“As He spoke these words, many believed in Him. Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’” John 8:30-32.
Doubtless you have heard the phrase, “the truth shall make you free” parroted numerous times in movies and other media; and as always it is misused and misunderstood just as it is here by the Jews.
As you read on, it becomes evident that the Jews thought that Jesus was talking about something physical, such as being in enslaved, or in bondage to the Romans, for instance. This is not what Jesus meant at all, as we shall see.
The literal meaning of the word truth in this passage according to Thayer’s Lexicon, is truth as opposed to Gentile superstitions, Jewish inventions, or the corrupt opinions and precepts of false teachers, Christian or otherwise.
“For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles – when we walked in licentiousness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you. They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.” 1 Peter 4:3-5.
“…not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth. To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.” Titus 1:14-16.
“But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words, for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.” 2 Peter 2:1-3.
The dictionary defines truth as: true or actual; conformity with fact or reality; verity; a verified fact, among other things.
While there is little difference between the dictionary’s definition and the Lexicon’s; I prefer William Kelley’s definition as the best expression of truth in Scripture; “Truth is the revelation of all things as they really are, from God Himself.”
There is a reason for all of this discussion on the meaning of truth starting with Pilate’s question; “What is truth?” John 18:38a. As a Gentile, Pilate, even if he were very well educated, would still be under the influence of idolatrous superstitions.
How do I get to heaven or Elysium, will my good deeds be enough, or will I go to Hades, which of the gods do I worship? Indeed he may have read the work of some of the Greek philosophers who wrestled with these questions.
The uncertainty would be maddening for those who dwelt upon such things too much, what is truth?
Though we are a well educated modern nation the question, what is truth, is mired in even more pseudo-intellectual babble than ever before.
For thousands of years philosophers have been trying to generate a theory that explains our existence and our part in it, they have failed miserably.
The primary reason for this failure is that they have theorized without taking God into the equation. This is like doing a complicated math problem and leaving out some part of the equation, no matter how small, the answer will always be wrong until the error is found.
The problem with God though, is that men often knowingly leave Him out, forcing them to work out ridiculously unrealistic formulas.
Truth is the tragic victim of this effort to eliminate God. As stated above philosophers have struggled with the questions of man and existence without success.
After thousands of years of failure after failure to find the meaning of life until in time a man named Georg Hegel (1770-1831) came along and decided that our method of reasoning was at fault.
Hegel’s thinking went along these lines; throughout time philosophers (and all of mankind) have been reasoning on terms of thesis and antithesis, that is, if something is not true, it is false, or if it not false, it is true.
If you go to a huge fancy department store and find a pair of shoes for 150 dollars then find the same brand shoes at a nice, but smaller outlet for 115 dollars, what do you choose?
You are thinking on terms of thesis and antithesis, this is good, this is not good; this works, this does not work. If you think on these terms and have all the information you need, you can potentially make the right decision.
But to come up with a reasonable formula concerning the meaning of life by putting God into the equation was not the desire of atheists like Kant (1724-1804), Rousseau (1712-1778), Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, so they turned from reason and embraced absurdity.
While these other men either set the stage for Hegel or they encouraged its acceptance, it was Hegel who blew up the bridge.
Hegel’s reasoning went like this, philosophy had worked for millennia to solve the problems of life thinking on terms of thesis and antithesis and failed.
The necessity then is to change the formula, instead of reasoning on terms of thesis and antithesis, why not combine the two to arrive at a synthesis. Stated another way, combine the true and the false to arrive at a higher truth.
It is this method of thinking that has taken over this country; it is embraced by politicians, Hollywood and the media, which are in turn owned by the intelligentsia, humanists, atheists, and liberals.
Starting to sound like a conspiracy theory is it not? Actually that is only partially true, these groups do not have to be in collusion, they have merely to have read the same books, gone to the same colleges and circulated in the same social gatherings, clubs, parties and cocktail lounges after work.
This is no different from any society; they grow up together, go to the same schools, and are taught the things that they need to know to function in their society by their parents.
However there are other things like heredity and geography that make Germans different from French, Italians distinct from Chinese and so on.
The glaring difference between ethnic groups like the English, French, or Spanish, and the atheists, humanists, liberals, whatever you would like to call them, is that the latter is a parasitic sub-culture that invades these different countries and feeds on their youth until they have destroyed that country.
It is these parasites that have forced globalism, socialism, and communism to take hold in the world.
The clearest example, to me, of how synthesis works is the movie “Bonnie and Clyde”, starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty released in 1967.
While many of you may not have seen it, and I do not recommend it, it is a movie about the lives of two bank robbers in the mid-nineteen thirties in which there is the artful weaving of many of the true parts of their brief lives with fiction.
