Thank you, David. It's good to
be back with you once again. On the way up here Thursday afternoon,
my mind was just going a thousand different ways, thinking about
what I would be preaching on this weekend and considering
certain passages of Scripture and also in dealing with memories. There's a lot of memories for
all of us here, aren't there, tonight. And I think about those
memories in the context of the name of this fellowship, Providence
Church. Providence means God's government
of things, God's in control. And I used to, before I come
to know the gospel, I used to be kind of a folk singer of sorts. And one of the songs I used to
enjoy singing was about a fellow who started out high and just
went down, down, down, down, until he just hit rock bottom.
And one line in that song is, he never knew if believing was
a blessing or a curse. And I got to thinking, I said,
sometimes you feel that way. You don't know if it's a blessing
or a curse, but we know from God's testimony that if any of
us have come to believe the gospel, it is truly a blessing at all
times. But I was thinking about that.
I started out at 13th Street back in the late 70s, went to
West Virginia, ended up in Georgia, and then back at 13th Street.
And I know the folks at Eager Avenue, I'm so glad to see all
of you here. They put up with me for 18 and a half years, preaching
and making all the mistakes I made, going in and out of the hospital.
But I got to tell you, this is where that began, this place
right here. I can remember Jay Mosteller
running me to the hospital saying, hold on, hold on. I was trying
to hold on. I actually didn't start here. I had 75% blockage before I got
here. You all just filled in the other 25%. But you know what, I mean, you
look back at all those things and, you know, we quote Romans
8.28 almost like a motto, but sometimes we do it without thinking,
but it means something. to God's children, doesn't it?
I mean, all things truly do work together because God is the one
working them together. And so with that in mind, I just
want to express my appreciation to all of you all for your prayers
for me and our church family at 13th Street, the folks in
Albany. We pray for you. We cherish that
and we don't ever need to forget to pray for one another and to
think of one another. I pray for your pastor. I think
of him often and for Brother Ken and for the men that are
leading the congregation at Albany. It just means so much to us that
we have a united fellowship in the truth that glorifies and
honors Christ because that is so rare today. I want to preach
to you from John chapter 8, if you'll turn in your Bibles there.
I've been preaching through, of all books, the book of Leviticus
on Wednesday night at 13th Street. I don't think anybody, or I don't
think many, plan to preach through the book of Leviticus verse by
verse, but it just kind of ended up that way for me. And last
Wednesday I preached on Leviticus 25 on the year of Jubilee. If
you know anything about the year of Jubilee, you know it's the
proclamation of liberty. It was a day, it was a year,
the 50th year in the nation Israel when through the blast of the
trumpet, the announcement, the sound, that's what Jubilee means.
It means the noise, but it's a good noise. That's the proclamation
of liberty throughout the land. It was a time of liberation.
And I've had that thought on my mind about liberty and freedom. And so what I want to preach
to you tonight on is free indeed in Christ. Free indeed in Christ. Now that year of Jubilee was
not only a proclamation of liberty, but it was also a time of restoration
wherein all debts were paid and settled. All the captives were
set free and all the debts were paid and all that had been lost
was restored. But then it was also a time of
abundance, a great time of abundance, a great time of joy in the land.
And it's a great type of the proclamation of the gospel of
salvation full and free by the finished work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. and how we who are in him have
been set free, how we have been restored unto all that was lost
in Adam, but not only restored to all that Adam lost, but we've
gained an abundance in Christ, the inheritance and the riches
of his grace. And our Lord spoke of freedom
here in John chapter 8. My main text is verse 36, where
he says, If the Son, therefore, the Son speaking of himself,
If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, you shall be free
indeed." And that means really free. That means free in every
sense of the word free. It doesn't mean partially free.
It doesn't mean put on a lease or shackled on one hand and not
on the other. It means free indeed. And it
means also more than just a profession that you're free. Many people
think they're free. But they're not free. Now, we're
going to see that in the context of this verse, the ones to whom
he's speaking here. Religious men, the Pharisees,
who were Jews, who thought they were free, but who in reality
were in bondage. So let's go back first to verse
30, and let's look at the context of this. It says, "...as he spake
these words," as he preached the gospel, and here he spoke
of himself as the light of the world. He spoke of himself as
the Savior of his people, the Messiah who was promised and
who has come. And as he spake these words,
many believed on him. Now, in the context here, we're
going to find that what this means is that many claim to believe
on him. Many profess to believe on him. But the question comes, do they
really believe on him, savingly believe on him and rest in him?
