modern reading of
the picture. And here there is a greattruth, or at leastone side of a great
truth, expressed. It puts before us in a very real and concrete form the fact
that, in our mere physical life, we are engagedin a greatstruggle. We must
learn to adapt ourselves truly to the physical conditions of our life, or we must
perish in a fruitless oppositionto natural laws. But that physical life which we
live is not our whole life, nor are what we call the laws of external nature the
only laws which we need to know. We are surrounded by spiritual forces in
which our moral life is lived. In that more real life we have relations with
spiritual beings, some like ourselves and some above us, and One whom we
love to call our Father, which is in heaven. Are there no laws in that spiritual
world? No truths there, the knowledge ofwhich will make us free? If the
violation of physical law is death, is there no death in the moral and spiritual
sphere? Is the life of the soul less real, its death less terrible than that of the
body? And if not, what do we know of the greatspiritual realities which
environ life?
1. All truth gives freedom. To know nature is to gain freedom in regard to
her; to know her fully is to conform ourselves to her. And to know God is to
ceaseto be afraid of Him, to know Him fully is to love Him perfectly, and to
conform ourselves to His likeness.
2. Why, then, is there such fear and jealousyof dogma amongstmen who
gladly welcome every new truth about their physical life? If all truth is from
God, and every truth sets us free, why is it that men hesitate to allow these
characteristicsto that which, above all, claims to be from God, and to give us
perfect freedom? It is here that we touch the characteristic difference which
exists betweenthe laws of the spiritual and the laws of the material world. The
laws of nature are discoveries;the laws of the spiritual world are revelations.
The former are found out; the latter are given. The former are confessedly
imperfect, added to continually as years go by; the latter are complete, the

52. same yesterday, to day, and forever. The former lay claim to no finality; they
may be challenged, put upon their trial, calledupon to justify themselves. The
latter, if they are from God, claim our reverence, our obedience, our willing
submission.
(Aubrey L. Moore, M. A.)
Freedomonly to be found in God
R. S. Barrett.
Last summer the goodship Wieland brought over a large number of caged
birds. When we were about mid-ocean one restless bird escapedfrom his cage.
In ecstasyhe swept through the air, away and away from his prison. How he
bounded with outspread wings!Freedom! How sweethe thought it! Across the
pathless waste ha entirely disappeared. But after hours had passed, to our
amazement, he appearedagain, struggling towards the ship with heavy wing.
Panting and breathless, he settled upon the deck. Far, far over the boundless
deep, how eagerly, how painfully had he sought the ship again, now no longer
a prison, but his dear home. As I watchedhim nestle down on the deck, I
thought of the restless human heart that breaks awayfrom the restraints of
religion. With buoyant wing he bounds awayfrom Church the prison, and
God the prison. But if he is not loston the remorseless deep, he comes back
againwith panting, eagerheart, to Church the home, and God the home. The
Church is not a prison to any man. It gives the most perfectfreedom in all
that is goodand all that is safe. It gives him liberty to do what is right, and to
do what is wrong, there is no rightful place to any man in all the boundless
universe.
(R. S. Barrett.)
Freedomby the truth
W. Birch.

53. The truth shall setus free from —
I. PHYSICAL SUFFERING.The laws of nature are the laws of God, and to
know and obey them will liberate us from every sickness exceptthat of death.
There is —
1. The law of heredity, This is a Bible law; for it states that the sins of the
fathers shall be carried down to the third and fourth generation, Know that,
and care for the health of your bodies, and your posterity will be free from the
taint of hereditary disease.
2. The law of sanitation. Know that, and obey it, and you free your cities from
fevers and infectious diseases. Muchsuffering is entailed by ignorance,
apathy, or wilful negligence aboutthis truth.
3. The law of temperance; that obeyed will make you free from the suffering
of bodily anguish and the sense ofdegradation.
II. SOCIAL DISARRANGEMENT.This is one of our most rampant evils.
Contrastthe suburbs with their villas and the slums with their hovels. These
extremes should not exist in a Christian country. What is the cure? The truth
that humanity is one.
1. The strong should help the weak. The rich, who enjoy their libraries,
drawing rooms, gardens, should not be satisfiedthat the poor should have to
tramp long distances to see a tree or read a book. Parks, museums, baths,
libraries, should be within reach; and by recognising the truth on this matter,
the wealthyshould lend a helping hand.
2. The weak should help themselves. Too much help would pauperize. The
poor must be taught and encouragedto raise them. selves. Muchcan be
affectedby cooperation. If the money spent in beer were utilized for this
purpose, the millennium would be hastened.
III. CHRISTIAN ANTAGONISM. Whata pity it is to see the strife of sects
over nice doctrinal or ceremonialpoints. Christ wants His Church to be one,
and so do good men. But the truth only will unify; and there is enoughtruth
held in common by all churches, which, if recognized, would soonbring

54. Christian unity. All are agreedthat Christ's life should be lived by His
followers. Surelythis is a goodworking truth; and as all hold it, all should act
upon it, and be one.
IV. ALIENATION FROM GOD. What a slave was the prodigal, and all his
degradationarose from his distance from God. But when the vision of his
father arose before his mind, he arose and went back. What sinful men want
to know is, the truth about God as revealedby Christ; how He loves the
sinner, and would save him from his sins.
(W. Birch.)
Freedomby the truth
J Todd.
It is no strange thing for truth to setpeople free. What delivers men from
terror — e.g., overprodigies, etc. — but the truth about them? In the
darkness, whichinvests harmless objects with weird appearances,the
imaginative man is as timid as a child. But let the day dawn, and the truth of
things be revealed, and fear vanishes. The truth sets us free from —
I. THE DREADS OF LIFE.
1. Those whichbelong to our physical life — dreads of want, disease,poisoned
air, accidents. Christ frees us from these by revealing the providence of God
(Matthew 6:26-28).
2. Socialfears — fears of what men cando unto us. Christ says, "Fearnot
them which kill the body," etc. Their wrath is restrainedby our Father; and
at their worst they can only drive man closerto God, and bring him nearer
home.
3. Spiritual fears — about God. Christ frees from this by His truth — "Our
Father."
II. THE SINS OF LIFE. These make the real bondage. Our fears weakenus,
but our sins corrupt, and lead to death. They bind in two ways.

55. 1. By spreading their shame through our soul (Ezra 9:6). Christ frees us by
His declaration(John 3:17), and His own treatment of a sinner in shame (vers.
3-11).
2. By weakening our will, so that when we would do goodwe cannot. Christ
brings not only pardon to banish shame, but powerto put awaysin (1
Timothy 1:13).
III. DWARFED CONDITIONS OF LIFE.
1. In church life — from the tyranny of forms and places (John4:21-23).
2. In individual life. The truth of Jesus liberates the highest faculties — faith,
hope, love, conscience.
(J Todd.)
Freedomby the truth
P. N. Zabriskie, D. D.
Christ, by His truth, delivers man —
I. From the bondage of IGNORANCE. Thattruth enlightens, invigorates,
instructs.
II. From the bondage of ERROR.
1. Intellectual — scepticismor superstition.
2. Practical;for with it He gives His example and His guiding spirit.
III. From the bondage of ream
1. The fear of death and judgment.
2. Of God's conscience-searching word.
3. Of the supernatural.
IV. From the bondage of sin.