Make You Free John 8:32 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

In Jn 8:32, the King James Bible says, You shall know the truth and the truth shall “make you free.”  The context is sin.  All of these verses have the same expression of “make you free” or “made free,” Jn 8:32, 8:36, Rom 6:18, 22; Rom 8:2; Gal 5:1 and 1 Cor 7:21.  The modern bibles say “set free” or “set you free.”  There is a major difference.

Webster’s Third New International Dictionary says to set free means to cause to assume a specified condition, i.e., “when the slaves were set free.”  To make free means to cause to be or become: put in a certain state or condition, i.e., “he was made leader of the expedition.”  Brown’s dictionary further describes “make” as “to put persons or things into such a form, office, or condition, as they were not before” [see Is 45:9].

When a person is “set free,” the person is exactly the same person that he was before; the only thing that has changed is his condition.  So, a freed slave is still the same exact person that he was before he was freed.  Only now he is not in “bondage” to his former master; he is free to do as he pleases.

Thus, in Jn 8:32, 36, if the person who was once in bondage to sin has been “set free” then he has been “delivered” so that sin is no longer his master.  Indeed, sin cannot be his master because he has been set free, though he is still the same man that he was before his deliverance.

This statement is NOT TRUE in the life of a Christian.  You may have experienced “deliverance” from a specific sin in your life.  Perhaps there is a sin that you used to do that has never once bothered you again since your salvation.  For instance, I used to drink but I don’t anymore.  I don’t even have a desire for it.  So you might say that I have been set free from that sin.  But I have not been delivered from sin.  So, in truth, I have NOT been “set free.”  No living Christian has been “set free.”

Look carefully at Rom 7:15-20.  Paul shows you that his flesh was as much indwelled and controlled by sin as it ever was before he was saved.  Teaching the doctrine of being “set free” or “delivered” from sin gave rise to the “holiness” doctrine of sinless perfection and to the concept of “deliverance” as taught by Teen Challenge.  These are false doctrines!!!  If I were the devil I would set you free to keep you from being made free by Jesus Christ.

The Bible says you are “made free.”  And that is a TRUE statement.  When you get saved you are a new creature, 2 Cor 5:17.  You become something that you were not before.  You are now a child of God [by the new birth].  You have an inward man Rom 7:22 also called the new man, Eph 4:24, or the hidden man, 1 Pet 3:4, with the Holy Spirit in you, Jn 14:17, and the Lord Jesus Christ in you, Col 1:27.  You are in Christ by having been baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ, 1 Cor 12:13, Eph 5:30, Eph 2:6.  And you are spiritually circumcised, Col 2:11-12, so that the body of sins has been cut away from your saved spirit and soul.

Now you have two natures: a spiritual nature that delights in the things of God, Rom 7:22, and a carnal nature that delights in sin, Rom 7:23.  You see them both in Rom 7:25.  Therefore, you have the opportunity and the responsibility to walk in the Spirit and not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, Gal 5:16.  You can walk in the Spirit because you have been “made free.”

Watch what happens.  According to Rom 8:1-2, I won’t be condemned [not talking about hell here] if I walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ hath MADE ME FREE from the law of sin and death.  In other words, the law of sin and death still operates in my flesh.  Sin is still at work in me and in you [in our flesh].  And we are going to die as a result, Rom 6:23.  But I do not have to obey sin now like I did before I was saved because as a new creature, I am not in bondage to it.  Now that we are saved, we can yield to Jesus in us as his servants, Rom 6:16-22, and by his righteousness in us we can fulfill Rom 6:12 to not let sin reign in our mortal bodies.

We will not ultimately be “set free” from sin until we are no longer in these bodies, 2 Cor 5:1-8.  Any idea that in your flesh you have now been set free is simply not true.  The only thing that frees you from the work of sin in your flesh is death, Rom 6:7.

So, the truth shall make you free, as the Bible says, and don’t quote these verses incorrectly from now on.