We all here tonight claim to believe in Christ. We say we're
believers, we're Christians, we follow Him, we love Him and
know Him and rest in Him. Do we really? And that's the
context. There are many types of professions,
but there's only one true saving profession that can be made and
continued therein. And this is what he says in verse
31. He said, then said Jesus to those Jews which believed
on him, if you continue in my word, his word being the gospel,
who he is, the gospel of his person. Who is he? He's the God-man. He's the Son of God from everlasting,
who has no beginning and no end. He's the eternal I Am. He says
that later on. He says in John chapter 8, he
says, before Abraham was, I Am. He's everything that God is. in His very nature. And then
He is perfect man, very man of very man. He's the God-man. He's
the Messiah. He's the seed of woman. Ken spoke
of Him. He's the Lion of the tribe of
Judah. He's all that the Old Testament
pointed Him out to be. Everything in type and in picture
that was given concerning the salvation of a sinner was fulfilled
by this One who stood before them and spoke. who was on his
way to die the death that he was commissioned to die for his
people. And so he says, if you continue in my word, then, then
are you my disciples indeed. You're really my disciples. You're
not just claiming to be, but are not. You're not making a
false profession. How do you know that? If you
continue in my word, he says. Now here we have one of the many
if statements of Scripture. And you know what men by nature
do with all the if statements of Scripture. place them in the
form of conditions that sinners must meet in order to earn or
attain the blessing. But that's not what this is talking
about. The only time that I've seen in Scripture when the if
statements are conditional is when sinners are trying to save
themselves by their works. Just as our Lord spoke to the
rich young man when he said, what good thing must I do that
I might inherit eternal life? And our Lord, Franklin, and succinctly
told him, he said, well, keep the law. In other words, if you're
trying to be saved, if you're trying to have a right standing
before God, if you're trying to be righteous by your deeds
of the law, then here's the condition. Keep it. You say, well, I admire
it. Well, that's good, but that's
not enough. You say, well, I read it. Well, that's good, but that's
not enough. You say, I talk about it, give
my opinions about it, try to memorize it. But you see, the
law knows but one thing as a condition for righteousness and a right
standing before God, and that is this do, do. It's not just the hearers of
the law that are justified before God, it's the doers of the law.
So if you're here tonight and you've been working your whole
life trying to establish a righteousness of your own, then you are under
a condition. And that condition is to keep
the law perfectly. And I'm here to inform you by
God's authority and testimony that you've already failed miserably. You have, and I have too. It
is impossible for a sinner to be saved by deeds of law because
we always miss the mark. And I'll show you that in just
a moment. The if statement here is not a conditional statement.
It's an evidential statement. He's speaking in terms of evidence.
Here's a person who's heard the gospel and claims to believe
it. Now, if that person truly believes it, that person will
evidence belief in the truth by their continuing in the faith.
We know from God's testimony that if any of us do continue,
which is called the perseverance of the saints, that it is only
by the grace of God that we persevere. We're not going to persevere
and continue on our own. I told a man, and asked him one
time, I said, listen, you believe salvation can be lost. And I'm
here to tell you, if it could be lost, it would be lost. Mark
it down. We'd lose it every second of
our life. We would not continue. The Bible
says that if God began a good work in you, Philippians chapter
1, He will finish that which he started. And wherever you
find a believing sinner, you find one who has been born again
by the Spirit of God, and God begun that work. You didn't begin
it. Sinners don't begin that work
by their choice or by their free will. And I always fall back
to a statement Brother Ken made in a message that I heard. Faith
is not a decision you make. Faith is a persuasion that God
brings you to by His Spirit through His Word. so that you will attest
with the Apostle Paul, I know whom I have believed and I'm
persuaded that he is able, he is able to keep that which I've
committed unto him against that day. My salvation at no stage
nor to any degree is conditioned upon my abilities. It's totally
upon his ability. For he is able, the Scripture
says, to save to the uttermost. them that come unto the Father
by him." So if salvation is conditioned on me or you at any stage, to
any degree, in any way, then we're doomed. Now this is an
evidence. He's saying that the evidence
of one who is truly his disciple indeed, is that they continue
in His Word. They won't leave it. The Bible
teaches us in 1 John chapter 2 that those who had a profession
of the gospel, a profession of the truth, by the way, not a
false gospel, but just a mere profession of the truth, but
who left it were not of us. John writes, he says, had they
been of us, they would no doubt have what? Remained with us.
