FREE

The Gospel of John, chapter 8, verse 32 (Jesus is speaking): “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Bible translators are divided as to how those last three words should be rendered. More specifically, it’s the word ‘make’ versus the word ‘set.’ The New King James Version has it as ‘make you free,’ as does the original King James Version, while the popular New International Version shows it as ‘set you free.’ Among the several translations I looked at it appears to be split roughly down the middle—about half each way. Some people say it doesn’t make any difference, that the original Greek word can be translated either way.

That may be true, but there is a great difference between being ‘set’ free and being ‘made’ free.

In the criminal justice system it is well known that some prisoners have become ‘institutionalized’ after being incarcerated for many years. They can get to the point where they do not want to be free, as they cannot survive outside the prison walls. This is one of the main causes driving the high rate of recidivism.  And, worst case scenario, suffering in despair, some have even taken their own life after they have been set free. Mentally, they will never be free from their life in prison. They may have been ‘set’ free by the system, but the system could not ‘make’ them free.

For twenty years George and I worked together on many construction projects. He was a general contractor and was highly respected in the building industry. George was a recovering alcoholic and he wore a bracelet on his wrist with an engraved medallion bearing the date when he joined Alcoholics Anonymous and became sober. When I met him he was working on fifteen years being sober, but he had stopped attending the regular AA meetings. One day George and I were having lunch together with a new customer of his, and he explained to him that he was not having a martini as he was an alcoholic. He believed the mantra that if you were once an alcoholic then you would always be an alcoholic. George would often say he was free from alcohol, but alcohol was not free from him. He might have been ’set’ free by his AA program, but the AA could never ‘make’ him free.

Many years ago we knew an older man who became a good friend of our family. He had a strong Christian witness of how the Lord had delivered him from a life of addiction. For forty years he had been a slave to alcohol, but he had been sober for ten years and counting. His testimony to me was that he still loved the smell of it, and he said in the beginning of his new life it was a problem for him. But one day that changed when the Lord suddenly wiped away any attraction he might have had to resume his alcohol habit. He said the Lord had set him free of his addiction, and then He made him free of any desire for alcohol. He said he was no longer an alcoholic.

In the 1980s our good friend at church, Thevis Barton, often testified that the Lord had miraculously freed him from his tobacco habit. He said he had smoked three packs of cigarettes every day for thirty years, then he became a Christian and wanted to stop smoking. He said the nicotine had a very strong hold on him, until one day he became so tired of it he threw his last pack away, and prayed again to be delivered from the habit. He said the Lord answered his prayer, and from that day the smell of tobacco made him sick and ready to vomit. He had been set free of the habit, and then the Lord had made him free from the desire for it.

My Dad told us the first time he met our mother he wanted to marry her. But it was out of the question as she was a devout, Christian girl, and he was a Kentucky moonshiner who regularly drank his products, was addicted to smoking tobacco, unable to speak without cussing, and prone to fighting at the drop of a hat. He said he was trying to quit his bad habits over a period of time, and then asked Mom if she would marry him. Eventually, she said she liked him but she would marry him only with some conditions: First, he must become an earnest Christian; then, he must be truly free from all those habits, the alcohol, the smoking, the cussing, and the fighting. Dad said the day he prayed the sinner’s prayer, the Lord instantly made him free of all those habits. He said he was never again tempted to take up those things which had previously dominated his life. He became a faithful Christian, a stalwart church member, a positive witness to everyone he met, and a living, Christ-like example for sixty-four years.

“Therefore, if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36)

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