Gospel of John, 8:1-44

a bit of a agenda to this morning. I'm going to finish up in just short order the last two questions on Courtney's list on 14. Was he working on 13 or 14? 13. Then Chris is going to get up and do the first 11 verses of chapter 8, which is pretty much a miracle. And then I'll get back up and we'll start in on less than 14. I didn't have questions for you last week. I'll pass them out now and we'll go through it. And I have also less than 15, which is next week. Whether we're going to get through all that two weeks is doubtful. But anyway, that's that's kind of what we're going to do. Okay, so in lesson 13, which is the last part of chapter 7, really what you're talking about is kind of a divided opinion about who the Lord Jesus is and people are going back and forth.

And in verse 49, the Pharisees are together and they're talking And they say in 49, but this crowd that does not know the law is accursed. And Courtney's question was, who are the accursed ones? Who are these dirty dogs that are accursed? Now think about who's speaking. These are the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the ruling people, the know-it-alls, maybe is a better way to look at it. Vern and I and Roger sit up there and say, boy, you know these accursed ones. I'm kidding. Who are these accursed ones? Who are they?

So the Lord Jesus has been addressing crowds in the temple and the people that are after him are the officers and the chief priests and the Pharisees. They sent these guys, these officers to deal, to sort of engage the Lord Jesus. And after they did that, they came back and said, boy, you know, nobody has ever spoken like this man has spoken. And so they said, well, gee, are you going to be one of his disciples now?

And through these discussions, they make this interesting comment about the law. But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed. Who's the crowd? yeah just everyday walking around the street Jewish person who doesn't have academic credentials well and they think of Jesus the same way they think where did he ever go to school you know he's from Nazareth or Bethlehem or whatever so it's interesting in their mind if you don't know the law you're cursed That's interesting, that's their viewpoint. So, the last question that Courtney had had to do with 51, and I'll read down.

50 Nicodemus who came to Jesus by night, being one of them, said, Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he's doing? And they answered and said to him, Are you also from Galilee? Search and look, for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee, and everyone went to his own house." So, what principle was Nicodemus talking about in verse 51?

And when I get back up to talk about the next interaction between the ruling Jews and the Lord Jesus, this issue comes up again. What's he talking about? Well I have Proverbs 18.13 that says, he who gives an answer before he hears, it's folly and a shame to them. So don't judge until you're tried according to the law. So the issue is being tried according to the law. The Jewish system was, you're innocent until proven guilty. Same system we have.

That, you know, they're condemning the Lord Jesus and they haven't tried him yet and that's what Nicodemus is saying. Now do you think from this that Nicodemus has become a believer and he's tried to defend Christ? Or is he just stating the law of principle? He's making a statement there that he thinks will fly in that group of Pharisees and he's a monk. Yeah, what he's telling them is, look, he knows the law too. Yeah, he knows the law and he's saying, you guys are all getting worked up here about this guy, Jesus, who comes out of Galilee and you're saying, well, prophets don't come out of Galilee, they come from someplace else and you're condemning them and you want to put him to death. Now wait a minute, we got a law we live by around here and doesn't the law say that you got to try the guy? before you can condemn them.

That's what he's saying. And they're saying, well, okay. But as we find, I mean, eventually, there is a trial in the middle of the night, and so that they can at least give the appearance that they're doing the right thing. So that's really all Nicodemus is saying. At this point, he really isn't, I don't think, defending Christ. He's just saying to these guys, wait a minute, we've got rules here. We've got to live by them, kind of thing.

Now he does later, I mean he comes and he's involved with the burial of Christ and that kind of thing. I absolutely think he's a believer. So, next chapter, chapter 8, Chris is going to take over and talk about the miracle. Alright, so the beginning of chapter 8 is the woman caught in adultery and I think most of you know that I'm going to be moving back to Ohio soon. And a couple weeks ago, Mike came up to me at Bible study and said, you know, you should really teach one more time.

Just take something short, something easy. Yeah, just something easy that you can go through, and then I'll finish this on my school. How about you take The Woman Caught in Adultery? And I thought to myself, I'm pretty sure that there's something about this passage that's kind of controversial. But I said, okay, I'll take it. It's only 11 verses.

And I started studying it and one of the first resources I consulted, I opened the book and the first page read, few if any passages in the New Testament have been more subject to controversy over a longer period of time than the famous story of the woman caught in adultery. And I thought to myself, Mike, what did you get me into here?

