Slavery, Lies...and FREEDOM

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.  I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father . . .

Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies."     (John 8:31-38, 43-44)

I have been hearing from God for some months that He will be setting free many of His people.  I came to this scripture-passage to look at what He says about slavery.  It's necessary to understand with God's understanding what slavery truly is, to know what God rescues us from . . . and how we got ourselves into that situation..

Jesus tells it, both sides.  Sin makes you a slave.  Truth will set you free.  That simple.

The Jews listening to Him..."Jews who had believed Him"...are greatly offended.  They say slavery and freedom are existential: a matter of who they are because of their patrimony.

Yes, says Jesus: your spiritual patrimony.  I speak My Father's words.  If you cannot hear His Truth, it's because your spiritual family-heritage is directly from "the father of lies."

This is very bad news for today's "post-truth" Christians.  Some are no doubt sincere in saying they believe in Jesus: they just don't want to believe "The Truth"...and that's Who He said He IS.  Their spiritual patrimony is manifest, that they "want to do the desires of [their] father" (my emphasis).  They show who they really believe, and who they really are, by their violent hatred, and their lies.

Lies are sin: an especially definitive sin, since Jesus says that is the very nature of satan, who is the source of all lies.  Lies are also very much the definitive political sin.  American Christians are, and have long been, enslaved by that political sin.  Christians are, have long been, persuaded by lies to unthinkingly do the (political) will of others: and that is the definition of slavery.

Jesus says knowing Truth will set us free.  God is now promising us "FREEDOM !!"  I believe Him; and I understand Him to mean He will set many free from their political slavery, to political lies.  I'm confident He will open the eyes of all whose hearts are truly set on Him above all else.  I'm rejoicing that He will open the eyes of many to know The Truth, and The Truth will set them free.



I don't think it coincidental that God led me in this meditation today, as people prepare for the supposed "holiday" of Christ's birth upon earth.  He Who identified Himself as "The Truth" still lives among us, and still sets free any who will receive Him.  But in this "post-truth" year and world, He is less welcomed than ever before...even by those celebrating that He formerly came among us.

But He is still here.  And He is still coming.  And He will still come.  And in every time and place and heart He comes, He sets free all who welcome Him.
 

HALLELUJAH !!  Come, Lord Jesus !!

The Spirit of Reality

The blog-post by our Australian brother Tim about "post-truth" Christianity, which I re-posted a couple weeks ago, included a particularly striking insight

"It’s sad fact that many (even professing Christians) really have no love of the truth, preferring to mould a more appealing (to them) version of 'reality' to live by."

His linkage of "truth" and "reality" is spot-on.

We know there's a profound sense in which "truth" and "reality" are somehow the same kind of thing: though we can't easily say how that's so.  "Reality is the manifestation of truth" is the working definition I've come to: though I'm certain there's a lot more to that equation than my formulation takes into account (or that limited human understanding can take into account).

Another way of putting it might be that "reality" and "truth" are both what really and truly IS.  And that makes both, to my understanding, theological quantities, since God IS "I AM THAT I AM."  Theologians who have opined that God is "Ultimate Reality" are probably close to the mark.

Jesus' Own Person seems to bear out that equation.  He used God's Own Name when He revealed His Being is exactly Truth: "I AM...The Truth" (John 14:6).  Jesus is the Word (Logos) of God through Whom "...all things were made," and without Whom "...nothing was made that has been made" (John 1:3).  "Truth" and "reality," including the physical reality of creation, are joined in Who Jesus IS.

The confirmatory "flip-side" is that the enemy, rebel against All that God IS and does, is, in Jesus' words, "the father of lies" (John 8:44).  From the first time we meet him in scripture, he is working to deceive human beings by questioning God's Truth ("Has God really said . . .?", my emphasis) and denying the reality God made ("You surely will not die . . .", my emphasis).

The enemy has not changed his tactics.  They still work.  Even though, as Tim notes, refusal to love truth necessarily means relinquishing reality as well...and forces people to invent their own.

I find it interesting that the political faction Christians have followed for 40 years is the premier anti-Truth and anti-reality voice in America.

Like all political factions, it's always "spun" truth to achieve electoral success (the only "good" political factions serve): though rather more outrageously than other factions.  But the surprising election of its "post-truth" candidate this year has hugely confirmed that faction in the "wisdom" of post-truth politics: that truth doesn't really matter for electoral success.

It's no accident that the same faction also champions various kinds of reality-denial.  One major example is that "climate-change denial" is a virtual litmus-test for members of that faction, a legacy of their demi-god founder, Ronald Reagan.  Other varieties of reality-denial, including some very "fringe" ones (white-supremacy, for example), also make that faction their ideological home.

Tim's observation that "truth" and "reality" are linked seems sound theological insight: both are established by God, in His Own Being.

It should tell us something that American Christians have followed factionalists whose spirit is contempt for truth, and denial of reality: the same sins Adam and Eve fell for.  To those with spiritual eyes to see, that faction...and the Christians who do its will...abundantly show their spiritual patrimony.

May deceived Christians repent !  May God destroy those who deceive His people !!

Amen.