WHAT IS THE TRUTH WHICH WILL SET YOU FREE?

Author: The Diakrisis Project

A COMMON SAYING that I see around the internet is, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free”, or more often, “The truth will set you free”. Often it is quoted, for example, in relation to knowing the truth about 9/11 or some other conspiratorial event. It is even engraved on the wall of the lobby in the CIA’s Langley headquarters (as in the attached image) — ironically one of the most duplicitous, mendacious organisations in the world! Almost every time I see this quotation, it has been taken out of context and used in relation to something completely different from the intention present when it was originally written. If there really is such a thing as the truth which will set a person free, it is surely most important to know what it is, as you will no doubt agree. So I thought that today I would uncover precisely what that truth is. Then no one will have any excuse for making any further false claims about it. (Though they probably will anyway!). Here it is…

First, let’s identify the source of the quote. It is in the Gospel of John, written in the first century AD, in verse 32 of the tremendous 8^th chapter. It is, in fact, stated by Jesus the Christ during a lengthy discourse and discussion with a crowd of Jewish people around Him in the temple courts, including the Scribes (who wrote out the scriptures) and the Pharisees (a Jewish sect often challenged by Christ, which indulged in legalism, hypocrisy and the enforcement of their own made-up rules). So, from the actual words of this chapter, I want to identify unequivocally what is the truth which will set you free.

We read that “As Jesus spoke these things, many believed in Him” (verse 30). Then He specifically spoke to the Jews who it is said had believed in Him, “If you remain in My word, you are truly My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (verses 31-32). There we are clearly shown from His own words how one can know the truth which will set one free. It is this: You have to remain in the word of Christ. As He says, this is the sign of being one of His genuine disciples. To “remain in His word” means to continue one’s life in it, make one’s home in it, endure in it, embrace all His teachings and live them out in one’s life. If one does all that, “then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”, for such a person is transformed hugely through the Holy Spirit. It is that simple. You can only truly know the truth which will set you free if you immerse yourself in the logos (the word) of the Christ. To do otherwise is to live the lie fostered by Satan in this world. That is the choice: Either living in the truth of Christ or living under the power of the fallen archangel, Satan. In fact, this is the very contrast which Christ makes as He continues in His discussion with the Jews. Let me elaborate…

As the discussion progresses, it becomes clear that although the Jews initially might have believed Him in some sense, they certainly were not ‘immersed in His word’. Not by a long way. Jesus, of course, knew this was a case of what can be called ‘easy-believism’, which was why He continued as He did. He was exposing the false nature of their “belief”. So many profess to believe Christ and even to be immersed in His word, yet it is merely superficial and can easily be exposed as such if they are confronted with a real disciple or if Christ Himself lays bare the truth of their hearts. So Jesus then tells these Jews who at first ‘believed’, “If God were your Father, you would love Me” (verse 42). Knowing what is really in their hearts, He then tells them:

“You belong to your father, the devil [Satan], and you want to carry out his desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, refusing to uphold the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, because he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth you do not believe Me”.

Gospel of John, chapter 8, verse 44

They thought they believed in Him, but Jesus shows this is not the case at all, that they actually do NOT believe Him precisely because He speaks the truth. Then He says to them, “The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God” (verse 47). This is a damning indictment of them. And it shows clearly what the real divide is in this world. There are those who remain in Christ’s word (who thus live out His teachings) and are truly His disciples; they have God as their Father. Then the rest belong to their ‘father’ the devil, Satan, and are aligned with him as the father of lies. If people do not believe Christ, it is because He speaks the truth — truth which in reality they cannot stand. All of this is logical deduction. As it is said elsewhere: “The whole world lies under the power of the evil one [Satan]” (First Letter of John, chapter 5, verse 19), and “The god of this age [Satan] has blinded the minds of those who do not believe so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (Second Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 4, verse 4). This is the supernatural reality of life on this earth.

