Free at Last
6 min read
34 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35 Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
John 8:34-36
Jesus presents two options for our lives: being slaves to sin or being free from sin by abiding in Him—that is, abiding in His word—through faith. As Christians, it may seem that we waffle back and forth between the two zones of being slaves to sin and living in freedom from sin, but Jesus says that “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
As believers, we all wrestle with sin. And it is right and normal that we should wrestle with sin. We wrestle with our sin because we don’t want to sin. The fact that that we don’t want to sin is one indication that we belong to Christ. The fact that we are even aware of our sin is one indication that we are saved and that the Holy Spirit lives in us.
And so even as believers, we must deal with the reality of sin in our lives (1 John 1:8). But the fact that we continue to sin can be very discouraging for the believer (Romans 7:18-24). How do we cope with our daily struggles with sin?
Well, first of all, I have to cling to the truth that the Son has set me free. The Son has set me free because of what He has done on the cross to pay the penalty for all of the sins of all of humanity across all of time. And He did it once for all. For the Son of God, once for all is all it takes.
Second of all, it’s worth pointing out that Jesus says that those whom the Son set free once and for all will be free. In other words, the freedom from the bondage of sin we will experience is future tense. And that future “will be” is not a tentative, conditional future tense. It is an absolutely certain, beyond any measure of a doubt “will be!”
So in the meantime, until the complete fulfillment of the “will be,” I continue in my struggle against sin, and as I do so, the Holy Spirit sanctifies me through my struggle, making me more and more like Christ.
And I continue in my struggle against sin—not because my efforts make me holier (only the Holy Spirit does)—but simply because to not sin is what’s best for me and what’s best for this world. It’s God’s world after all, and it operates on God’s rules.
And I continue in my struggle against sin with the confidence and assurance the comes from having received a promise from the Son of God. The Son has set me free from the bondage of sin.
Such confidence and assurance are ours to have when we abide in Christ and do our best to live out His word through faith.
Father, Thank You for Your mercy and grace. Thank You for Your patience with me. Thank You for Your faithfulness. Thank You for setting me free from my slavery to sin. Help me to combat the sin in my life, as I should. And may the fruit of Your Spirit in me glorify Your name. In Jesus’s name. Amen.