But basically, in your Bibles probably every one of you has brackets or a footnote that says something about the earliest manuscripts do not contain 753 through 811. And the reason it says that is that there are many ancient Greek manuscripts that don't have this story in it. So the thinking goes it was added later by a scribe and it was like an oral tradition and a lot of scholars do believe that this is a true story, that this actually happened, but that John didn't necessarily write it. I don't want to get into a lot of detail on this.

I have this one page write-up that Vern did, which I'll pass out that kind of goes over some of the evidence for including it in the scripture. One thing I'll highlight from that briefly is that Augustine, one of the early church fathers, wrote that the end of this passage shocked weak believers because they felt that Jesus was too lenient and it encouraged adultery. And he actually said that some people struck that out of their gospel. So I would say that's a pretty convincing witness that, not that this was added later, but that it was cut out early by some who had a problem with it. I'll just read the passage really fast. It actually starts on 753.

Everyone went to his own home, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people were coming to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court, they said to him, Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery in the very act. Now the law of Moses commanded us to stone such women.

What do you say? They were saying this, testing him, so that they might have grounds for accusing him. But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground, But when they persisted in asking him, he straightened up and said to them, He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her. Again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground. When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and he was left alone and the woman where she was in the center of the court. Straightening up, Jesus said to her, Woman, Where are they? Did they not condemn you? She said, no one Lord. And Jesus said, I do not condemn you either. Go from now on, sin no more.

And in the closing days of Jesus' life, he usually followed that pattern. He would teach in the city during the day and at night he would go sleep in the countryside. And where it says, he sat down and began to teach, he was assuming the position of a rabbi teaching students.

That was a common thing. And like the passage says, the scribes and Pharisees, maybe somewhat rudely, interrupted, brought this woman, sat her right in the middle of the meeting and said, we caught this woman in the act of adultery. Which right there, it's kind of suspicious how these keepers of the law would catch a woman in the act of adultery. But when they say in the very act, that implies that there was no doubt that she was guilty. And if you notice, they address Jesus as teacher, which was a term for respect, but obviously they were hypocritical because they were trying to catch him in something. And also, I mean, if you notice in here, what happened to the man? Obviously it takes two to commit adultery, but the man is never even mentioned here. So did Jesus challenge their interpretation of the law? You think? Anybody?

Not only did he not, he allowed their law to convict them. Yeah, that's true. bringing back on the Pharisees that, no, that's not what that means. He just proceeded to stoop down right on the ground. And when they said, what do you say? They were trying to obviously pit him against the law. And the two verses that told the Jews how to judge someone caught in adultery were Deuteronomy 22, 22 and Leviticus 20, 10. And as we'll see in the next verse, these scribes and Pharisees were not seeking guidance, but to trap him. So how do you think that their question could trap Jesus?

Well, if he said that, if he was lenient with her and said, it's okay, just give her a slap on the hand or something. Then the people who were legalistic would say, oh, no, we can't follow him. He doesn't even follow the law. Right. But on the other hand, if you say go ahead and stone her, then you would have the other side who was saying, you know, where's the grace? Where's the forgiveness? Where's the mercy? Yeah. That would definitely alienate him from his followers. And if he did, execute this woman, then that could get him in trouble with the Roman authorities as well. So it was kind of a lose-lose situation. He would upset somebody no matter what he said.

But instead he bent down and wrote on the ground, there are all kinds of speculation on what this was. Does anybody have any ideas or anything from their Bible studies that they've come across where someone gives a kind of like what they thought Jesus wrote? Any ideas on that? Yeah. I heard once that he wrote down the names of an of the Pharisees or that brought them their names of other that they had been involved with other women.

Yeah, I think the most popular one is along those lines that he wrote down the sins that those individuals had committed and when they saw that they were convicted. Some other ideas are Jeremiah 17 13, those who turn away on earth will be written down because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, even the Lord.

Another idea, Exodus 23.1, do not join your hand with the wicked man to be a malicious witness. Another idea is that he just wrote down exactly what he said, whoever is without sin be the first to I think from the context, I mean we can't know for certain, but I think that he would write their sins, fits pretty well. But whatever it was, doesn't matter so much because it wasn't recorded. This is the only Account that we have in the Bible of Jesus writing anything.

I thought was interesting So these Pharisees persisted and Jesus said he's who is without sin cast the first stone and And he was citing passages from the Mosaic Law, the verses that required that in cases of stoning at least two witnesses of the sin were required and those witnesses could not have participated in that sin. So did the law say that the judges had to be sinless? I think it's pretty evident that it didn't because obviously no one is sinless. The only sinless judge there was Jesus.

