Jesus next addressed those in His audience who had expressed some faith Him (v. 30).
8:31 The mark of a true disciple is continuation in the instructions of his or her teacher. A disciple is by definition a learner, not necessarily a believer in the born again sense. A disciple remains a disciple as long as he or she continues to follow the instruction of his or her teacher. When that one stops following faithfully, he or she ceases to be a disciple. He or she does not lose his or her salvation, which comes as a gift from God. Genuine believers can continue to be disciples of Jesus or they can cease to be His disciples temporarily or permanently. God never forces believers to continue following Him.
The disciples in this context appear to have believed that Jesus was a prophet or the Messiah as the Jews popularly regarded Messiah. They apparently did not believe that He was God (cf. 7:39-41). They appear to have been unsaved in view of what Jesus proceeded to say about them. This then is another of the many passages in the Gospels in which Jesus taught the conditions of discipleship.
Some interpreters have sought to differentiate two types of believers in verses 30 and 31. The first, they say, were genuine believers, which the Greek phrase pisteuo eisplus the accusative ("believe in Him"or "put their faith in Him") identifies. The second group was only professors, which the Greek phrase pisteuoplus the dative ("believed Him") in verse 31 identifies. This linguistic distinction does not hold up, however. The first construction allegedly describing genuine faith describes spurious faith in 2:23, and the second construction that supposedly always describes superficial faith describes genuine faith in 5:24.
Other interpreters see verse 31 as introducing Judaizing Christians, Jewish believers who genuinely believed in Jesus as their Savior but also believed that Christians need to obey the Mosaic Law (cf. Gal. 1:6-9). However there is nothing in the context to support this view. It deals primarily with Jesus' identity, not the place of the Mosaic Law in the believer's life.
Still others believe that Jesus was teaching that perseverance is the mark of true faith, that genuine believers will inevitably continue to follow Jesus as His disciples.315This view contradicts the teaching of other Scriptures that view true believers as capable of not following Jesus faithfully. Many Scriptural injunctions urge believers to follow the Lord faithfully rather than turning aside and dropping out of the Christian race (e.g., 1 Tim. 1:18-20; 4; 6:11-21; 2 Tim. 1:6, 13; 2:3-7, 12-13, 15-26; 3:14-17; 4:1-8; Titus 3:8). This verse is talking about discipleship, not salvation, and rewards, not regeneration.
This last view misunderstands the teaching of Scripture regarding perseverance. The Bible consistently teaches that it is the Holy Spirit who perseveres within the believer keeping him or her securely saved. It does not teach that believers inevitably persevere in the faith but that believers can defect from the faith while remaining saved (e.g., 1 Tim. 1:20; 2 Tim. 1:15; 4:10, 16). It is the Savior who perseveres with the saints, not necessarily the saints who persevere with the Savior (2 Tim. 2:13).316
This view also incorrectly reads "believer"for "disciple"in the text. These are two different terms describing two different groups of people in relation to Jesus. Disciples may or may not be genuine believers, and believers may or may not be genuine disciples. Today we sometimes describe a believer who is also a disciple as a growing Christian and a believer who is not a disciple as a backslidden Christian.
8:32 Disciples who continue to abide (Gr. meno) in Jesus' word (v. 31) come to know the truth. Jesus' words are truth because He is the incarnation of truth (1:14; 14:6). This truth, Jesus' words, sets people free when they understand His teaching. It liberates them spiritually from ignorance, sin, and spiritual death.
Many people misapply this verse. It occurs as a motto in numerous public libraries, for example, with the implication that any true information has a liberating effect. That is only true to a degree. In the context Jesus was speaking about spiritual truth that He revealed. It is that truth that is in view here. Jesus was speaking particularly of the gospel.
8:33 Jesus assumed that His hearers were slaves, but they emphatically denied being such. They could not have meant that they had never been physical slaves since the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, Syrians, and most recently the Romans had all enslaved them. Probably they meant that they had never been spiritual slaves. They viewed themselves as spiritually right with God because of their descent from Abraham with whom God had made a special covenant (cf. Matt. 8:12; Mark 2:17; John 9:40). They denied that they had any significant spiritual need for liberation. Here were superficial believers in Jesus, believers in His messiahship only perhaps, who were resisting His teaching. They were not abiding in His word and being true disciples of His (v. 31).
8:34 Jesus proceeded to clarify what He meant. He prefaced His declaration with a strong affirmation of its truth (cf. vv. 51, 58). Everyone who commits acts of sin becomes sin's slave. The Greek present participle poion("who commits sin"or "who sins") implies continual sinning rather than an occasional lapse. This is a general truth that applies to both believers and unbelievers. People who continually commit sin become the slaves of sin. Sin tends to become habit-forming. This type of slavery is more fundamental and personal than mere political slavery.
How does this revelation harmonize with Paul's teaching about the believer's relationship to sin that he wrote in Romans 6? In Romans 6, Paul explained that at regeneration God broke the chain that makes the believer the slave of sin. Sin does not have the power to enslave us that it did before we believed in Jesus. However believers can become sin's slaves by practicing sin. We do not need to be its slaves any longer since God has broken its enslaving power over us. We are no longer its slaves, but we can still choose to live as its slaves by submitting to temptation. Sin gains power over us when we yield to temptation.
