So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and
you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” - Matthew 8:31-32
My understanding of this verse was always based on the preceding
and following verses. Prior to this
verse Jesus is struggling to get the people around Him to understand that He
was sent from God the Father and everything He says is from God the
Father. Just six verses earlier the
people asks, "Who are you?"
Jesus is saying to them over and over, I am the Messiah but they just
aren't getting it. And so He says to
them that once they rest in His Words (I am the Messiah and sent from God) they
will (finally) know the truth of who He is and why He came (to die for their
sins) and that truth would set them free (from the bonds of this world). Immediately following this verse He tells how
everyone is a slave to sin but if they are set free from that sin they are free
indeed.
This conversation is like an extended version of John
3:16. Dungy explains this similarly
saying, "He's talking about the
ultimate, eternal truth - the truth that He is the Savior and that by accepting
Him as Savior, we will be set free from our bondage to sin and no longer
separated from Him."
The problem is that we look at this with our human eyes,
just like the disciples were doing in this conversation with Jesus and we don't
always understand or accept what we "see or hear". We have to accept it on faith and believe it
on faith. And our faith has to be as
simple as, "Because You, Jesus, say it - then it's real." No matter what the concept, be it Jesus as
the Son of God, Jesus living a perfect life, Jesus dying for our sins, Jesus
forgiving our sins, or any other teaching of God, if we don't believe in this
simple way, we need to examine our faith.
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