So they had asked him to pass judgment on her, but he, in turn, passed judgment on them. And with his words, he who is without sin casts the first stone, he was putting the dilemma back on them. Because if they went up to stone this woman, they were admitting that they were sinless. But if they didn't throw any stones at her, they were admitting that they had sinned. Didn't the law say that the person to throw the first stone was the one who actually was the witness, the first witness of the sin itself? I'm not sure. I don't know if it's a... In Deuteronomy, I think somewhere, it talks about the fact that the first witness shall throw the first stone and then the rest of the people. Yeah. So if you were the one who caught them, you were the one that were to throw the first stone, and it doesn't talk about if there was a first witness standing there in the crowd, although the Pharisees say, you know, she was caught in the act.

So when they heard these words, they went away one by one, which I think fits the context. He's probably writing their sins on the ground. That action of them leaving was kind of a confession of guilt because they were saying, well, I've sinned. I can't cast the first stone.

Which is interesting if you, the passage where Jesus is asked, is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? He kind of does the same thing where he says, give me a coin. And when they bring out that coin, they were kind of, admitting they were guilty because they were under the rule of the Romans and the Jews understood that if you were under the rule of a foreign power that you had sinned and God was punishing you for that. Jesus' words brought conviction.

And after they left, he straightened up and Jesus said, Woman, where are they? Did they not condemn you? She said, No, Lord. And Jesus said, I do not condemn you. Either go and sin no more. He didn't ask if she was guilty. And the ultimate reason that he could exempt her from condemnation was that he would die for her sins as well as ours. And it's important for us to remember that we're no better than this woman. Jesus died for all sins. And that's all I got.

Yeah. It's interesting, you know, that he didn't say, I mean, as far as elevating my man, you know, which they brought, just brought the woman and not the man. And he didn't say, well, where's your, you know, where's the man in this situation? Yeah. I mean, he definitely didn't argue.

He just started writing, convicting. They're making a distinguishing point here, like, this is a major sin, and sin is sin. Right. Yeah, I mean, you have to ask the question, what sin is least offensive to God? I mean, sin is sin. The Pharisees, they had the sin of pride.

Do you think that the Because these are law based people and we learned in chapter one that grace and truth came by Jesus Christ and so he is giving a grace message. I don't know if they really understood grace as grace for what it is but sort of viewed it as leniency and thought, I think they really were convinced that if they could put this situation in front of them then he would exercise grace, then they could really condemn him. I think that dilemma is the same dilemma we have today.

How does grace fit along with law? Because God doesn't, in essence, put the law aside and say, oh, never mind. I think it's a difficult question to face. How does grace function and still uphold the law. With grace, you know, grace takes self out of the equation.

If there's anybody who would fight that the most, it would be the Pharisees and the scribes. And I have this little supplement for you. If you want to study study it further, I can give you some pretty good resources that present both sides of the argument to whether this passage was included or not. OK, so if you've got the lesson 14, I'm picking up in verse 12 and see if we can get probably all the way through to verse 44. And what we're really looking at here is a conflict between the Lord Jesus and the Pharisees.

And this is after the lack of condemnation. Verse 12 says, Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. So here's this statement that he makes after he does not condemn this world and he's talking to not only the Pharisees but the Jews and some that had believed in him at the same time. So what does the Lord Jesus mean by I am the light of the world? What a statement.

In 1 John 1.5, this then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him there's no darkness at all. So when the Lord Jesus talks about light and darkness, what's he talking about? Spiritually. And speaking spiritually, what does he mean? Truth.

And it presupposes that the entire world is in spiritual darkness, which means they can't see, they can't understand, they don't know where they're going or what they're doing. I think even today there's a mindset that human beings could find their way to salvation on their own. I mean, you live in abject darkness which means you can't see.

I have a dog that's stone blind, can't see a thing, and he functions based on his other senses. But I can't tell you how many times a day he runs into things. I've told you this before, my wife in the morning when it's dark turns the light on so he can go outside. I said, is that so you can see him or he can see where he's going?

So, if you're in a world that's totally dark, and God is light itself, comes into the world, and the Lord Jesus says, I'm the light of the world. In other words, there isn't any other light other than me. Do you think they understood it? Now think back, why was John the Baptist sent? What was he sent to do? He's the herald. So what is he saying? If you have a room full of people in abject darkness and they're all blind and somebody comes in and turns on the light, do they know the light's on? No, somebody's got to tell them. Somebody has to tell them. That's what John the Baptist's job was.

