You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. (John 8:32)
This verse is a well known and used verse in the gospel of John and of course it speaks about Jesus. We usually connect it rightly to John 14:6 where Jesus is recorded to have said, “I am the way, the truth and the life”. These two verses are obviously connected and in that connection we make the sense of it being when you come to be born again you will come into a relationship with Jesus and you will be set free.
This is very true and at the time I was born again I experienced feelings of freedom, that have remained for over fifty years now. I have also seen others actually dancing with joy at the moment they are born again and shouting, “I feel so free, I feel so free”!
For most of the fifty years of my Christian walk this has been my whole and only perspective of the meaning of this verse, ‘you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free’.
But as I have come to see into the realms of God’s knowledge and His perspective of understanding of ….. everything: God’s everything: I have come to understand Jesus words about truth setting free in a far far deeper way.
You see the word ‘truth’ Jesus uses when He talks about Himself is not referring to His accuracy of honesty or transparency of heart as such. It is also not referring just to Himself and His teaching being true about God or Himself, life and death realities, sin and holiness etc. It is a much more far reaching and exposing thing than just those things. The word ‘truth’ actually means the reality behind all we see. It is the reality that has caused all that we see! It is the reason, the mind, the purpose, the goal, the source and foundation of all that we see and that is the actual matter of all of the universe. It is the source of our own existence, the reason for it, the purpose of it and the life that holds it all together and keeps it continuously existing and growing. If you can grasp this, ‘truth’ that Jesus says will set us free as coming to truly know, walk in and live fully aware of God’s perspective of existence – God’s perspective of humanity – God’s perspective of nature – God’s perspective of our inner nature and makeup, even God’s perspective of God’s own inner nature and makeup! God’s perspective of everything, then you will see that the truth that sets us free will continue to set us free on and on into the eternity of our walk with God forever. It starts when we are born again. It’s goal is that we become like God.
Jesus also said that He is the ‘Door’. We often interpret this, and rightly, that He means that He is the door to heaven, to eternal life, to the presence of God in eternity where we will live in a paradise of joy, peace and love etc. Yes, absolutely, but this is just a simple and extremely limited view. Jesus is the ‘door’ into the knowledge, understanding and wisdom of the very mind of God and the perspective of thinking of God Himself. That we will see as God sees. Think as God thinks. Know what God knows and finally be like God is in nature and being. We will feel the emotions of God and want as God wants. Our thoughts, motives and desires will parallel God’s!
I am sure some of you may agree with me that all of these things will happen when we get to heaven, and I am sure that is so but I am actually trying to say something much more than that.
The hard part of trying to say this is that I can see now that all of these things are what God, through Christianity, is trying to bring us into IN THIS LIFE!!!! This is what Christianity is for. It is what it is about. It is what it will produce when we have our eyes open to it. As sons of God this is our rightful path. Father’s share their wisdom with their own children and God, who is our Father, has also opened the door for us to come into thinking and being as He is. His plan is not that this is just the final place for us to arrive at after we die. Saying for example, if you run your race well in this life this will be your prize. This is what running the race is. It is for us to come into this IN THIS LIFE. This is the Kingdom of God that is to come on earth as it is in heaven.
Many Christian’s throughout history have felt that after taking the wonderful step of faith in Christ followed by church attendance along with the basic teaching of scripture there that they now continue mostly as they were until their faithfulness has earned the after death reward of heaven. But we are heading to a day when an up scaling of activity of the Holy Spirit within us will be the norm and Christian’s will be becoming Christlike IN THIS LIFE in a previously unimaginable way.
OH, I can see it. As we come into the knowledge, understanding and perspective that God has we will see the kingdoms of this world bowing to the wisdom of God ON THIS EARTH! It will be like water to a thirsty and starving world. Finally the answers to all humankind’s dilemma’s will begin appearing and there will be no more wars. Peace will spread like water over the lands and joy will break through the hard crusts like seedlings sprouting producing colour like has never been seen before. Fear will be swallowed up in love and kindness will reign. The ways of the heart of God will dawn in each human heart and the gross darkness that has covered the human race locking us into self preservation, suspicion, the pride of insecurity and the competitiveness of survival in a violent fear filled atmosphere, will dissipate. Miracles of healing and physical power will become more commonplace, faith will uncover realms of creativity up till now only hidden in Gods heart of hearts and the elusive peace Jesus has given to us that the world cannot give will arise like the sun on a new day over the lifeless horizons of hope that all we humans have looked for in the darkness for millennia.
The prayer of the church that Jesus gave us to pray will be answered. Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. It takes more than just being born again as wonderful and necessary as that is. It takes walking on into the Truth, gaining God’s perspective of reality, that will set the whole human race free of the darkness, deceptions and confusions that have clouded our understanding since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. The wisdom of our Father God being bestowed upon us as we walk as His sons will lead us to understand all things as God Himself does and we will become free to levels unimaginable.
