John 8:34 - Exposition

Jesus answered them ; £ i.e. those "Jews who believed him," but whose retort showed their faith to be of the most feeble and imperfect kind, and which, if it were momentarily assumed, was ready to disappear at the first touch of trial. A promise of Divine love had been treated by them as an insult, not so much to their national history, as to their religious triumph over their civil and political disasters. There is no reason to believe that in these, or in the following words, the unbelieving Jews had once more become the interlocutors, as Tholuck and Hengstenberg have done on different grounds. Meyer, Ellicott, Lange, and many others agree with the view here advanced. The answer to them ( αὐτοῖς , those who were the subjects of ἀπεκρίθησαν ) is introduced with peculiar solemnity: Verily, verily I say unto you, every one ( πᾶς ) that doeth sin — ὁ ποιῶν ἁμαρτίαν is different from πράσσων φαῦλα of John 3:20 ; it is the precise opposite of ποιῶν ἀλήθειαν of John 3:21 , and does not mean "everyone who committeth separate acts of transgression," but it means "everyone who is living a life of sin"— is the bond slave ( of sin ). Godet is strongly disposed, on the ground of the exceedingly small authority of D and b alone (and certain quotations of Origen), to believe that the τῆς ἁμαρτίας is a gloss. Certainly the whole passage would be easier to interpret if our Lord had simply said that the man under the habitual power of sin is a slave, and had then, in John 3:35 and John 3:36 , advanced to the contrast between the slave and the Son. But there is great unanimity among all the authorities as to the accuracy of the Received and Revised Texts, though Westcott and Hort place it in brackets. The interpretation, consequently, is simply this, that Christ did "pass from the idea of bondage under sin to that of bondage generally, and from the idea of sonship to the Son" (Westcott). The notion of personal transgression producing a bondage, and enfettering the soul and the will, and separating it from the glorious liberty of true sonship, lay outside of their notion of discipleship. They were not requiring deliverance from sin or its bondage; what they wanted was the full realization of the national hope. The language of this verse can be paralleled from the writings of the classics and rabbis, £ and is largely handled by St. Paul ( Romans 6:1-23 . and 7.). The relation between sin as a principle and sins as acts of the will is a great New Testament revelation. The personal commission of sin augments the force of the corrupt tendency which leads to and facilitates fresh transgression. Every compliance with evil forges a new fetter, and imposes it on the will of the transgressor. "The strong man guards his house, and his goods are in peace" ( Luke 11:21 ).