Church Fathers Commentary John 8:31-36

"Jesus therefore said to those Jews that had believed him, If ye abide in my word, [then] are ye truly my disciples; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered unto him, We are Abraham`s seed, and have never yet been in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Every one that committeth sin is the bondservant of sin. And the bondservant abideth not in the house for ever: the son abideth for ever. If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." — John 8:31-36 (ASV)

St. John Chrysostom: Our Lord wished to test the faith of those who believed, so that it might not be only a superficial belief. Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed in Him, If you continue in My word, then you are My disciples indeed. His saying, “if you continue,” made manifest what was in their hearts. He knew that some believed but would not continue. And He makes them a magnificent promise, namely, that they will become His disciples indeed; these words are a tacit rebuke to some who had believed and afterward withdrawn.

St. Augustine of Hippo: We all have one Master and are fellow disciples under Him. Nor are we masters just because we speak with authority; He is the Master of all, who dwells in the hearts of all. It is a small thing for a disciple to come to Him in the first instance; he must continue in Him. If we do not continue in Him, we will fall. This is a short phrase, but it describes a great work: “if you continue.” For what is it to continue in God’s word but to yield to no temptations? Without labor, the reward would be free; but if it comes with labor, then it is a great reward indeed.

It is as if to say: While you now have belief, by continuing, you will have sight. For it was not their knowledge that made them believe, but rather their belief that gave them knowledge. Faith is to believe what you do not see; truth is to see what you believe. By continuing, then, to believe something, you come at last to see it—that is, to the contemplation of the very truth as it is, not conveyed in words but revealed by light.

The truth is unchangeable. It is the bread of the soul, refreshing others without diminishing itself, changing the one who eats into itself, while it is not changed itself. This truth is the Word of God, who put on flesh for our sakes and was hidden, not meaning to bury Himself, but only to delay His manifestation until His suffering in the body, for the ransoming of the body of sin, had taken place.

St. John Chrysostom: Or, You shall know the truth—that is, Me, for I am the truth. The Jewish system was a type; you can only know the reality from Me.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Someone might perhaps say, “And what does it profit me to know the truth?” So our Lord adds, And the truth shall make you free. It is as if to say, “If the truth does not delight you, liberty will.” To be freed is to be made free, just as to be healed is to be made whole. This is plainer in the Greek; in Latin, we use the word “free” chiefly in the sense of escaping danger, being relieved from care, and the like.

Theophylact of Ohrid: Just as He said to the unbelievers alone, You shall die in your sin, so now to those who continue in the faith He proclaims absolution.

St. Augustine of Hippo: From what will the truth free us, but from death, corruption, and mutability—since truth itself is immortal, incorruptible, and immutable? Absolute immutability is eternity itself.

St. John Chrysostom: Men who really believed could have borne to be rebuked. But these men immediately began to show anger. Indeed, if they had been disturbed at His former saying, they had much more reason to be so now. For they might have argued, “If He says we will know the truth, He must mean that we do not know it now; so then the law is a lie, and our knowledge is a delusion.”

But their thoughts took no such direction; their grief was entirely worldly. They knew of no other servitude but that of this world. They answered Him, We are Abraham’s seed and were never in bondage to any man. How can you say, ‘You will be made free’? It is as if to say, “Those of Abraham’s stock are free and ought not to be called slaves; we have never been in bondage to anyone.”

St. Augustine of Hippo: Or perhaps it was not those who believed, but the unbelieving multitude that made this answer. But how could they say truthfully, even considering only worldly bondage, that they had never been in bondage to any man? Was not Joseph sold? Were not the holy prophets carried into captivity? Ungrateful people! Why does God remind them so continually of His having taken them out of the house of bondage if they were never in bondage? Why did they, who were speaking then, pay tribute to the Romans if they were never in bondage?

St. John Chrysostom: Christ, then, speaking for their good and not to gratify their vainglory, explains that He meant they were the servants not of men, but of sin—the hardest kind of servitude, from which only God can rescue. Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say to you, Whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin.

St. Augustine of Hippo: This assertion is important: it is, if one may say so, His oath. “Amen” means “true” but is not translated. Neither the Greek nor the Latin translators have dared to translate it. It is a Hebrew word, and people have abstained from translating it in order to cast a reverential veil over so mysterious a word—not because they wished to lock it up, but only to prevent it from becoming despised through overexposure.

You can see how important the word is from its being repeated. “Verily, I say to you,” says Truth itself—a statement that would be true even if He had not said “verily.” Our Lord, however, resorts to this method of enforcing His words in order to rouse people from their state of sleep and indifference. Whosoever, He said, commits sin—whether Jew or Greek, rich or poor, king or beggar—is the servant of sin.

St. Gregory the Great: For whoever yields to wrong desires puts his previously free soul under the yoke of the evil one and takes him for his master. But we oppose this master when we struggle against the wickedness that has taken hold of us, when we strongly resist habit, when we pierce sin with repentance, and wash away the stains of filth with tears.

And the more freely people follow their perverse desires, the more closely they are in bondage to them.

St. Augustine of Hippo: O miserable bondage! A slave of a human master, when exhausted by his hard tasks, sometimes takes refuge in flight. But where does the slave of sin flee? He takes his sin along with him wherever he goes, for his sin is within him. The pleasure passes away, but the sin does not: its delight is gone, but its sting remains behind. He alone can free us from sin, who came without sin and was made a sacrifice for sin.

And so it follows: The servant does not abide in the house forever. The Church is the house; the servant is the sinner, and many sinners enter the Church. So He does not say, “The servant is not in the house,” but, The servant does not abide in the house forever. If a time is to come, then, when there will be no servant in the house, who will be there? Who will boast that he is pure from sin? These are fearful words from Christ.

But He adds, but the Son abides forever. So then, will Christ live alone in His house? Or does the word “Son” not imply both the body and the head? Christ purposely alarms us first and then gives us hope. He alarms us so that we will not love sin; He gives us hope so that we may not despair of the absolution of our sin.

Our hope, then, is this: that we will be freed by Him who is free. He has paid the price for us, not in money, but in His own blood. If the Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

Not freedom from the barbarians, but from the devil; not from the captivity of the body, but from the wickedness of the soul.

The first stage of freedom is abstaining from sin. But that is only initial, not perfect, freedom, for the flesh still lusts against the Spirit, so that you do not do the things that you would. Full and perfect freedom will only come when the contest is over and the last enemy, death, is destroyed.

St. John Chrysostom: Or, to put it another way: Having said that whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin, He anticipates their answer that their sacrifices saved them by saying, The servant does not abide in the house forever, but the Son abides forever. The “house,” He says, means the Father’s house on high, in which—to draw a comparison from the world—He Himself had all the power, just as a man has all the power in his own house.

“Does not abide” means does not have the power of giving freedom, a power which the Son, who is the master of the house, does have. The priests of the old law did not have the power of remitting sins by the sacraments of the law, for all were sinners—even the priests, who, as the Apostle says, were obliged to offer up sacrifices for themselves.

But the Son has this power, and therefore our Lord concludes, If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed, implying that the earthly freedom of which they boasted so much was not true freedom.

St. Augustine of Hippo: Do not, then, abuse your freedom to sin freely, but use it in order not to sin at all. Your will will be free if it is merciful; you will be free if you become the servant of righteousness.