The slave need not abide for ever; but is there any one who will take him out of the unnatural state of slavery? The relationship is capable of being terminated, if there is any one who will terminate it. And the question whether there be, is answered in these words, The Son abideth ever,' which, while they are primarily a general statement, applying to all sons as such, have unquestionably a specific reference to our Lord Himself. That I presume is clear from the fact that there is founded on them, with a therefore,' to bind it firmly to them, the grand conclusion, If the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed.'
Notice, too, that if the contrasted statements of our text are to be so put together as to give ground for that joyous certainty of true freedom as the Son's gift, then somehow or other the two houses must be the same; or at least the Son, who is ever in His Father's house, must yet, while thus abiding, also be in the midst of the bondsmen in the dark fortress of the tyrant. That is but a figurative way of putting the necessity which even our consciences and hearts, made wise by bitter experience of failure, can discern--that our freedom from sin must come from a power beyond the circle of humanity, and yet must be diffused from a source within the circle. Unless it come from above it will not be able to lift us out of the pit of the prison-house; but unless it be on our level we shall not be able to grasp it. The Deliverer must Himself be free; therefore He must be removed from the fatal continuity of evil, which, like a lengthened chain, shackles all the prisoners together. The Deliverer must be like those whom He would help, and be a sharer in their condition. The contradictory requirements are harmonised in One, of whom it was spoken long ago, He hath anointed me to proclaim liberty to the captives'; and who has Himself claimed to unite them both in His own person: No man hath ascended up to heaven but He that came down from heaven, even the Son of Man which is in heaven.' He is truly one of us, the very perfection of humanity; the whole essential characteristics of manhood are in Him. He has come down from heaven, entered the prison-house, become one of the company of slaves--and yet all the while is in heaven,' abiding in that true and unbroken fellowship with God of which He testified when He said, The Father hath not left Me alone.' He is the Son of Man which came down from heaven, and He is the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father.' Therefore is He the Deliverer of His brethren.
The conversion, then, of the mere possibility of freedom into actual fact requires two things--that the Deliverer should be the Son of God and that He should be the Son for ever. If we are ever, dear friends, to be rescued from the iron grip of this miserable bondage, it must be by one who wields and brings, and is, the energy, and the wisdom, and the all-bestowing love of the Father. It must be by one who is a Son in that full emphatic sense of perfect kindred in, and participation of, the boundless Godhead which none other possesses. None less mighty has the power, none less patient has the love, which such a task needs. It must be The Son who sets us free.
And so I come to you with that living central truth of the Gospel, and beseech you, dear brethren, to lay to heart the solemn fact of our need, and the blessed answer to it which is given to us all in Christ. Such an High Priest became us.' He and His work are in accurate correspondence with our wants. There is no deliverance possible from this clinging curse of corruption unless there have come into the very midst of us bondsmen, one who shares our nature but does not share our sin, who is above us and yet beside us, who is separate from sinners and yet cleaveth closer than a brother to the most polluted, whose hands are pure and yet whose heart is so tender that He will lay His pure hand unshrinking on leprosy and death, who is in all points like ourselves and yet is unfettered by the chains under which we groan and die. And this impossible combination we have, blessed be God! in that dear Lord. Christ is the Son of God and the brother of every man. There is the life, fontal not derived, divine that it may be human; there is Manhood unstained by sin, having no affinity with evil, and in its completeness a living protest against the lie that sin is an integral part of human nature, and a prophecy that we too may be like Him, set free from bondage and perfected in glory. God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.' Yes! a Son will set free, none other will. Yes! the Son has set free. We need none other.
Further, our Lord puts emphasis here on the perpetual abiding of the Son, as a part of the basis of His fitness for the mighty work. We and all men to the end of time have to trust to a living Saviour, who is as near to the latest generations as He was to those that gathered round His cross on earth. Nay, we may even say that He is nearer to save and fuller of power to bless, not indeed in Himself, but in our apprehensions of His nearness and fulness, which should be deepened by all that has passed since He ascended up on high. Have not the might of His work and the majesty of His person gained fresh illustrations from the experience of all these centuries? As distance has paled other lights, and hidden lower watch-towers below the horizon, have we not learned thereby to estimate more truly the brightness of the one undying flame which burns across the waste nor knows diminution by space nor extinction by time, and to measure more accurately the height of that rallying-point for the nations which towers higher and higher as we recede from it? Surely, if we will faithfully use the inspired record, the Indwelling Spirit, the voice of our own experience, and the history of God's Church, we may come, by reason of the very lapse of ages, and all which they have brought of testing and of triumph, to apprehend yet more of the fulness of Christ's freedom than was possible at first. It is expedient for you that I go away.'
Nor is this all; for the Son who bids us rejoice, both for His sake and ours, that He goes to the Father, was with the Father while He walked on earth, and is with us while He is on the throne of God. He abideth ever by our sides to bless and set free. He carries on our deliverance by the present forth-putting of His love and power, even as He effected it by His Cross. This man, because He continueth ever, is able to save unto the uttermost? We have an ever-living Saviour to trust to. The Son abideth for ever.' If He therefore make us free, we shall be free indeed.'