but they went out from us that it might be made manifest that
they were never of us." So those who have the profession without
the true heart confession have never been true disciples of
Christ. What is it to be a disciple of Christ? Well, the word disciple
means to be a learner. It means to be a follower of
Christ. It's the act of one who has been convinced by the Holy
Spirit of sin and of righteousness and of judgment who Christ is
and what He's done. So he says, if you continue in
my words, in my words, then are you my disciples indeed." And
look at verse 32. He says, "...and you shall know
the truth, and the truth shall make you free." That's the liberating
truth of the gospel in the hands of the Holy Spirit that leads
sinners to Christ, that liberates us in our minds and in our hearts
from the bondage of sin and the bondage of legalism. and the
bondage of all that we would seek to do on our own, trying
to save ourselves when we can't. The truth is applied in power,
sovereignly, by the Spirit in the new birth. And that truth
leads us to Christ, and that truth shall make you free. And
we'll see that too. But look at verse 33. Now here
he says, they answered him. Now here's the response of the
unbelieving Jews. And they said, and I'm sure in
the context it seems to indicate it was many of those who did
at first claim to believe on him. And they answered him, and
they said, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to
any man. How sayest thou, You shall be
made free? We're Abraham's seed. Now, as
you know, the Jews had several, several refuges that they leaned
to in their minds to prove that they, in their minds, were children
of God. One was their connection with
Abraham. And then circumcision, which
was part of that connection with Abraham. We're Abraham's seed.
In other words, that was their claim of a right standing before
God. We're Abraham's seed. We're physical
descendants of Abraham. And then next was their connection
with Moses. They said, we have Moses and
the law. We keep the law. Now those two refuges were cut
down early on. First of all, look back at Matthew
chapter 3. John the Baptist in his preaching
of repentance, he told them, he says, you've got to repent
of such thinking. You've got to change your mind
concerning how God saves sinners. It's not based on a physical
connection with Abraham. Your heritage or your pedigree
means nothing. as to your standing with God.
Our heritage and pedigree means to be lost because we were born
dead in trespasses and sins. We were connected to and condemned
in Adam until the Son of God set us free. And therefore any
claim of heritage or pedigree means nothing as far as a right
standing before God or salvation. And John the Baptist told them
that. Look at verse 7 of Matthew chapter 3. It says, But when
he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism,
He said unto them, old generation of vipers, who hath warned you
to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits
meet for repentance, that which is appropriate to repentance,
that which is appropriate to a mind changed, a heart changed
by God, to bring a sinner in seeking mercy, having no hope
and no refuge, but that which God freely provides in Christ
and Him crucified. But he cut them off at the past
before they could even say a word. Look at verse 9. He says, "...and
think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father. For I say unto you that God is
able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham." In
other words, listen, your being connected with Abraham has no
more meaning than a rock laying on the ground. What's its heritage? If God in His power thought to
do so, He could raise up these stones to bring Him glory. So
that has nothing to do with it. The blood that runs through your
veins means nothing. Listen, your heritage, your pedigree,
your race, your family, your denomination, it means nothing.
as far as a right standing before God. That's not how it's done.
And so he says in verse 10, And now also the axe is laid unto
the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which bringeth
not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.
Now look back at John chapter 5. The Lord confronted them about
their false refuge of keeping the law, their connection with
Moses. They would say, We have the law. And by saying that,
they were saying, in essence, we keep the law. And that is
part of our righteousness before God. We're connected with Abraham.
