John 8:35,36

“ The slave does not abide in the house for ever; the son abides for ever. 36. If therefore the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. ”

If in John 8:34 the words τῆς ἁμαρτίας, of sin, are read, it is necessary to admit a change of meaning in the idea of slavery between John 8:34 and John 8:35. In John 8:34, the master is sin; in John 8:35-36, the master is God, the owner of the house. This modification in the notion of moral slavery is undoubtedly to be explained by a thought which is also that of some passages in the Epistles of St. Paul: that the slave of sin, when he is a member of the theocracy, of the house of God, is made thereby a slave with respect to God Himself. In this moral condition, indeed, his position is servile; he renders to the master of the house only a forced obedience, because his will is governed by another master, sin. It cannot be denied, however, that the connection would be much more simple, if the words of sin were omitted in John 8:34. “He who commits sin is not a child, but a slave (with respect to God), John 8:34. Now, in such a moral state, the man possesses no permanent abode in the house of God (John 8:35). Separated spiritually from the Father of the family, he is not a real member of the family.”

The meaning is thus perfectly simple. Οὐ μένει : “He will remain in the house only as long as the master shall desire to make use of him” (Luthardt); he may be sold at any moment. What a threatening for those to whom Jesus was addressing Himself! In contrast to this term slave, the term son must designate the quality of son; not the person of the Son. He who is truly a son through the community of spirit with the Master cannot be at all detached from that of which he has become an organic member. He can no more be separated from the kingdom of God than a child can be sold into slavery. But from John 8:36 the term Son is evidently applied to Jesus only. This is because in this house the filial dignity and the individual Son are mingled in one. There is here properly only one son, he who bears in himself the whole gens; all the rest become sons only by the act of manumissio, of liberation, on his part (John 8:32). Just as the passage Galatians 4:21-31 seems to be only a development of John 8:35, so Romans 8:2: “ The law of the Spirit of life in Jesus Christ made me free (ἠλευθέρωσέ με) from the law of sin and death ” is the commentary on John 8:36. It is to the Son as the representative and heir of the paternal fortune that the right is committed by the Father of freeing the slaves. ῎Οντως ἐλεύθεροι, really, that is to say, spiritually free in God, and consequently true members of His house and for ever.

Jesus has set aside the haughty assertion of John 8:33: We were never in bondage. He goes back now to the claim which was the point of support for that assertion: We are Abraham's seed, and He disposes of this also.