John 8:33

Some in the crowd were chagrined by his statement. “We are descendants of Abraham,” they protest. “We have never been slaves of anyone. How dare you say, ‘You will be set free’?” John 8:33 EFP 

Say what you will, these people listening to Jesus speak were a proud bunch. They may have been under the heavy hand of Rome, but they prided themselves of not being slaves. They knew their history. They knew Moses had delivered them from the slavery of Egypt. In their minds the Babylonian captivity and the Roman presence did not qualify as slavery, although it could certainly have been argued convincingly. In their minds it is settled—they do not need to be “set free.”

Sadly they are missing the point—intentionally or unwittingly. Jesus does not say, “You will be set free.” His words are, “The truth shall set you free.” Jesus was pointing to the source of a freedom they did not have. They might technically be “free”, but not in the sense to which he refers. By arguing their status as free men under Roman rule, they are overlooking the freedom that can alone come through the truth about Jesus, in fact, through the Truth that is Jesus. In the eyes of the law I was born a free man. In a spiritual sense, I am not free until the truth in Jesus sets me free from my past and thus frees me to live a future in a state of inner freedom. Got freedom?