True Discipleship
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2021 · 14 March 2021
Every verse in the Gospel of John is loaded with divine truth. All passages in John seem to be highlights, but this one is above even the other peaks in its importance. So let me read John 8:31-36, “31 Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. 32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
“33 But we are descendants of Abraham,” they said. “We have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean, ‘You will be set free’?” 34 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin. 35 A slave is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family forever. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.” Look at verse 31, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings.”
This is about being a true disciple. Many people profess Christ. Many people declare themselves to be believers in Christ. Many people give witness to the fact that they are Christians. That’s fairly common in our culture, but who is a true Christian? Who is a real disciple? You have to be able to answer it for yourself, and you have to be able to answer it for those around you.
Listen to 2 Corinthians 13:5, “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith.” Paul is saying, “Test yourselves to see whether you’re really in Christ.” Now, this is a very important question for us at this juncture because we have seen indications of faith and belief.
There were people in John 6 who called themselves disciples, but turned their back and walked away from Christ. The prototype is Judas Iscariot. Jesus says in John 6:70-71, “Judas is a devil and a betrayer.” And the disciples said, “Is it I? Is it I?” Were they so insecure about the genuineness of their own salvation? How hard is it to tell? There were ‘believers’ who walked away from Christ.
Now, we meet believers here in verse 30 who believed in Jesus. He refers to them as, “Those who had believed,” in verse 31. And yet these are the same people referred to in verse 44, “You are of your father, the devil.” How can people who believe in Him, be at the same time children of the devil? Well, we already know there is such a thing as false discipleship, false faith and defection.
So how do we tell? We know Jesus in Matthew 13 also told the parable about the wheat and tares growing together, and that we would be unable to tell them apart in every case. And by their fruits we can know them, but sometimes the only distinguishing work will come at the end of the judgment when the angels do the work of God and separate the wheat (believers) from the tares (unbelievers).
There are many who believe, but may not be real. Judgment begins at the house of God. So here we meet some Jews who, according to verse 30 and 31, had believed in Jesus. They are drawn by the crowd fascinated by the supernatural. Jesus is healing people. He’s casting out demons. He’s giving free food, wonderful meals. He’s promising forgiveness of sin. He is promising heaven.
People still seek Jesus on the basis of that. They are people who are seeking personal fulfillment, people who want a better life, people who want answers, people who are tired of their weakness, tired of falling to temptation, people who are weary of bad habits, who want more out of life, people who want to escape fear, want to feel secure, people who want some hope in the life to come.
But when they start in that direction and the world, the flesh, and the devil fully empowered by their own fallen nature starts to pull hard against Christ; the half believer, loving sin because half believers still love their sin, and unwilling to yield to the hard demands of true repentance and humble submission to Christ falls back. It may take a little while and it may take a long time.
Now, back into the setting, our Lord is in the city of Jerusalem. They have just been celebrating the Feast of Booths. We know all about that where He declared Himself to be the Living Water and the Light of the World. He has been rejected by the leaders. They want him dead. In the last verse of John 8 they picked up stones to try to kill Him not only in Jerusalem, but also in His hometown Nazareth.
So He exposed their hypocrisy. He confronted their false and deceptive religion. They wanted Him dead, but while their hostility was escalating and would escalate all the way to the cross, there were people who were attracted to Him and they were believers. They were believing in Him. And our Lord directly confronts that beginning belief, and He speaks directly to them.
This is the most dangerous place to be. It is better to be a pagan in some foreign land who never heard about Jesus than to be halfway to Christ, exposed to the truth, but unwilling to let go of the world. Reaching out toward Jesus but not letting your grip go on the pleasures and the comforts of the world; these are believers who turn out to be nothing more than the children of the devil.
So, as we come to this text, I want you to see two clear realities. One, what is true discipleship. Two, the benefit of true discipleship. Mental assent to Jesus is not enough. James 2:19 says, “Even the demons believe and tremble.” What is the benchmark? Verse 31, “Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings.”
When you were saved, you confessed Jesus as Lord. He is my Master, my Lord, and that defines what it means to be obedient. He is the Ruler, who gives the commands. I, as the slave respond in loving obedience. Remember how He ended that sermon in Matthew 7:24, He said, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them, does them, may be compared to a wise man.”
A wise man builds his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and slammed against that house, and it didn’t fall for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, the winds blew, slammed against that house, and great was its fall.
Enduring not only the good times, but persecution, hatred and martyrdom. Matthew 24:13, “But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.” John 14:15, “If you love me, obey my commandments.” John 14:21 says, “Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.”
John 14:24 says, “Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me. And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me.” When you obey the Word of God, you are giving evidence of love that is the product of true regeneration. Romans 5:5 says, “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts.” Those that are genuine believers are filled with love.