The light's here. And so the Lord declares himself to be the light of the world. It forces man to understand the concept that God is light and what that relationship that man has between God and man. Light does not need a witness. You see that? Because it demonstrates its own reality by its own radiance. You don't have to say about light, get me a couple of witnesses that the light is here. It demonstrates its own reality by the fact that it is light.

So, why did the Pharisees challenge Jesus' witness? Verse 13, the Pharisees therefore said to him, you bear witness of yourself, your witness isn't true. Why are they challenging him? Chris talked about the fact that the Jewish system had a witness base, and Courtney talked about it last week, that if you went to court, you had to have two witnesses to substantiate your claim and one of them couldn't be you.

Otherwise you weren't a judge telling the truth. So Jesus uses himself here though, starting in verse 14, he says, even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true, For I know where I come from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from and where I am going. You judge according to the flesh, I judge no one."

Now, there's a problem here because the Lord Jesus has said, I think in 5.3 is where it was, this is an apparent conflict, in 5.3 the Lord Jesus, no that's not it, I wrote it down wrong, The Lord Jesus used, let's see here, he didn't use himself as a witness in a previous chapter and I forgot to write down where it is. 531. 531, okay. I forgot to put the 1 down.

If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. Yet here he says that he bears witness of himself. Even if I bear witness of myself, my witness is true. Now how did he get away with that? Is he talking out of both sides of his mouth? What's he bearing witness to here? What's he saying? The Father is his witness, but he is also claiming himself as a witness. A witness to what? The fact that he is the light of the world. Is that the ego I am in? Not yet. He is saying that I am bearing witness to the fact that I am the light of the world. Why does he use himself as a witness then?

He's the only one that knows. Nobody else knows the light's there. Nobody else sees the light. He has to bear witness to himself. And he uses the Father too because the Father is light also. In other words, his bearing witness concerns himself and there's nobody else to bear that witness in a dark world. because he's the light of the world. You see what he's doing? Now it would appear, I think, to those in darkness, they're reasoning, and he says this, you reason from the world.

That's your frame of reference. You judge according to the flesh, and I judge no one. So he's saying to you, if you're going to judge, you have to judge based on what you know and what your environment is. But I get to judge based on what I know and what my environment is, and I'm light. and you're not, and you don't know what light is.

That's why I think he can claim that he can use himself as a witness. Does that make sense? In verse 19, and yet if I do judge, my judgment is true for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me. It is also written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. I am one who bears witness of myself and the father who sent me bears witness of me. See that? What's the witness?

I'm the light of the world. I'm making a statement. Go ahead. I'm glad that never happens to me. Yeah. Light exposes things for what they are. And he's already said to them, back in IV, that man loved the word agape, darkness, rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. He's not pulling any punches with these people, and I think they understand the concept of light and dark. that they really don't have very good vision because they function in darkness.

My next question has to do with verse 19. What does verse 19 tell us about the Father and the Son? 19 is, Then they said to him, Where is your Father? And Jesus answered, You know neither me nor my Father. If you had known me, you would have known the Father also. What does that statement tell us about the Father and the Son?

They're one and the same in terms of not personhood, they're different persons. What are they the same in? Light. And the Lord Jesus is the Lagos of God. What does that mean that he is? He's the exact image of who God is. And so what he says, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

We are the same character. We have the same characteristics. We're the same in all aspects. The difference is, he's a different person than me, but we are exactly the same in terms of life. So he says, I'm using him as a witness, and I'm using myself as a witness.

We are If you had known the Father, or if you had known me, you would know the Father. If you'd known the Father, you'd know me. You can't do one without the other. I have people come to me and say, well, who should I pray to? Do I pray to the Lord Jesus or the Father? I say, what's the difference? Really, what's the difference? Is there a difference? What do you think?

The Lord Jesus is here to manifest too. You say, well, I want to pray to the Holy Spirit. Why wouldn't you do that? I think you have to know what the jobs of all three of them are. What's the job of the Holy Spirit? We'll find out in 14, 15, 16 millenniums down the road. His job is to reveal Christ to the believer, right? What's Christ's job? glorify the Father, right?

So you don't pray to the Spirit, but you pray to the Lord Jesus. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. You can certainly talk to the Father. As a matter of fact, if you look at some of these prayers, they're directed towards the Father, but they're always through Christ.