In the course of His discussion with these Jewish people, Christ makes two key statements about the truth which will make one free. His entire interaction with them is about the contrast between the truth of God and the lie of Satan. First, He says: “Unless you believe that I am He [i.e. the Messiah, the Son of God], you will die in your sins” (verse 24). Then He says, “Truly, truly, I tell you, if anyone keeps My word, he will never see death” (verse 51). These two quotations represent the heart of the matter when it comes to the truth that sets us free. To “die in your sins” means leaving this world having not lived in sync with the Divine will. That is all that “sin” is about: Not living according to God’s will but according to one’s own egoistic desires. The phrase “will never see death” does not refer to physical death but what is known in the Book of Revelation as “the second death” — eternal separation from God, a state equivalent to what has been called ‘hell’. These are “the works of the devil” which the Christ was manifested to destroy (as it plainly says in the First Letter of John, chapter 3, verse 8). Sin (living outside of God’s will) and death. As Paul said to the ekklesia in Rome, “For in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set you free from the law of sin and death” (Letter to the Romans, chapter 8, verse 2). The truth which sets one free is the knowledge that Christ has come to overthrow Satan who originally brought death and rebellion against God into the world. That is what this freedom through truth is all about. (If you want to know even more about that, you can read my article, “Knowledge Which Has Deliberately Been Kept From You”, on my recent Facebook timeline).

At the end of the discussion with the Jews who had imagined they believed, till Christ put them right, He clearly spells out the fact that He is not only human but also Divine. They had been arguing against Christ that they were of their father, Abraham. Then Christ said to them, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see My day. He saw it and was glad” (verse 56). This was a plain reference to the prophetic foresight of Abraham in seeing that his offspring would one day lead to the Messiah, the Christ (Book of Genesis, chapter 22, verse 18). This is what the writer to the Hebrews refers to when he said that “all these people died in faith, without having [personally] received the things they were promised. However, they saw them and welcomed them from afar” (Letter to the Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 13). Then Christ delivers the final blow to the disbelief of the Jews who were debating with Him. He says, “Before Abraham was born, I AM!” (verse 58). That is massive in terms of claims of His divinity. For it was God who referred to Himself as the “I AM” (Book of Exodus, chapter 3, verse 14). What is more, Christ was claiming pre-existence here, a fact which is emphasised by Peter when he wrote that Christ was “foreknown before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake” (First Letter of Peter, chapter 1, verse 20). John, in the first chapter of his Gospel, writes of Christ one of the greatest statements in the entire New Testament, “Though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him” (verse 10). In His Divine nature, Christ was present at and engaged in the creation of the cosmos. This is the essence of the text in the Book of Proverbs, chapter 8, verses 22-31, where Christ is portrayed as the wisdom of God engaged in the creation. Christ Himself spoke of the glory He had with the Father “before the world existed” (Gospel of John, chapter 17, verse 5). Furthermore, “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Letter to the Colossians, chapter 1, verses 15-17). Or there is this: “In these last days [God] has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe”. What further proof of the divinity of Christ could anyone want? Yet, here were these Jews arguing with Him — their Messiah and the Creator of the cosmos! The great I AM standing there before them, manifested in the flesh.

That the Jews took this “I AM” statement to be a claim to divinity is proven by their reaction: “At this, they picked up stones to throw at Him. But Jesus was hidden and went out of the temple area” (verse 59). Suddenly those phony “believers” were ready to stone to death God manifested in the flesh! This was the big beef they had with Christ — His claim to divinity — His claim to be equal to God (see the Gospel of John, chapter 5, verse 18), and the Jews specifically said to Him: “We are not stoning You for any good work…but for blasphemy, because You, who are a man, declare Yourself to be God” (Gospel of John, chapter 10, verse, 33). Finally, when Christ stood before Pontius Pilate, the Jews said that they had a law which says that “He must die, because He declared Himself to be the Son of God” (Gospel of John, chapter 19, verse 7). This is what people cannot take, and it is why they either kill Christ actually or they kill Him symbolically. Over and over and over again. They despise the very idea that the Christ could be Divine. If He can only be reduced to a mere prophet or just a man, then all the rest will disintegrate, according to their thinking. But He was not only man and Prophet but also God manifested in the flesh. Earlier in that 8^th chapter of John’s Gospel, it was said: “Yet no one seized Him, because His hour had not yet come” (verse 20) — that is, He will only be seized by puny little men to be killed when the moment is right, the moment which has been predetermined by God. Frankly, anyone who does not get that Christ was God manifested in the flesh is living in the midst of a lie which will have eternal consequences.

