Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

Let us consider the much abused statement, “The truth will set you free.” Some people assert it as a general moral principle. So it is said that we should tell the truth because it is the right thing to do, that telling the truth will relieve a stricken conscience, and that telling the truth might help us escape punishment. Others use it as a joke. And still others point out that sometimes telling the truth will get us into trouble instead of getting us out of it.

However, the statement does not refer to telling the truth, but knowing the truth. Many other applications are based on this. It is said that knowing the truth about something delivers us from ignorance or misinformation. Then, of course, sometimes the opposite is asserted, so that knowing the truth might become a reason for worry or devastation.

All these unworthy uses neglect the context of the statement and dilutes the original message. As with many other cases of abuse, we must attack foolish and irreverent uses of the Lord’s words with harsh rebukes and threats, and ridicule the ignorance of those who would remove divine revelation from its original context and misapply it to irrelevant and trivial matters.

There is a much larger context to the statement, and the entire episode described is important and instructive. But even if we were to take into account just a little more of the context, it becomes clear that there is a very narrow application.

Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.” These disciples are the ones who know the truth and become free. This freedom is also restricted in meaning, since he said, “Everyone who sins is a slave to sin” (v. 34). So the statement, “the truth will set you free,” does not benefit all men, but only Christians, and true Christians are those who hold to and continue in the teachings of Christ. They continue in believing and obeying his doctrines.

Jesus made a point of this, because he was speaking to “Jews who had believed him.” By this John does not acknowledge them as true believers, but he refers to them as what they claimed or appeared to be. Rather, one purpose of this passage is to show that they were false believers, and that there would be people like them who would be false believers as well. The Lord exposed them when he said that if they would continue in his teachings, then they would become free. Then they started to argue with him about it. In the ensuing discussion (v. 33-59), Jesus revealed that they were in fact murderers, liars, and children of the devil.

Freedom from the enslaving power of sin is granted only to Christians – that is, not those who claim to be Christians but then argue with Jesus, but those who continue to believe and follow his teachings. As he said, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (v. 36). All Christians are free in Christ. All non-Christians are slaves of sin, and the children of the devil. Jesus is the only one who grants true freedom from the power of evil, and he grants it only to those who believe and follow him.