Verse 22 and 24, Jesus tells them that you'll die in your sins. So, 20. These words spoke Jesus spoke in the treasury as he taught in the temple and no one laid hands on him for his hour had not yet come. Then Jesus said to them again, I'm going away, you will seek me, you will die in your sin, where I go you cannot come. So the Jews said, will he kill himself because he says where I go you cannot come? And he said to them, you are from beneath, I'm from above. You are of this world, I'm not of this world. Therefore, I said to you that you will die in your sins, for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." Okay, my question is, what does he mean in 22 and 24 that they're going to die in their sins?

Well, you guys are with it today. What's interesting is we are so fortunate as believers with the Word of God, especially the writings of Paul, you get to be a Monday morning quarterback. You get to look back and say, Oh, I think that's what he meant. And that's kind of what I did here. You don't have to go here.

Romans 5.12 says, For as by one man sin entered the world and death by sin, so death passed upon all men for all men's sin. So, sin comes into the world by one man, and there's this discussion about a father. All men have sinned, and so death is passed upon every single man. So he says you're going to die in your sin.

Do all of your versions in verse 22 use the word singular sin? Or does it say sins, plural? Singular, right? And if you look it up in a Greek, there's a definite article in front of that. It says you will die in the sin. What's the sin? The definite article is there. What does it mean when it says the sin? It's the sin nature. See that? So what's interesting is that 517 says, for if by one man's offense death reigned by one, Isn't that true? One man's offense. We've got this cool thing called the sin nature.

Romans 8.3. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin he condemned sin in the flesh. Now this goes to the idea of forgiveness and salvation, sins and sin. Why do you commit sins? Maybe a better question is, when did you become a sinner? Born that way?

According to Romans 5.12, when did you become a sinner? When Adam sinned, right? So you became a sinner then, and you got a sin nature, right? So, why do you sin? My sons always tell me, Dad, I have a sin nature. I said, oh gee, that's a big surprise. You sin because you're a sinner. You were a sinner before you sinned. You understand that?

So when condemnation comes, if you look at Romans 8.3, you're going to die in your sins if you don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but you're really going to die because you're attached to that thing called the sin nature and all of its activity. See that? You're already dead because you're attached to it. You're going to die in it. You're already in it. Does that make sense to you?

The issue is now for believers, and the Lord Jesus is beginning to lay this message out, he's going to die for the sins of the world. So, my friend across the street, are his sins forgiven? No, they're not. They're paid for, but not forgiven. So when he dies, even though his sins have been paid for, why is he condemned? No, that's not why.

Because he is united to that sin nature, and according to Romans 8.3, what happened on the cross to that sin nature? It got condemned. It didn't get forgiven. It got condemned. So if you're tied to it, You're going where it's going. Condemnation. And I think that's why you see here the word sin with the definite article in front of it. He's saying, look, you're going to die in your sins because you're attached to sin. See that?

Now, it wouldn't make sense to a Jew to have Paul's Greek logic presented to him, but I think that's what he's saying here. In other words, he's already talking about a precursor to the identification truths that we won't find out about until Paul comes along. So after reading from verse 22 through 28, when did Jesus say that they would understand what he was telling them about when it came to who he is?

I got down to 24. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins if you do not believe in me, that I am he That's the Ego-Emi. Everybody know what Ego-Emi is? Let's talk about Ego-Emi. You know what Ego-Emi is? It's a Greek construction. Ego-Emi. In English, it's I am who am. I am that I am. Every Jew understood that if someone said Ego-Emi, that he was claiming to be God. Pre-existence. Ego-Emi.

And right here, that's what he's saying. He's using that term, egoimi. And they understand what he means. There's no doubt that he is claiming to be God himself. You'll see egoimi a lot as you go through these verses, if you reference over to the Greek. Whenever you see that, you know that what the Lord Jesus is saying, I'm God. And there's no messing around with what the Jews understood what he was saying. He was saying, I'm God.

Then he said to them, Who are you? And Jesus said to them, Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning. I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but he who sent me is true, and I speak to the world those things which I heard from him. So my question is, what was he telling them about who he was?

He's saying to them, look, I'm telling you that I'm God, and I'm telling you that I've come to do a job, but it won't make sense to you until I go to the cross. That's really what he's saying to them. Twenty-seven. They did not understand that he spoke to them of the Father. Then Jesus said to them, When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know, Ego eimi. See that? Ego eimi, that's when you're going to know. And that I do nothing of myself, but as my Father taught me, I speak these things. See that?