The fruit of the Spirit is love in all its manifestations. And love shows itself in eager, willing, joyful obedience, even under duress, persecution, suffering, and death. John 15:10 says, “When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in His love.” This is how we know that there is mutual love between the Son and the Father.
So what is the mark then of true discipleship? It is perseverance and endurance in loving obedience to the Word of God. Now, secondly, let us talk about the benefit of true discipleship. The benefit is stated in verse 32, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” The heart is driven in that direction. The unfortunate reality is that people are looking in all the wrong places.
2 Timothy 3:7 says, “Such people are forever following new teachings, but they are never able to understand the truth.” That’s humanity’s futile effort, and eventually they want to include religion, and, that’s where the Jews were. They thought they had come to the truth and knew the truth. The problem is that for unbelieving people, even when the truth shows up, they still reject it.
Romans 1:18 says, “But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness.” Pick any university. Go and mingle among the tens of thousands of students who are searching for the truth and offer them the truth, and see how well you are received. Go to the philosophy department. Tell them you want to lecture on the truth, that you know the truth.
You know the truth from top to bottom, side to side; you’re here to reveal completely the truth. See how welcome you are. Talk about Jesus Christ and the truth. Talk about the Gospel and the truth. Talk about sin and judgment. Talk about righteousness and heaven. You will not be welcome because it is the nature of fallen man to suppress the truth even when it shows up.
But verse 32 says that the benefit of knowing the truth will set you free. Jesus is talking about spiritual truth, eternal truth, and salvation truth. Jesus is the truth in John 14:6, “He said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” John 16:13, “The Holy Spirit is the source of truth.” John 17:17, “Thy Word is truth.” So Jesus, the Holy Spirit and The Word all represent the God of truth.
Only believers can believe the truth. Everybody else suppresses it. And Jesus says, “This is the truth that will set you free.” Free from what? In Matthew 11:28 Jesus characterized their religious system by saying, “Come to Me all who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” What was their burden? Religious legalism. In Matthew 23 the leaders were putting a heavy burden on people.
In Matthew 23:15, Jesus says, “You produce sons of hell,” with your legal system. The Jews weren’t free. They were in horrendous bondage to sin, false religion, but they don’t see that. So in John 8:33, they answered, “But we are descendants of Abraham, we have never been slaves to anyone.” What do you mean, ‘You will be set free’? Don’t they remember the bondage in Egypt?
But they’re not talking about a political situation. They’re saying, “We are spiritually free because we are Abraham’s children.” They see themselves as free. They are not. So what kind of freedom is Jesus offering them? Go to verse 34, “Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave of sin.” Their sin was a religious sin with a corrupt religion of man-made traditions.
The Gospel truth will give you spiritual freedom, which is freedom from sin’s total power, total control, freedom from spiritual blindness, spiritual oppression, Satanic dominion, freedom from the fear of death, the fear of judgment, and the prospect of eternal hell, freedom in the truest sense. But that infuriated them. They did the same thing in Nazareth, tried to throw Him off a cliff.
This is about true salvation. The true disciple comes to the Word of God, penitently, submissively embraces the Word of God, and lovingly obeys the Word of God. It’s theological truth, it’s an assessment of your own condition. The false disciple wants what Jesus offers without giving up his own carnal sins. Verse 35 says, “A slave is not a permanent member, but a son is part of the family forever.”
They were thinking, “We are sons of Abraham. We’re the elect covenant people. We have the law, the prophets and the covenants. It’s all ours. We belong to God because we belong to Abraham. This is blind pride. Jesus is indicting them as being sinners and not only that, but slaves of sin. Then Jesus takes it a step further and says this shocking thing, “You are slaves, not sons.”
Jesus may have been talking the same way that Paul talks in Galatians 3 and 4. Paul says there are two possibilities here related to Hagar and Ishmael. Remember the metaphor there? Ishmael was a slave with no inheritance from Abraham. While Isaac receives the inheritance. Jesus says, “You think you are Abraham’s son, but if you are, you are in reality like Ishmael.”
You’re a slave, and you’re not an heir. Listen to Matthew 8:11-12, “And I tell you this, that many Gentiles will come from all over the world, from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven. 12 But many Israelites, those for whom the Kingdom was prepared, will be thrown into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
There are prophetic implications here as Israel is being set aside as a nation of slaves, Hagar and Ishmael-like. And Abraham’s true children, his children by faith made up of Jews and Gentiles are the heirs to God’s possession. They are those who come to Christ that we learned in John 1:12, “But to all who believed Him and accepted Him, He gave the right to become children of God.”
You become a child of God with true saving faith. So what is the benefit? Freedom from the bondage of sin, freedom from slavery, freedom to become a son and an heir. Romans 8:1-2 says, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. 2 And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin." Let us pray.