John 8:33,34

“ They answered him, We are Abraham's seed, and have never been slaves of any one; how sayest thou: you shall become free? 34. Jesus answered them, Verily, verily I say to you that whosoever commits sin is a slave [of sin].”

According to some modern interpreters, those who thus answer Jesus cannot be the believing Jews of John 8:30, the more since Jesus charges them in John 8:37 with seeking to put Him to death, and, subsequently, calls them children of the devil. Lucke therefore regards John 8:30-32 as a parenthesis, and connects John 8:33 with the preceding conversation (John 8:29). Luthardt thinks that in the midst of the group of well-disposed persons who surrounded Jesus, there were also adversaries, and that it was these latter who at this moment began to speak. Others give to the verb an indefinite subject: “They answered Him.” But, on all these views, the narrative of John would be singularly incorrect. In reading John 8:33, we can only think of the believers of John 8:30-32. We shall see that the last words of John 8:37, also, do not allow any other application. It was not for no purpose that the evangelist had formed so marvelous a union of words in our Gospel as that of believing Jews. In these persons there were two men: the nascent believer it was to him that Jesus addressed the promise John 8:31-32 and the old Jew still living: it is the latter who feels himself offended, and who answers with pride (John 8:33).

There was in fact a humiliating side in this word: will make you free. It was to say to them: you are not so. Making this step backward, they fell back into solidarity with their nation from which they had only superficially and temporarily separated themselves. The key of this entire passage is found already in these words, John 2:23-24: “And many in Jerusalem believed on His name...; but Jesus did not intrust Himself to them. ” Under their faith He discerned the old Jewish foundation not yet shattered and transformed. In order that the promise of John 8:31-32 should have been able to make a chord vibrate in their heart, they must have known experiences like those which St. Paul describes in Romans 7: the distress of an earnest, but impotent, struggle with sin. Jesus discerned this clearly, and for this reason He spoke to them, in John 8:31, of abiding, that is to say, of persevering in submission to His word. There is no confusion in John's narrative; we must rather admire its sacred delicacy.

The slavery which the hearers of Jesus deny cannot be of a political nature. Had not their fathers been slaves in the land of Egypt, in bondage, in the times of the Judges, to all kinds of nations, then subjected to the dominion of the Chaldeans and Persians? Were they not themselves under the yoke of the Romans? It is impossible to suppose them so far blinded by national pride as to forget facts which were so patent, as de Wette, Meyer, Reuss, etc., suppose; the last writer says: “They place themselves at the point of view, not of material facts, but of theory...There was submission to the Roman dominion...., but under protest.” But the words: we were never, do not allow this explanation. Hengstenberg, Luthardt, Keil, give to this expression a purely spiritual import; they apply it to the religious preponderance which the Jews claimed for themselves in comparison with all other nations. This is still more forced. The hearers of Jesus cannot express themselves in this way except from the view-point of the civil individual liberty, which they enjoyed as Jews. Hence the connection between the two assertions: “ We are Abraham's seed; we were never in bondage. ” With a single exception, which was specially foreseen, the law forbade the condition of bondage for all the members of the Israelitish community (Leviticus 25). The dignity of a free man shone on the brow of every one who bore the name of child of Abraham, a fact which assuredly did not prevent the possibil ity that Jewish prisoners should be sold into slavery among the Gentiles (in answer to Keil). The question here is of inhabitants of Palestine such as those who were in conversation with Jesus. These Jews, when hearing that it was the truth taught by Jesus which should put an end to their bondage, could not have supposed that this declaration applied to emancipation from the Roman power. Now as, along with this national dependence, they knew no other servitude than civil or personal slavery, they protested, alleging that, while promising them liberty, Jesus made them slaves. They changed the most magnificent promise into an insult; “and,” as Stier says, “thus they are already at the end of their faith.” We can see whether Jesus was wrong in not trusting to this faith.