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How does the Lord Jesus set us free from sin? He does it by coming into us as the light of life. This light is not outside of us; it is in us. When we received the Lord, He entered into us as our life. This indwelling life now shines within us. That is light. Gradually and spontaneously, this shining of the indwelling life sets us free. To be set free from the bondage of sin is not an overnight matter; it takes time. Although you may be enlivened in one second, it is not so simple to be freed from sin.
We may use our temper as an illustration. Everyone has a temper. If you do not have a temper, you are not a human being. A table has no temper. Regardless of how much you pound on a table, it will never lose its temper because it has no temper to lose. But how about you? Every person has a certain amount of temper, and this temper is the first expression of our serpentine nature. The primary expression of Satan in us is our temper. Whenever a person loses his temper, he has the appearance of a serpent. No one looks like an angel when he loses his temper. When you lose your temper at your wife, you look like a demon. When a kind mother loses her temper toward her child, the child will be frightened because his mother looks like a demon. When we lose our temper, the serpentine nature is expressed. Our temper bothers us very much; it besets us all the time. During the fifty years that I have been a seeking Christian, nothing has bothered me more than my temper. How difficult it is to be freed from our temper! From my experience I can testify that since the day the Lord Jesus came into me He has been my life. This life has been shining within me continually. The more Jesus shines within me, the more I am set free from my temper. Sometimes when I was losing my temper, this light shone strongly. Have you not experienced this as well? While you are losing your temper at your wife, the light shines. The more unbelievers lose their temper, the more temper they have to lose. However, when we, the seeking Christians, begin to lose our temper, we find that we have less and less temper to lose. Sometimes a brother or sister is stopped by the inward shining while he is losing his temper. Something inward shines over him, killing the serpentine nature. After fifty years of experience, I can say that now it is difficult for me to lose my temper. For fifty years the heavenly radium has been killing the serpentine nature of temper.
Radium treatment is given for certain diseases. The patient sits under the radium, and its rays are transfused into him. We have a heavenly radium within us, and this radium kills the serpentine nature. This is the light of life which sets us free from the slavery of sin.
We are set free from sin not only by the shining of the light of life, but also by the Son as reality (John 8:32, 36). The reality is not the so-called truth of doctrine; it is the reality of the truth which is the Lord Himself (John 14:6; 1:14, 17). In 8:32 we are told that “the reality shall set you free.” In 8:36 we are told that “the Son shall set you free.” This proves that the Son, the Lord Himself, is the reality. Since the Lord is the embodiment of God (Col. 2:9), He is the reality of what God is. Hence, reality is the very divine element of God realized by us. When the Lord as the great I Am comes into us as life, He shines within us as light, which brings the divine element as reality into us. This reality, which is the divine element imparted into us and realized by us, sets us free from the bondage of sin by the divine life as the light of man. The Son of God as the very fullness of the Godhead is the reality. While He shines in us as life, He works His reality, His divine element, into our being. This is not merely shining; it is a shining that brings the reality of what God is into our being. Eventually, day after day, and year after year, this divine element will be accumulated in our being. Thus, within our being there will be a certain amount of divine reality. No one can deny this.
I have been a seeking Christian for over fifty years. I do not say that I cannot fall or be stumbled. Perhaps tomorrow I shall be stumbled by my dear wife or by one of the brothers. Nevertheless, regardless of how much I may be stumbled, the divine element that has been wrought into my being during the past fifty years can never be lost. Even if I stumble, I will stumble with a great deal of the divine element.
By the shining of the inner life and by the working of the divine element in our very being, we are set free from the slavery of sin. This resembles the medical treatment designed to cure diseases in our blood. It is very difficult to eliminate the disease from our blood. We need medicine. If I take the medicine several times a day, the medicine will, on the one hand, destroy the germs and, on the other hand, add a positive element into my body organically. This positive element will supply nourishment to the tissues of my body. Eventually, the disease will be swallowed up. By such a metabolic process, the old element is discharged and replaced by a new element. This is the way that the divine life sets us free from the bondage of sin. It is not a matter of reckoning yourself dead according to Romans 6. Many of us have tried this in the past and found that it does not work. No, you must experience the living Jesus in you as the shining light and as the divine element that works inwardly. Eventually, the heavenly, divine element will be added into your being. This is our salvation.