We're born Jews. We're not dirty, rotten, Gentile
dogs. We have a heritage, you see,
and that's got to count for something. Paul the Apostle, when he was
referring to his refuges before salvation, he said, I was a Hebrew
of Hebrews. That means I was a full-blooded
Hebrew, no mixed blood here. I don't know how he knew that,
but he thought he had it. I doubt that that was true at that time. I know he was a Roman citizen,
but they claimed that, you see. That pure-blooded Hebrew, that
meant something. That ought to count for something.
You remember what Paul said when he saw the glory of the Savior,
when he saw the glory of redemption by the blood of Christ and justification
by His righteousness imputed alone. He said, I count all that
but done. that I may win Christ." That's
what John the Baptist was talking about, bring forth fruits, meat
for repentance. If God has brought you to repentance,
that's the fruit of His grace. And you'll say this, I have nothing
to recommend me unto God but the blood and the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's fruits, meat for repentance.
But look here, Christ told the Pharisees here, look at verse
45, of John chapter 5. He said, Do not think that I
will accuse you to the Father. He says, There is one that accuses
you, even Moses, in whom you trust. And when he says they
trust in Moses, they weren't looking at Moses the person as
their refuge. They were looking to the law
of Moses. They thought they were keepers of the law. And he says,
you trust in you. He says in verse 46, for had
you believed Moses, you would have believed me. He says, for
he wrote of me. Paul said that in Galatians 3
and verse 24. He says the law was their schoolmaster,
their tutor, to lead them unto Christ. to bring them in guilty
before God by their best efforts to keep it, and to lead them
unto Christ for righteousness and for eternal life. And that's
what Moses wrote of, he said. You've missed Moses. You've perverted
the law and you've turned it into a legal system of self-righteous
religion, and it will be your accuser. You think it will be
your salvation, but it will be your accuser. And that's the
way it is with false religion today. People claiming to be
Christians, but they believe salvation is conditioned on their
faith, on their repentance, on their perseverance. or some combination
of those three, and those very things will be their accuser
if they don't meet Christ, if they don't bow to the claims
of Christ. He says in verse 47, that if you believe not his writings,
how shall you believe my words? So go back to John chapter 8.
So their claim, we be Abraham's seed, were never in bondage to
any man. Now that's such a silly statement, it almost sounds like
they didn't even know their history. redeemed them out of with his
power physically as a nation. He redeemed them out of the bondage
of Egypt. And they were to continually
look and depend upon and trust the God of their redemption.
But now they say, we were never in bondage to any man. They were
in bondage to other men their whole history. They were in bondage
in Babylon. The Northern Kingdom was in bondage
to Assyria. They were in bondage all the
time. There were very few times when the nation Israel enjoyed
times of peace and prosperity, mostly under King David and King
Solomon, and later on under a few kings, just the Southern Kingdom.
But their whole history was a type and a picture of the whole history
of mankind, sin, idolatry, unbelief, and failure. And that's how you
sum it up. I told this story one time and
upset a lady in the audience. And maybe I'll upset one tonight,
I don't know. But you know, a reporter was
interviewing Henry Ford, and they asked him, he asked Mr.
Ford, he said, Mr. Ford, how would you like to be
remembered in history? And Mr. Ford answered, and he
said, history. He said, that's just one damn thing after another. And you know what? I got to think
about that. When you look at history from man's point of view,
that is all it is, just one damned thing after another. But oh,
when you look at history from God's point of view, the redemptive
history, the purpose of God, when He says, Remember the former
things of old, for I am God, and there is none like me. I
am the one who declares the end from the beginning. I set the
boundaries and the habitations. When you look at it from the
viewpoint of God's redemptive glory, you see that it is one
blessed thing after another, all working together. to the
glory and the praise of His grace in Christ. Isn't that amazing
how a viewpoint can change just like that when you see it? Well,
look at verse 34. Jesus answered them, "'Verily,
verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant
of sin.'" Now, men have taken that verse and twisted it and
turned it and wrapped it around their theology for a long time.
come out with all kinds of weird points of view. Whosoever committeth
sin is the servant of sin. Now, what is he talking about?
Well, the context tells us exactly what he's talking about. He's
talking about a person there who is not resting in and trusting
and following the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what he's talking
about. That's the servant of sin. That's the slave to sin.