He's saying to them, you're going to lift me up, and they understood what that meant too. That when I get lifted up to the cross, you're going to know that I am God. Now whether they accept Him as God is a whole other issue, but they're going to know it. That's what he's saying. So in verse 31, I'll start with 29. He who sent me is with me. The Father has not left me alone, for I always do the things that please him.

And he spoke these words, many believed in him. And then Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him. Now watch this. Jesus is now going to speak only to the Jews that believe in him. If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. So, how does one abide in his word? He's saying, okay, you Jews that believe in me, if you are one of my disciples, if you really are one of my followers, then you abide in my word.

What does he mean? Yeah, it's really pretty simple. You just believe what I tell you. That's what he's saying. You believe what I say and you will be my disciples. The answer is you must live by faith. That's what he's telling me. When a believer is abiding in the word of the Lord, that one is beholding the glory of the Lord Jesus and is taken up with him. A disciple is a follower And what the Lord Jesus is doing, he's inviting those of his disciples to abide with him on a continuum. That's what he's saying to them. He's not threatening them, he's inviting them.

And then he says in 32, And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. How does knowing the truth make you free? First of all, what's the truth? And the word here is Gnosko. What's the truth? It's everything we're laying down at Holly Hills, right? What is the truth? Christ. That's right. It's the Lord Jesus himself. So he says, you shall know the truth, himself, and knowing that truth, you'll be made free. What does that mean? Free from what? Free from self. What else? The sin. Say that again? The sin. Their sin? The sin. Free from the sin nature. What else are they free from? What else are they going to be free from? Condemnation. Condemnation? Death. Death? Bunch of cool stuff. The world? The absolute dominion of Satan? Cool. A couple of things here.

Knowing the truth implies the knowledge gained from experience. So this word, gnosko, means they're going to know the truth gained from experience, beholding the glory of the Lord. Two is the truth is formulated and revealed reality, which is centered in the person of Christ himself. And the last thing is free is a word used by Paul a lot, and John uses it some.

It means the absence of constraint and restriction. The opportunity to exercise the right of acting apart from external influences. Now, think about this. Freedom or liberty is being free from something in order to be free to do something. Freedom does not mean I get to do what I want. I get to do as I please. What freedom is, as you grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus, your desire becomes to be subject to Christ. Right? I'm free to do that. If you're a growing, struggling believer with sin, which is normal, you don't think you're free, do you? You think, I've got to snuff out old sin before I can do what I want to do. But you find out from the truth, who is Christ himself, that I already am free because of the work of the cross. and he is the truth so I can trust him and so I am free to do what I really want to do. And what do I really want to do?

It is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. What does he want you to do? He wants you to believe him. He wants you to behold the glory of his son and be conformed to his image. You're free to do that. And so the Lord is telling these people right here You shall know the truth and the truth is going to make you free. I'm going to make you free and you're going to be connected with the information that makes you free. Man was created to be in subjection to God. You buy that?

Now, in conversations with my son, he doesn't buy that. He thinks freedom is he can do what he pleases. That's what he thinks. And I don't condemn him for that. We all think that way, right? I mean, the reason we live in the United States is because the Constitution says I can do what I want. Really?

But because of sin, man has become in bondage to sin, to the sin nature. The truth of what Christ is and has done, when believed, will free a man from his bondage to sin and allow him to willingly submit himself to the Lordship of Christ. voluntarily, willingly, not coercively. If you set one morally free before God, what's going to happen is he's going to put himself in subjection to God because he wants to, not because he should.

So, our position in the resurrected Lord Jesus and his position as a glorified son with an inheritance We are all free to share. Those people who are in the class studying the 34 things that happened to us at the cross, what are they finding out? Those 34 things are the freedoms that they have. They're sons, they're inheritors, they're free from sin, they're co-heirs with Christ, all of the things that go there.

You're free to take those. I'm convinced that one of the reasons believers don't abide in all of their freedoms is because they don't buy it. you know, they don't believe God. And one of the big reasons why we focus so much on biblical truth here is for freedom's sake. That every believer would walk free.

You see that? You see how that puts together and goes together and makes sense? We're free, Jack. And it qualifies you for fellowship? Yeah, you're qualified for fellowship. Well, okay, I've got to, we'll start with eight next week, and maybe we'll get it done. Let's pause. Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace and for your son, and the fact that we are crucified, buried, and resurrected, seated in him in the heavenlies, and that we can live freely in that environment. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.