How can the Lord keep us from sinning anymore? How can He set us free from the slavery and bondage of sin? Simply because the great I Am has become our life, and this life is the light of life. When we received Him, He became our life, and this life becomes the very light that brings us out of the darkness of sin. Only the light of life can set us free from the bondage and slavery of sin. The Lord could forgive us because He is the Son of Man who died for us by being lifted up on the cross. Now the Lord can deliver us and set us free from the bondage of sin because He is the great I Am living within us. He now becomes the life that is the light within us. This light of life can set us free from the bondage of sin and deliver us out of the darkness of sin. We must realize, therefore, that we are set free only by Christ becoming our life and light. Furthermore, this life and light will also bring us into the truth, that is, into the reality. After you receive and enjoy the Lord Jesus as your life and light, you will find that this very divine life and light will bring you into reality. After you are brought into reality, you will be delivered from falsehood. The reason why people easily commit sin is that they were born in falsehood. Since they were born of the devil, the enemy of God, they were all born liars. The devil, the father of liars, is the greatest liar. Hence, the father of liars has brought all sinners into the darkness of falsehood. The devilish life has brought them into darkness, and darkness has brought them into falsehood. Thus, it is very easy for people to commit sin as long as they are in falsehood. But, praise the Lord, we now have received the Lord within us as our life and light. This life and light bring us into reality, which will free us from the bondage and slavery of sin.
In this passage there is the comparison between two fathers. One is the father of liars, the father of falsehood, murder, and adultery. Originally, we were born of this father. We should not think that we were merely born of our parents. On the one hand, we were born of our parents, but on the other hand, we were born of the evil father of lies. He is the greatest liar, and we, the smaller liars, were all born liars. “You are of your father the devil” (8:44). We were born of this father of lies. Consequently, we were born sons of lies. We should not think that we were born Americans or Chinese, for each one of us was born a liar.
Praise the Lord that there is another father, the heavenly Father, the Father of light and truth. He is the great I Am, who became incarnated as a man. As the Son of Man, He was lifted up on the cross for our sin and died for us. Now, if we believe in Him and in what He has done for us, He, as the great I Am, the Father of life, will come into us to be our life and light. Then He will deliver us from falsehood into reality and from darkness into the kingdom of light, where we will be set free from the bondage and slavery of sin.
There is still more in this chapter, for it reveals the person of the Lord. It shows us who the Lord is.
The Lord is Jehovah, the great I Am (8:24, 28, 58). I Am is the meaning of the name Jehovah (Exo. 3:14), and Jehovah is the name of God in relation to man (Gen. 2:7). Hence, it denotes the Lord as the ever-existing God in relation to man. The Lord as the great I Am is the everlasting One who exists from eternity unto eternity. He is without beginning or end of time. As the great I Am, He is the self-existing One, ever existing for eternity. He is not only Jesus, a man from Nazareth; He is the great I Am.
To say that the Lord is the I Am means that He is whatever we need. It is like having a blank check on which you may fill in the amount that you need. If you need light, you simply fill in light, and the Lord will be your light. If you need comfort, the Lord will be your comfort. This kind of check will never bounce, for there is never a shortage of deposits in the heavenly account. Be bold to write in a big amount. What you write in is up to you. The Lord is everything you need. Now it’s up to you to fill in what you actually need. He is the great I Am.
As the great I Am, the eternal, ever-existing God, the Lord is before Abraham and greater than Abraham (8:53). The Jews did not understand this and argued with the Lord. “The Jews then said to Him, You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham? Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham came into being, I am” (8:57-58). The grammar here is awkward, for the Lord said, “Before Abraham came into being, I am.” According to grammar, He should have said, “I was.” But He is the present One, the I Am. Whether it is past, present, or future, He is always the present One.