That's what he's talking about. When he says, whosoever commit
a sin, he's not talking about whosoever sins at all. We're all sinners in that sense. When God saves us, He doesn't
save us from sinning. Now, He will in glory, but He
saves us from sin. What do I mean by that? Well,
there's only two types of people that walk on this green earth.
There are sinners who are lost in their sins, and there are
sinners who are saved by the grace of God. Now many people
look at that and they say, well, that committed sin means habitual
sin. whoever commits habitual sin
or whoever practices sin. They are the servant of sin.
So they might conclude this. They say, well, I'm a believer. I've been saved by the grace
of God. Therefore, I'm still a sinner, but I'm not a habitual
sinner. Now, how in the world can you
be a sinner and not be a habitual sinner? Now, explain that one
to me. You wouldn't be a sinner. You'd be a part-time sinner.
But the thing about it is, here's what you've got to look at. What
is sin? Now, what is sin? The two definitions
that are given in sin in the Scripture go like this, for all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Now, what does
that mean, come short? It means we miss the mark. So you would
have to say, if that were the case, whosoever habitually misses
the mark is the servant of sin, if that's the way you're going
to go. Now, is there anybody here who does not habitually
miss the mark? I hope nobody will raise their
hand. Because we've got a lot to talk about if you do. What
is the mark? The mark is perfect holiness,
isn't it? Perfect, sinless perfection. Christ is the mark. You want
to talk about love. If you don't love perfectly as
He loved, that means that you will always have the best in
mind for your worst enemy at all times, even when he runs
out in front of your car. You've missed the mark. You've
missed it. We've all missed it. Another definition is transgressor
of the law. That's what sin is, transgressing
the law. Is there any time in your life
that you can say, I have personally, in myself, kept the law perfectly? And the answer is no. So that's
not what he's talking about here. He's saying, whosoever commit
a sin is the servant of sin. He's talking about the unregenerate
here. He's talking about those who
do not know, believe in, trust, and follow Christ. They're slaves
to sin. They're slaves to sin. Now, let's
go on, and we'll say more about that. But look at verse 35. He
says, "...and the servant abideth not in the house forever, but
the Son abided forever." Now, the picture here is this. A slave,
a slave who is forced into slavery, he has no permanent, abiding,
everlasting position in the household of his master. His position in
the household is always conditioned on his fulfilling the duties
of his office of slave, his work of slave. So there's no permanent,
no abiding, standing and position. He has no rights there. He's
a slave. He has no benefits of the family. He's a slave. But now the Son,
the Son of the Father, He who is the Son of the Father's love,
the apple of the Father's eye, the Son, He abides forever. He's always going to be His Father's
Son. And the Father will always be
His Father. And He's speaking of Himself
here. Christ, the Son of God. So He says in verse 36, leading
up to that, If the Son, therefore, shall make you free, you shall
be free indeed. There's freedom and liberty indeed. Now here's the question. How
does the Son make us free? I'd like for you to turn to Romans
chapter 6 with me. Romans chapter 6, how does Christ
make us free? How does He set us free? And
my first point here that I want you to see out of Romans 6 is
that He first made us free judicially, legally before God on the cross
of Calvary. That's our redemption. That's
our judicial freedom. That's our justification before
God right there. Look at verse 4, or verse 3 rather,
Romans 6. He says, No ye not, that so many
of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized, or are
baptized into his death. Now that word baptized there
does not refer to water baptism. It doesn't refer to the ordinance
of baptism, that ordinance of confession. Baptized literally
means placed into. That's what it means. And he's
saying, know ye not that so many of us as were placed into Christ,
Jesus Christ, we were placed into His death. Now we know from
scriptural testimony that all who know Christ, who are truly
His disciples, were placed into Christ first by divine election
from the foundation of the world, for we were chosen in Christ.
That's the mind and purpose of God. But we were then, as a result,
according to the purpose of God who sent His Son into the world
at that given time, we were placed into Christ when our sins were
charged to Him. That's the language of substitution.