The movie a story of the Barrow Gang gives a picture of two people who are in love, with Bonnie Parker following Clyde into his life of crime because she wants to be with him.
She is proud that they rob banks, and they are devastated when a man is killed in the process, they love and visit their simple farm kin often and seem to be a victim of their depression era world.
Bonnie and Clyde are glamorous, the movie is sexually charged, violent, and in the horrific end there is sympathy for the noble bank robbers murdered by law enforcement officers.
Such is the synthesis of real life and fiction and in my opinion the series of real bank robberies that occurred after the movie came out are the fruit of this lie.
In real life this was a vicious gang of, at times, five people who during their career murdered nine law enforcement officers and several innocent civilians.
The bulk of their robberies were not banks but small stores and gas stations, and it was quickly realized that these people would kill anyone who got in their way.
While Bonnie was implicated in a murder, it is known that she never killed anyone, while Clyde Barrow did not hesitate to kill.
Those of you who have not seen this movie have probably seen something similar, supposedly biographical yet containing many fanciful, often romantic errors.
The loss of truth is the reason for the insane state of our political landscape today, greedy men and women who cannot tell the truth nor can they know it.
The loss of truth has brought on many unrealistic definitions of truth itself; for instance the following.
“There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that play the devil.” A. N. Whitehead.
The thing wrong with this theory is that all half-truths are a lie, all of them, even if there is just a hint of a lie, it is no longer true; just as a glass of pure water becomes undrinkable when even the smallest pinpoint of fecal matter is put into it.
A thing called Negative Pragmatism is stated in this way. “What works may or may not be true, but what fails cannot be true because the truth always works.”
The most famous and dangerous is from Nietzsche: “There are no absolute truths.”
While there are those who will argue the meaning of this statement, the important thing to remember is that it is misused to mean there are no absolutes. Thus cutting people off from any anchor in life, either in what is true or in reality itself.
Children are being taught these confusing, erroneous, dangerous and amoral things in the schools; and if not there, in music, movies, television shows, and particularly in video games, many of which are extremely violent.
It is no wonder that schools have become some of the most dangerous of places to be.
Parents are the adults in the family, they have the experience, the authority, and the duty to teach their children how to examine critically the things they learn, see, or hear.
Do not allow this sick society to tell you that you must not try to indoctrinate them. It is you who are teaching them and society who are indoctrinating them in evil.
If you are unsure of what you know, go to the Scriptures for knowledge.
“The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.” Proverbs 29:15.
By the rod it is not meant that they should be beaten, it is to be used sparingly, if at all, sometimes a simple, go stand in the corner will do.
Some children just become more stubborn when spanking is used. As a result, you may have to be a little more creative, with time outs, go to your room, or you are grounded; something they will listen to.
You must not let them wear you down, which they will do if you are not consistent, even handed, and fair.
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6.
Raise a wise child; teach them the difference between right and wrong.
“Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse; he who guards his soul will be far from them.” Proverbs 22:5.
“A man who wanders from the way of understanding will rest in the congregation of the dead.” Proverbs 21:16.
“He who follows righteousness and mercy finds life, righteousness and honor.” Proverbs 21:21.
You are the parent, and scary as it is, you know more than your child and you have the God given authority to train your child in the way of righteousness.
No matter what the state says, it is not their right to indoctrinate them to be immoral globalist socialists. Are you listening? It is your God given right to train your child to live godly in this present evil world.
The state has no right to indoctrinate your child to be an immoral globalist socialist.
Hillary Clinton once said that it takes a village to raise a child. No, it takes a village to raise a mindless drone.
If you know the truth, real truth, “The revelation of all things as they really are, from God Himself”; “…the truth shall make you free.”
You will be free from speculation about right and wrong, what is reality, and superstition, you will be free to live a productive life without fear of the unknown.
Most importantly, you can know your relationship with God. For the Jews to whom the Lord was speaking the truth would set them free from ritualism and legalism; from the law itself.
But notice the condition, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.” This is what separates those who just agree mentally that Jesus is the Christ from those who put their faith in Him.
A true disciple will follow Him to the best of their ability and has the capacity to actually enjoy church and be intrigued by the things they learn in the Bible.
While those who just acknowledge Christ in the same way as they would facts like, Abraham Lincoln was president during the civil war, are not true Christians.
They profess Christ but their actions betray them; Scripture is confusing or not that interesting, too much church is fanatical, and Christians are boring.
Abiding in or studying the word of God brings us into the truth and the truth frees us from the bondage of sin, superstition, and fear.
“Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Hebrews 2:14-15.
The Truth Shall Make You Free, John 8:30-32 taken from godisrevealed.com posted 12-11-12, updated on 10-31-17.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.