He who the Son sets free is free indeed

I've heard this a million times, "He who the son sets free is free indeed." But free from what? This comes from what Jesus said in John 8:34-36, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed."

He was talking about freedom from sin!
Oh but there is something incredibly deep here.
He says if you commit sin you are a slave of sin. Do you commit sin?
If you do that would mean you have to constantly go back & forth between slave to sin & free from sin. How is that possible if Jesus says when you are set free you are free indeed? If your freedom depends on you not committing sin how free can you really be?

John recorded the words of Jesus above. Let us look at something else John wrote in 1 John 3:9, "Everyone who has been born of God does not commit sin, because God’s seed resides in him, and thus he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God." Our flesh is not born of God but our spirit is. God identifies us by our "new creation" which is our reborn spirit. That spirit cannot commit sin. Twice Paul says, "It is no longer I who sin but sin living in my flesh that sins" (Romans 7:17,20). Sins still come through our bodies but we, in our true spiritual identity, are not the source.

Does your flesh commit sin? Yes.
Are you your flesh? No.
Does your spirit commit sin? No.
Are you your spirit? Yes.
Is your flesh responsible to prevent your flesh from committing sin? No. That just makes things worse.
Is your spirit responsible to prevent your flesh from committing sin? Yes.

"You have been called to live in freedom. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. Walk by the spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh." (Galatians 5:13-14,16)
Your flesh is something you carry around that you have power over by your spirit. You are not a sinner, you are not a slave to sin, you cannot commit sin. You are a powerful child of God. Self-control is spirit-control. When we renew our minds to the truth we lace our brainwaves with the spirit.

You've been set free by Jesus! You are free indeed! And you've got the right to bear arms to put to death the deeds of the flesh & fight off the lie that sin can be your master. People quote Romans 6:16, "Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?" They say this means you as a Christian can be a slave to sin but they fail to quote anything after it. Let's see it all together, "Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? BUT thanks be to God that though YOU WERE slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and HAVING BEEN FREED from sin, you BECAME slaves of righteousness."

This is saying that once you believe the gospel you will never be a slave to sin again. The "form of teaching" was the truth of the good news. It says if you present yourself to obedience it results in righteousness. Obedience to what? Obedience to the gospel which is trusting in Jesus to be saved. If you are saved you've already made your choice. With this scripture in context we see that it isn't talking about a back & forth 'slave to sin, slave to God, slave to sin, slave to God,' type of life. It clearly says once you obey the gospel you are free from sin. How free? As Jesus would put it, FREE INDEED!

Here is another explosive part. When we offer ourselves as servants & slaves God instead makes us sons & daughters. This is what happened to the prodigal son. He offered himself as a servant & his father received him only as a son. Jesus said, "The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever." You are indeed free forever because you are a son not a slave!


For more posts on this see our Sin? Forgetaboutit! page