You see, the 'truth' seen as simply a hard, cold fact, can actually leave you helpless. To expose my flaws will only leave me with a sense of condemnation. It may not necessarily offer a solution.
I recently watched the movie 'Flight' (spoiler alert) where Denzel Washington plays an alcoholic commercial jet pilot who's level headed actions save a doomed flight, albeit whilst under the heavy influence of alcohol. Initially hailed as a hero, his life soon comes under heavy scrutiny as an investigation ensues.
We discover that his life, and not the plane crash, is the real disaster area of the movie narrative. In the course of the film he hooks up with a recovering drug addict/alcoholic, who takes him along to an AA meeting that she attends. He cannot take it, and walks out when he hears one of the members start to talk about his denial and self deception. Later, facing jail, and a hairs breadth away from getting away with it, having lied through all the questioning, he is finally asked to tell one more lie, to incriminate (falsely) a member of the crew who died in the crash, saying that it was her who had drunk the vodka miniatures that were found in the bin.
It is at that moment that he comes to his senses, like the prodigal with the pigswill raised to his lips, and, to the dismay of his legal team, he confesses to having drunk the vodka, because, he says, in a final admission and embracing of the truth (from which he has long been running), 'I am an alcoholic'.
You could say, in one sense, that the truth set him free, but as a result of this truth he actually becomes imprisoned.
The truth does not set him free, but is impossible for him to get free without an acknowledgment of that truth.
It seems coincidental that I had watched this film recently, but a personal struggle of mine led me to this question just days later and it was not until commencing this blog that I saw the connection between my issues and the film. You see, acknowledgement of the truth is not enough. Exposure to the truth is not enough. It does not set you free, in and as of itself. Sometimes knowing the truth and being unable to change, seems to compound our sense of being enslaved. The more frequently I recognise a truth and do not change, the harder my heart becomes.
So I look at the context (John 8) in which Jesus said these most famous words of his and I find the subtext is of significant value.
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
If you hold to my teaching, he says. So we see that this is not a generalisation of the concept of truth, of cold, hard facts, but of a specific truth, moreover a truth that trumps all other truths. I have not really seen this condition of Jesus before, the 'If' factor. If you hold to my teachings. Wow.
But then my being set free would seem to depend on my ability to hold to certain teachings, and that seems a rather flimsy basis for freedom. If it were will-power alone it would surely be possible without Jesus.
Jesus says in the passage that everyone who sins is a slave to sin (So that's all of us) and that slaves have no place in the family, but if the son, the rightful, inheritor of the headship of that family and belongs to it forever, frees you, then you are truly free.
So receiving the pardon frees us from the status of slavery, but there is more. If we are academically free only, then it is no freedom. Jesus stresses, free indeed. There must be more. And there is.
If we are holding to Jesus teachings then we will have to become familiar with ALL his words. And later, in John 14, he tells us what is the truth that really sets us free. he says
I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ~John 14:6
The 'Truth', must be Jesus himself. To know him, to be intimately acquainted, to be familiar, to be his friend rather than his servant, is truly to know 'The Truth'. Rules and adherence to doctrine cannot free you. Acknowledgement alone cannot free you, but you must be freed by the Son, to be free indeed. And as Jesus goes on to say "If you really know me, you will know my Father as well".
There are no shortcuts to intimacy. It takes time to develop, time and experience but way more importantly, trust. A putting of your weight onto the object you are relying on to help you. And I picture the writer of this gospel, reclining, leaning on Jesus at that last meal. I'm reminded of the words from the hymn.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus name,
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
All other ground is sinking sand.
