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Chapter XVII "Ye Shall Know the Truth . . . "
The Lord said, ". . . ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32.) Probably there is no verse of scripture which has been taken out of context and been given private interpretation more frequently than this verse. It is granted that when this verse has no context but is isolated the apparent meaning is an appealing one. I suppose it is accurate to say that this is particularly true for the academician-the scholar and the scientist. I likewise suppose there is a sense of mission and a special kind of satisfaction which comes to one who feels he is engaged in an enterprise which makes men free. Furthermore, I believe there is a general sense in which knowing the truth does make one free. This has been one of the fundamental assumptions of the advocates of liberal education. But after one has said this, and a host of other things which might be said in defense of the isolated statements "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," what can be said for the nature of the freedom which is envisioned here? Regardless of how else this freedom might be described, I think it can be asserted with considerable confidence that its primary benefits are temporal, that is, they belong to this world. Or, putting it another way, there are many who think of man's existence as being limited to mortality and therefore their aspirations are to make man free during the only existence they think he has. There are others who do not conceive of man's life as being limited to mortality but who apparently obtain a special kind of solace in the hope that their academic knowledge, or knowledge of the world, may be the means of their obtaining freedom in their post-mortal existence. We are not altogether free of those who hold this view. I shall return to this point later.
Now, if this common interpretation of this passage, stripped of its context, is not what the Lord meant by the quoted words, just what did he mean?
When one reads the Lord's words in their context it becomes clear that he was not speaking of truth in the abstract general sense which I have just described. On the contrary, he was speaking specifically. In the first place he was speaking "to those Jews which believed on him." In the second place he said, "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed," and then thirdly he promised "And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." (See ibid., 8:31-32.) So the truth to make men free was promised to those who believed on him, but further, only to those who believed on him who continued in his word.
But, what did the Lord mean by the word "truth"? As he continued his explanation he said, "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." (Ibid., 8:36.) It is obvious that he was equating himself with the truth, as he did at least on one other occasion when he said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." (Ibid., 14:6.)