14 - John 8:34
’Verily, verily I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.’ -John 8:34. This is followed by the statement that the servant abideth not in the house for ever; he is liable to be dismissed; he has no claim upon the continued hospitality of the master; he has certain privileges and certain obligations, under a terminable covenant. Christ intimates to the Jews that between the most of them and God there was only this terminable covenant; they were servants, and could be dismissed; the kingdom could be transferred from them to others. There was a spiritual Israel with far higher privileges; enfranchised by the Son, they rejoiced in a covenant that time might not dissolve.
Blended with this is another train of thought. They were in bondage because they were in sin. He that committeth sin is the servant of sin. If this was true of those who had part in the Mosaic covenant, much more is it true of men generally. The principle affirmed is of universal application. It teaches that all men are in bondage until Christ has made them free. This is one of the points that are at issue between Christianity and the world. Men admit that they are sinners; but deny that they are in subjugation to sin. They claim that their self sovereignty is undestroyed. They have power over their sin to trample it under foot and rise superior to it. Christ says that they have not this power. Sin has entered them to rule them. They are subject to its laws. They cannot without power from above, without his aid, break its bonds asunder. Its essence is deceit; and there is nothing to wonder at in the fact that they should be unconscious of their subjection to it; for its sway is herein, that it takes away from them the power of rightly judging of their own moral state and needs.
He that commits sin by that very fact forfeits his power to resist sin. He that commits sin accepts of sin’s account of itself. It disarms him by persuading him that it is not sin, is not of any great culpability, is nothing to be afraid of. To commit sin is to give up some of the power of conscience, some of the accuracy of our moral judgment. Outside of us it has an evil look; appears as an enemy; and our whole nature is in opposition to it: inside of us it appears a friend, and takes captive the stalwart powers stationed for the defense of the soul. And this is the reason why the salvation that Christ offers meets with such dubious welcome from men. That salvation supposes that men are enthralled by sin; led captive by it; blinded by it; possessed by it as Samson was by the Philistines, though without Samson’s force recovering secret; possessed by it beyond all power of self deliverance.
How can this be? Have we not power over sin? Do we not lay aside this or that sin when we see the evil of it, and see the need of conquering it? And do we sometimes attain to this perception of the evil of it? Is reformation unknown among us? Is conscientiousness lost to us? Have we not a moral sense, and have we not moral power? Are there not men of conspicuous virtue among those who owe nothing to Christ’s enfranchisement? If we are the servants of sin, whence our admiration of noble deeds, our ambition to imitate them, our complacency in virtue, our detestation of vice? Can any one fail to see how much is done for the elevation of mankind by the memory of the great and the good of all ages and all nations? The reply to this is, that the doctrine of Christ does not make every man a committer of all sin. Sin enters the heart to separate it from God, to detach it as a railway carriage may be detached from the engine, by a single link; the object of sin is not to ravage and ruin the soul to the uttermost and immediately. God has been pleased so to endow man, and so to constitute society, that a great deal that is beautiful and noble will continue for a while to flourish. The alliance with God is gone; the alliance with man remains; and it is not quickly perceived that God is wanting to us. Many Divine faculties and tendencies remain, and, under favorable circumstances, have considerable influence. Beautiful deeds are done; noble words are spoken; the mean and the unworthy are detested and eschewed. All is well, all is admirable, if the heart may be allowed to determine for itself what the law of its being is, what is and what is not sin. But nothing may determine the law of its own being. He that has created may alone determine it. His law is, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy life." His law is that we should abide in him, and receive everything from him, and depend on him as the branch on the vine; and his curse follows the violation of this law. We have seen a severed branch of a tree that retained the appearance of vitality some time, even putting forth buds; but the tiny treasure of virtue that was in it when broken off soon spent itself, and there was nothing more for it in heaven or in earth. When man departs from the living God, he carries a portion of goods with him; but he has turned his back on him whose smile is needed to give his treasures their true grace and excellence, whose wisdom can alone guide in the dispensing of them; it is a mere question of time; in the far off city he may be a Plato, a Socrates, or a Seneca; sooner or later he is reduced to the condition of the prodigal son; his beggarliness of virtue shall sooner or later be made manifest to the whole universe. Jesus looked upon the rich young ruler, and loved him; there were some engaging qualities in him; but without faith it is impossible to please God; this one thing he lacked: he could not surrender his own will and wisdom, and take those of God; so he went away with his wealth, or rather it went away with him; no one perhaps ever suspected it before, but now it became manifest that he was so far the servant of sin, as to decline the service of Christ, the enfranchisement of Christ. This age glories in its exemption from bondage. It is free as never age was before. It abhors servitude. It is free thinking. But no one that makes his own law is free; and there never was an age when men were more intent on making their own law than this. They little dream that it is in bondage to sin, that is, in obedience to the dictates of somewhat beside the sole just Dictator, that they run the race of what they call freedom. The truth shall make you free. The truth which tells you that you have divorced yourself from the Fountain of light and strength and goodness; that you have only the fleeting virtue of a severed branch; that Christ alone of men has been found pure and spotless and divine; has been raised from the dead for all; that in him there is a recovery for us; that he is made of God unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. The truth shall make you free by delivering you from yourself, your self will, your preference of your own glory to that of God; by inspiring you with faith; by destroying the halo and the fascinations of sin; by taking away that fatal barrier to liberty, death; by giving you meekness and lowliness, self conquest and the love of Christ; by shedding abroad the love of God in your heart; by assuring you that all things shall work together for good to you, and nothing ever be able to separate you from Christ; by teaching you to walk in love, and to find it more blessed to give than to receive; and by ministering unto you an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.