"The Eternal Creature" -2

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:32) Free from what? This is a very popular verse that is quoted all the time, in many different settings; yet the meaning of being set free can be hard to define. Is it free from sin? Yes, that could fit nicely, and is the first choice for many; however, it is the blood of Jesus that removes all sin, not what we know. Is it free from damnation, which is the punishment for sin? Possibly, this could qualify for a nice thing to be set free from; and yes, it seems to go with the sin that has been removed; but it goes far beyond just that. There are two things that we must remember about what we are born into on this earth: one is the fact that we have an eternal soul; second, we were born into sin, which means that we are born into an eternal death, separated from God, which means that we are dead already. In the Garden when God told Adam not to eat of a certain tree, He said, "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die". This tree that God spoke about was 'the tree of knowledge of good and evil', which was placed in the center of the Garden. The death that took place that day was the separation of man from the God that created him; although man's soul was eternal, that eternity was meant to be with the eternal God, because that is from which the soul's eternal life had come: "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7). There are several different ways to look at this, all of which point to One thing: that we are given Life Eternal, which was lost in the Garden; and because we are given this Life, we have been set free from death, the death that was created by one man's disobedience to God. It is this Life that we have been given that drives us to the place of obedience, which comes from the perspective of being eternal, verses only a temporary creature. It gets complicated, I know; but the easiest way to look at what it means to be set free, is to look at verse 36 in John chapter 8: "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed". Both words that Jesus uses here for 'free' in this one verse are not the same word: the first free is the same as the free from verse 32, which has to do with being set free from the punishment of sin, and it is freedom based upon the actions of another more than just being free; which would be saying that by knowing the truth, the truth being what Christ has done, then we can be set free. The second free that is used is one of ownership, or independence; someone who is not dependent upon another; which is closely associated with someone who is freeborn, and when speaking of sin, means that we are set free from the slavery of sin, being the curse that was established by one man's disobedience in the Garden. Therefore, what we are talking about now is the act of adoption, wherein we are adopted into the inheritance that was lost; but better, because now there is no obligation or law... (This was harder than I thought it was going to be.)