Similarly a heroin addict cannot break his or her addiction without radical treatment. The treatment can result in total rehabilitation, but the former addict can choose to become a slave again by returning to his or her habit. However he or she does not need to return since liberation has taken place. Another illustration is Israel in the Old Testament. Having experienced liberation from the Egyptians the Israelites chose to return to slavery under the Assyrians and Babylonians though they did not need to do that. By continually sinning they set themselves up for these strong enemies to take them captive.
8:35 These Jews thought of themselves as occupying a privileged and secure position as sons within God's household because they were Abraham's descendants. Jesus now informed them that they were not sons but slaves. The implication was that they did not enjoy a secure position but could lose it. This is really what happened because the Jews refused to receive Jesus (cf. Rom. 9-11). They lost their privileged position in the world temporarily. Jesus was not speaking in this context about the loss of personal salvation but of the loss of Israel's national privilege.
The son in Jesus' explanation stands for Himself (v. 36). The Greek word for "son"here is huios, which John consistently used to describe Jesus. He referred to believers as God's "children"(Gr. tekna).
8:36 The Son of God also has the authority to liberate spiritual slaves from their bondage to sin and its consequences. Real freedom consists of liberty from sin's enslavement to do what we should do. It does not mean that we may do just anything we please. We are now free to do what pleases God, which we could not do formerly. When we do what pleases God, we discover that it also pleases us. Hope for real freedom, therefore, does not rest on Abrahamic ancestry but Jesus' action.
8:37 Jesus acknowledged that the Jews listening to Him were Abraham's descendants but only on the physical level (cf. Rom. 2:28-29; 9:6, 8; Gal. 3:29). Their desire to kill Him because they rejected His teaching did not reveal true spiritual kinship with Abraham. Abraham had welcomed God's representatives who visited him with revelations from above (Gen. 19; 22). Jesus' hearers had not done this.
8:38 Jesus claimed to be God's Son as the Jews claimed to be Abraham's children. As their conduct showed they were not Abraham's true children, so Jesus' words proved that He was God's true Son. Jesus' point was that conduct reveals paternity. He was hinting that their father was not God since they opposed Him.
8:39-41a The Jews stubbornly insisted that they revealed their ancestry to Abraham by doing as he did. By claiming Abraham as their father at this stage in the discussion they were saying that they were as good as Abraham. Jesus proceeded to repeat the difference between them and Abraham (cf. Gal. 3:16-29). He also implied again that someone other than Abraham was their spiritual father.
8:41b The Jews rejected Jesus' claim that they were not genuine children of Abraham. Their reference to fornication may have been a slur on Jesus' physical paternity. Who was He with His questionable pedigree to deny their ancestry? They then claimed that on the spiritual level God was their father (Exod. 4:22; Deut. 14:1-2). They apparently believed that Jesus surely could not deny that, though He disputed their connection to Abraham.
8:42 However, Jesus was not even willing to grant them that they were God's children in the spiritual sense. How could they respond to Him as they did and still claim to be behaving as God? If they were God's true children, they would love Jesus rather than try to kill Him. They would acknowledge that God had sent Him.
8:43 These Jews were having difficulty believing what Jesus was saying, specifically about Himself. Jesus identified the source of this difficulty as within them, not in His ability to communicate clearly. It lay in their inability to accept the truth that He spoke because of their presuppositions, prejudice, and parentage (v. 44). Hearing here does not mean mere understanding but responding positively.
8:44 Finally Jesus identified the father of these Jews to whom He had been alluding (vv. 38, 41). Their attitudes and actions pointed to the devil as their father for two reasons. They wanted to kill Jesus, and Satan was a murderer from the beginning of his career as a fallen angel. He indirectly murdered Adam and then Abel. Second, they had abandoned the truth for lies, and the devil had consistently done the same thing throughout history (cf. Gen. 2:17).317
In one sense every human being is a child of the devil since we all do the things that He does out of a sinful human nature. We usually think of this sinful behavior as identifying fallen Adam as our father, but Satan was behind the Fall. However the believer is also a child of God by faith in Jesus Christ. Consequently we are always either manifesting the traits of one of our spiritual fathers or the other. This is the result of walking either by the flesh or by the Spirit.
8:45 Liars not only speak untruth, but they also reject the truth. These Jews rejected Jesus partially because He spoke the truth. The only way children of the devil can believe and welcome the truth is if God draws them and teaches them the truth (6:44-45).
8:46-47 Obviously many of Jesus' critics thought He was guilty of committing sin (cf. 5:18). Jesus asked if any of them could prove Him guilty (cf. 18:23). This was one of Jesus' clearest claims to being God. Not one of His critics could prove Him guilty because He was not guilty. No mere mortal could risk making such an offer.
"The perfectholiness of Christ is in this passage demonstrated, not by the silence of the Jews, who might have ignored the sins of their questioner, but by the assurance with which His direct consciousness of the purity of His whole life is in this question affirmed."318
Jesus again claimed that His hearers did not accept His words because they did not belong to God.