The other day, I was standing next to some Islamic preachers on Kilburn High Road in London who were giving away free copies of the Koran. One was grooming the other who was less experienced. He said to him, “Black people are harder than whites to talk to because they believe that Jesus was God. You have to challenge them on that. You have to show that Jesus wasn’t God but was just a prophet”. Then he spotted three girls that he would call “black”, so he turned to his buddy and said, “Watch this!” He then confronted the three girls and said, “Do you believe that Jesus was God?” They all said “Yes!” So he said, “But the Koran says…” and I didn’t hear the rest as they were moving away from me rapidly on a crowded pavement outside Sainsbury’s supermarket. Those teachers of lies know very well that their pretended religion goes up in smoke if Jesus was God manifested in the flesh. That is the elephant in the room for everyone. For that is the wellspring from which the truth that can set you free flows. Apparently, it is a truth which must be quashed at all costs by those whose minds are blinded and empowered by Satan. That is one of Satan’s primary aims on this earth: To suppress all notions of Christ as God come in the flesh, the denial of which John calls “the spirit of the Antichrist” (First Letter of John, chapter 4, verse 3; chapter 2, verse 22). This is because one day Satan will empower a human who will head up a one-world government and who will be acclaimed as “god”, namely, the Antichrist — the counterfeit of Christ. Christ obliquely and chillingly referred to the Jews’ receiving of the Antichrist instead of Him as their Messiah when He said to them: “I have come in My Father’s name, and you have not received Me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will receive him” (Gospel of John, chapter 5, verse 43). This is what the world is building up to at the present time. And this is why the very idea of Christ as God is seen by the world and by demons as that which must be crushed.

There is something monumentally screwed-up about a society in which one is free to say that Christ is a myth (and I support that freedom, for we do not live in a theocracy, though I am also free to challenge it and overturn it), yet, if people dare to suggest that Muhammad was not a prophet, a contract is put out on them by his followers while governments and the ‘woke’ brigade avidly declare it to be “hate-speech”! This warped and illogical perspective is going to become more intense as time goes by. For this reason, it is doubly important to unequivocally proclaim Christ as God manifested in the flesh, even though it will mean that hatred and ridicule will be heaped on those who proclaim it, and one could even be outlawed because of it. For the Divine nature of Christ is one of the greatest of all mysteries. The mystery of devotion and true spirituality.

“By common confession, the mystery of devotion is great: He was manifested in the flesh, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was proclaimed among the nations, was believed in throughout the world, was taken up in glory”.

First Letter to Timothy, chapter 3, verse 16

So now you know the true meaning of the words, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free”. The big question is… what will you do with it?

© 2021, Alan Morrison / The Diakrisis Project. All Rights Reserved. 
 
https://diakrisis-project.com/2021/10/05/what-is-the-truth-which-will-set-you-free/

Published by The Diakrisis Project

The Diakrisis Project provides a written commentary on a wide range of topical, spiritual, social and pastoral issues, holding out a hand of rescue to those who suffer psychological, emotional or spiritual manipulation and abuse in the religious scene, while providing counsel and encouragement for the spiritually-confused. Thank you so much for visiting this website! I give you my blessings and best wishes and hope that you will find the content interesting. View all posts by The Diakrisis Project