33 They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? 34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. 35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. 36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. (John 8:33-36 KJV)
William Burkitt’s Commentary
Observe here, How these carnal Jews understand all that our Saviour said, to be spoken in and after a carnal manner; when he spoke to them before, of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, they understood it grossly of his natural body.
When he speaks to them here of a spiritual freedom from sin, they understand it of a civil freedom from servile bondage and subjection: alledging, They were Abraham’s seed, and never in bondage to any man: which was a manifest untruth, having been in bondage, in their ancestors, to the Egyptians and Babylonians: and in their own persons to the Romans.
But this was not the bondage that Christ meant: but spiritual slavery and thraldom under the dominion of sin, and power of Satan; for he that committed sin, is the servant of sin: that is, whosoever doth habitually, willfully, deliberately, and constantly, allow and tolerate himself in a sinful course, he is under the servitude and thraldom of sin. Every sinner is a bond-slave; and to live in sin is to live in slavery. And this every man doth till the Son makes him free; then, and not till then, is he freed indeed.
Learn hence, That interest in Christ, and continuance in his doctrine, sets the souls at liberty from all that bondage whereunto it was subject in its natural and sinful state.
O happy exchange, from being the devil’s slaves, to become Christ’s freemen! and also freed from the rigorous exactions and terrible maledictions of the law.