He is our representative and our substitute, and that's what
Paul's talking about here in these first verses. Look at verse
4. Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death. That means this, when Christ
came to this earth, He came here for a particular people, His
sheep, His church, the ones whom the Father gave Him, and He acted
on their behalf in His obedience to the law unto death. And when
their sins were legally accounted to Him, legally charged and imputed
to Him, they were placed into Him. He was made sin by a legal
act of imputation, and He died for those sins. So much so, and
that union was so real, it wasn't fictional. It wasn't a legal
fiction, as some call it today. It wasn't God play-acting or
acting like something was, though it really wasn't. But it was
a real act of charging and accounting the sins of His people to the
account of Christ. He became fully, really, legally
responsible for all of our sins. And you weren't even born then,
and neither was I. That's how real it was. So that
when he died, he died not for himself, but for his people,
and it was so real that God accounts it as if they died. When he died,
I died as substitution, as representation. And he satisfied God's law and
justice for my sins. He paid my debt in full, the
debt of all my sins, past, present, and future. And it says in verse
4 here that, therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into
death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the
glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness
of life. Now, walking in newness of life
has to do with the new birth. You don't walk in newness of
life until you're born again. And what he's saying here is
this, having been redeemed by the blood of Christ and justified
by the righteousness of Christ, the assured result and fruit
of that is that all of his people will be born again by the Spirit
and come to know Christ and walk in newness of life. That's the
fruit and the result of what Christ accomplished at Calvary.
It is not the completion of what Christ started. It is not a meritorious
addition to what he did. It is not the finishing of a
work that he left incomplete. It is the fruit and the effect
of the finished, completed work of Christ on the cross. So he
goes on in verse 5. He says, for if we've been planted
together in the likeness of his death, when he died, I died.
When he was buried, I was buried. When he arose again, I arose
again. We shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection,
knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him." Now,
that old man is not some sinful nature or principle within us.
That old man is our former standing under the condemnation and wrath
of God in Adam. And the tense of the verb here
is crucified. That's past tense. That's something
that has been finished, taken place in the past. It has ongoing
implications, but it's a work done. So that when Christ died,
condemnation was completely removed. Wrath was totally removed. And
so he says that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth
we should not serve sin. Now look at verse 7. For he that
is dead is freed from sin." Now, most of you know, you've been
taught that word free could just as well be translated justified. But freed is a good word for
it, too, because when we were justified on the cross of Calvary,
we were literally freed from the condemnation and wrath of
God. We were free. The Son made us
free indeed. However, when we're born into
this world, we're born in sin. We're born in darkness. We're
born spiritually dead. And we know nothing of what Christ
accomplished, and we don't believe it until the Spirit of God brings
us to a saving knowledge of Christ. Now, look down at verse 17. Here's
how He makes us free again. He says, "...but God be thanked
that you were the servants of sin." Now, you remember what
Christ said, "...he that committeth sin is the servant of sin." What's
He talking about? He's talking about an unregenerate
person there. He's walking in darkness in the bondage of sin,
seeking to establish his own righteousness before God. He's
a slave to sin. And he says, but thank God you
were, God be thanked, you were the servants of sin. But look
here, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine
which was delivered to you. What is that? That's the gospel
message of how God can be just and justify the ungodly. That
word form there, it doesn't mean some kind of a form like an outline. or some kind of a shadow or some
kind of a ghost. That word form there means an
indelible stamp, an identifying mark that once it's put in, it
cannot be removed. That's what it means. And that
form of doctrine, what is that doctrine? It's the doctrine of
Christ. It's the doctrine of truth. It's the doctrine of the
gospel, the doctrine of grace. And he said, which was delivered,
preached unto you in the power of the Holy Spirit. Now look
at verse 18. being then made free from sin, you became the
servants of righteousness." Now, the word free in verse 18 is
a different word than the word freed in verse 7. The word freed
in verse 7 means justified. That's our justification at the
cross in Christ. The word free in verse 18 means
liberated. That's our liberation within
our minds and our hearts, our very soul, by the power of the
Spirit when He brings us to a saving knowledge of what Christ accomplished
on Calvary. It's then that we're freed up
to be servants of righteousness. What is it to be a servant of
righteousness? It's to trust Christ and Him crucified. It's
to rest in Him. It's to follow Him. It's to believe
in Him and continue by His power and by His grace in the truth.
You see, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.