John 8:33

‘They answered him, “We are Abraham's seed and have never been slaves to any man. How do you say that we will be made free?” '

As Jesus knew that they would His hearers bridled at His words. They prided themselves on the fact that because they were the sons of Abraham, and because they had the Law of God, they above all men were free, because their thoughts were free.

The question here is as to who are the ‘they' mentioned here. The answer is clearly that it was the Pharisaic group as a whole and not just the believing Judaisers, with John 8:31 being a parenthesis. The situation here is that with Jesus having addressed a word to the believing Judaisers the remainder come in and attack what He has said. What follows is thus not to be seen as meaning that the believing Judaisers were not genuine in their faith.

If we were to take the ‘they' of John 8:33 to refer to the group of ‘believing' Judaisers then clearly the implication would be that the majority of them were not willing to hold to their belief when more deeply challenged. Now in some ways it is true that it was more difficult for them than for the common people to fully respond to the words of Jesus because they were so hidebound by their own teaching and ideas, and because this was something that they had to overcome. But there is good ground for thinking that this ‘they' in John 8:33 looks to the Judaisers as a whole, and not just to the responsive ones, for the context demands it. John's distinctions are not always as clearly spelled out as they could be, possibly deliberately as he tries to make his readers think (compare his varied use of the term ‘disciples').

The suggestion of not being free jars the Pharisees. The boast of the Pharisees, and indeed of all Jews, was that they were free men because they were the children of Abraham. Whatever the tyranny they were under, they proudly believed and claimed that they had a freedom that came from the fact that they had God's Law and were ruled by it and that they were the people of the covenant with freedom to live by that Law. Besides this fact, outside interference and subjection was of secondary importance.

And indeed, under the Romans they did have specific rights to practise their own religion exclusively, and thus had reason to consider themselves as religiously free. And this had generally been true through the ages (sometimes their kings had had to bow to pressure from outside, but this had not necessarily always affected the ordinary people). And when they were persecuted they had been willing to die for what they believed in, in order to demonstrate that they were free. Thus they could say, ‘We are descendants of Abraham and have never been in bondage to any man'. This could only apply to them religiously as they well knew, but it was something of which they were proud. They saw themselves as religiously free spirits, especially free from idolatry. So comes the question ‘How can you say that we must be made free?'

Sadly in their case their pride in their ancestry was part of what kept them from Christ (although the problem arose from their interpretation of it). In the case of others it may be pride in national privilege or tradition, blind trust in rites and ceremonies, or the overstressing of some moral code. But for all it can often be the acceptance of half truths that can keep them from the full truth.