“Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:31-32

How can we know the truth? Where can we find it? People look for truth in many places but, as we’ve seen, especially in recent times, even sources that should be trustworthy have become dishonest and slanted, often hiding the truth.

But “Jesus said to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

What truth does Jesus reveal in His Word? To His Jewish hearers, His Word revealed their sinfulness and their guilt and condemnation under the Law. Jesus told His hearers: “Ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins” (John 8:24). He told them, “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:34-36). Jesus said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. … He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God” (John 3:14-16,18).

The truth Jesus revealed to His hearers is that it wasn’t enough to be children of Abraham and entrusted with God’s law. Their heritage did not make them true children of Abraham because they were guilty under the law of God and were servants of sin. Unless they repented of their sinful ways and looked in faith to Jesus as their Messiah and Savior, they would die in their sins and be lost forever!

The message for us is the same. It will do us no good to claim a place in God’s kingdom because of our Christian heritage or church affiliation. Like the Jews who believed in Jesus, Jesus invites us to continue in His Word so that we might learn the truth and that the truth might set us free.

And what is that truth? What does God’s Word reveal to us as it shines its bright light of truth upon us?

I think of the words of the Apostle John in his first epistle (1 John 1:8 — 2:2): “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. … And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

What truth do we learn from the Scriptures? As we read and study God’s law, we see our utter sinfulness before God. We see our failures to measure up to God’s standards. We stand guilty and condemned before God. But we see in the gospel that God sent His only-begotten Son into this world, a true man, to fulfill the demands of God’s law for us and then to bear upon the cross the full and just punishment for our sins and the sins of all that we might look to Him in faith and be justified, forgiven and counted righteous and acceptable in God’s eyes. We see that, through faith in Jesus, we have been made “accepted in the beloved,” that “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:6,7).

And this truth sets us free from the guilt and condemnation of God’s law. It gives us the assurance that through faith in the Son, we have forgiveness for all our sins and life everlasting!

Dear Lord Jesus, grant that we might continue in Your life-giving Word, learn the truth, and be made free through faith in You as our God and Savior. We ask this for the sake of Your blood, shed on the cross for our sins. Amen.

[Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.]