“Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’”
John 8:31-32
Some Christian men think victory over sexual immorality comes through knowledge. “If I just read the right books, if I just attend the best recovery group, if I just work the 12 steps or complete the right NoFap Challenge, I will learn what I have to learn about myself and my childhood trauma, and then I will be free,” they think. Some of these misguided brothers even quote Jesus, who said, “The truth shall make you free.”
But this is not all that Jesus said, is it? You can’t expect to attain sexual purity by believing in or acting upon only a portion of what Jesus teaches. A text taken out of context is simply a pretext—a pretext for believing whatever you want. So, notice the context. Jesus is speaking to Jews who believe in Him. These are Jews who believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the Christ, the one foretold of in their Scriptures. To these believers Jesus makes His promise, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” But notice the condition, the one that follows that great big “IF.” “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed.”
To get the full sense of what Jesus is teaching here, just reverse the language: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free, if you abide in My word, because you will be My disciples indeed.” Notice the order of events:
- Believe in Jesus
- Abide in His word
- Become His disciple
- Know the truth that Jesus teaches
- Get set free from sin by the truth
This freedom that Jesus is talking about here is freedom from the slavery of sin (John 8:34-35). Jesus says you are set free from the slavery of sin by knowing the truth. And He’s not talking about the kind of knowledge you acquire at Yale or Harvard. You only discover this kind of truth that Jesus is talking about as one of His disciples. And you only become one of His disciples by abiding in His word. And you only abide in His word as a believer in Him.
This is one complete teaching. You and I are not allowed to cherry-pick the part we like and ignore the rest. If there is no belief, there is no abiding. If there is no abiding, there is no discipleship. No discipleship? No knowing. No knowing? No being set free from the bondage of your sin.
If you want to be set free from the slavery of pornography and masturbation, by all means seek the truth. But make that the end of your search, not the beginning. To break free from the slavery of sexual sin, you must start with Christ. Believe in Him. Trust in Him. Read His word and abide in it. Abide in it by obeying Him. Then, as His believing, abiding, obedient disciple, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Set out to know Christ first, and you will eventually know the truth that sets you free from habitual sexual sin. Just make sure you seek to know Christ himself, not just facts about Christ.
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