As we have pointed out by what is mentioned in verses 32 and 36, the Son is the reality. The Lord is the Son as reality for imparting all the divine element into His believers.
Another aspect of the Lord is that He is the Son of Man. On the one hand, He is the great I Am; on the other hand, He is the Son of Man (8:28). The Jewish people lifted up the Son of Man, but they could not lift up the I Am. This seems quite strange, but according to verse 28, it is only when they lift up the Son of Man that they will know Him as Jehovah, the great I Am. He was lifted up for the serpent-poisoned sinners in the form of a serpent in order to cast out the old serpent (John 3:14; 12:31-34; Rev. 12:9; 20:2). He was lifted up in order to deal with the serpentine nature and with the serpent himself.
How could the Lord be the One who was sinless? Because He is Jehovah, the great I Am. How could the Lord condemn sin? Also because He is the great I Am. But how can He as Jehovah forgive sin? You must remember that Jehovah could never forgive sin. If Jehovah forgave sin, He simply would have made Himself unrighteous. There is only one way for Him to forgive sin, and that is by being the Son of Man and being crucified on the cross. In other words, He could only forgive sin by redemption. Without redemption God Himself would have been unable to forgive sin. Without redemption there would have been no ground for the forgiveness of sin. Because He was lifted up on the cross as the Son of Man, bore our sins, and redeemed us from all of our sins, He had the position to forgive sins.
The whole Gospel of John also reveals that the Lord is the Word and the Spirit. There is such a thought throughout the whole Gospel. Once you see the wonderful person of the Lord in this Gospel, you will ask, “Where is He and how can I contact Him?” Praise the Lord that He is in the Word and in the Spirit, for He is the Word and He is the Spirit. You now have both the Word and the Spirit. If you contact the Spirit and receive the Word, you then have the Lord Himself. You have everything by abiding and continuing in the Word of the Lord (8:31). If you keep yourself in contact with the Word of the Lord, it means that you are abiding in the Lord Himself. By contacting the Word, you are contacting the source of the eternal and everlasting life.
Consequently, because you are always in contact with the Lord Himself, you will never taste death (8:51). This has been proved by history. When some of the saints were about to die, they did not taste death even though they were dying. For example, when D. L. Moody was dying, he died bravely. He died without tasting death, because he was abiding in the Lord and contacting the source of life. Likewise, if we will abide and continue in the Word of the Lord, we will also contact the source of life all of the time. Then we will never taste death. We will pass through death without tasting it.
The Gospel of John is a book of life. Many times in this Gospel people asked the Lord questions with the intention of receiving a yes or no answer. However, the Lord never answered yes or no. For example, in chapter four the Samaritan woman said, “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men must worship” (4:20). In other words, she was asking Him which place was the right place in which to worship. The Lord Jesus did not say which place was right. He said that God is Spirit and that we must worship Him in spirit (4:24). It is not a matter of here or there; it is a matter in the spirit in which we can contact God, the tree of life. The Lord Jesus did not answer her with a yes or a no, but turned her to the human spirit to contact God, the tree of life. The principle is the same in chapter eight when the Pharisees brought a sinful woman and asked the Lord whether or not she should be stoned. Again, the Lord did not give a yes or no answer. He said, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (8:7). The Lord’s answer turned them to the Lord, the tree of life. Later, when we come to chapter nine, we shall see that the disciples asked the Lord a question about the man who was blind from birth, inquiring whose sin, his or his parents, had caused him to be born blind. The Lord answered them by saying, “Neither has this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God might be manifested in him” (9:3). Once again, the Lord answered by pointing them to God, the tree of life. The Gospel of John is a book of life and it never gives answers that are according to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but always turns people to the tree of life. There are no answers of right or wrong, good or bad, yes or no. There is only one thing — life. You do not need to be right, just like you do not need to be wrong. You need only to care for life. When you have life, everything is fine.
