John 8:34

Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(34) Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.—The Cambridge MS. and some of the Fathers omit the words “of sin”; but this is clearly to avoid the difficulty of the connection of thought, and they must be regarded as an integral part of the text.

Committeth sin.—The Greek word is a present participle, expressing the continuance of the deeds of sin. It means, not simply the committing individual sins, from which no man is free, but the state of the life which is sinful; the state which is opposed to doing the will of the Father, and is expressed in other words as “working iniquity” (Matthew 7:21; Matthew 7:23.) The truth is taught in the generality of a well-known maxim, but it has for them a special application. They claimed to be Abraham’s seed, and therefore free. Let their lives decide the question of their freedom. He could appeal (John 8:28-29) to a perfect harmony with the divine will, and therefore had a perfect freedom. For many of them the voice of conscience must have spoken in terrible words, and must have revealed the chain which had bound them, hand and foot, in the slavery of sin.

Is the servant of sin.—The word means bondservant, or slave. It has been rendered by “bondman,” and this brings out the connection of the word with that for “was in bondage,” in the last verse.

It is striking that we have this same thought in the letters of both St. Paul and St. Peter. (See margin.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

8:30-36 Such power attended our Lord's words, that many were convinced, and professed to believe in him. He encouraged them to attend his teaching, rely on his promises, and obey his commands, notwithstanding all temptations to evil. Thus doing, they would be his disciples truly; and by the teaching of his word and Spirit, they would learn where their hope and strength lay. Christ spoke of spiritual liberty; but carnal hearts feel no other grievances than those that molest the body, and distress their worldly affairs. Talk to them of their liberty and property, tell them of waste committed upon their lands, or damage done to their houses, and they understand you very well; but speak of the bondage of sin, captivity to Satan, and liberty by Christ; tell of wrong done to their precious souls, and the hazard of their eternal welfare, then you bring strange things to their ears. Jesus plainly reminded them, that the man who practised any sin, was, in fact, a slave to that sin, which was the case with most of them. Christ in the gospel offers us freedom, he has power to do this, and those whom Christ makes free are really so. But often we see persons disputing about liberty of every kind, while they are slaves to some sinful lust.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Whosoever committeth sin ... - In this passage Jesus shows them that he did not refer to political bondage, but to the slavery of the soul to evil passions and desires.

Is the servant - Is the slave of sin. He is bound to it as a slave is to his master.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

34, 35. Whosoever committeth sin—that is, liveth in the commission of it—(Compare 1Jo 3:8; Mt 7:23).

is the servant of sin—that is, the bond-servant, or slave of it; for the question is not about free service, but who are in bondage. (Compare 2Pe 2:19; Re 6:16). The great truth here expressed was not unknown to heathen moralists; but it was applied only to vice, for they were total strangers to what in revealed religion is called sin. The thought of slaves and freemen in the house suggests to our Lord a wider idea.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Our Saviour here correcteth their mistake, letting them know, that he was not speaking about any corporal, but spiritual servitude; not of the freedom of men’s bodies from the power of enemies, but of the freedom of men’s souls from the slavery and dominion of lusts and corruptions. He that doth sin (saith he) is the servant of sin. The committing or doing of sin here intended, is not to be understood of single acts of sin, for in that sense who lives and sinneth not? (the righteous man sinning seven times in a day); so as all men would be concluded the servants of sin; but of living indulgently and habitually in a course of sin, and in the practice of gross sins; in which sense workers of iniquity is to be taken, Matthew 7:23; and this very phrase, 1Jo 3:4. And indeed, the very heathen could see, that there was no such slavery as a servitude to lusts and passions: men are the servants of corruption, 2 Peter 2:19; under the dominion of sin, Romans 6:20.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Jesus answered them, verily verily I say unto you,.... Taking no notice of their civil liberty, to which he could easily have replied to their confusion and silence, he observes to them their moral servitude and bondage, and in the strongest manner affirms, that

whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin; which must be understood, not of one that commits a single act of sin, though ever so gross, as did Noah, Lot, David, Peter, and others, who yet were not the servants of sin; or of such who sin through ignorance, weakness of the flesh, and the power of Satan's temptations, and especially who commit sin with reluctance, the spirit lusting against it; nor indeed of any regenerate persons, though they are not without sin; nor do they live without the commission of it, in thought, word, or deed; and though they fall into it, they do not continue and live in it, but rise up out of it, through the grace of God, and by true repentance; and so are not to be reckoned the servants of sin, or to be of the devil. But this is to be understood of such whose bias and bent of their minds are to sin; who give up themselves unto it, and sell themselves to work wickedness; who make sin their trade, business, and employment, and are properly workers of it, and take delight and pleasure in it: these, whatever liberty, they promise themselves, are the servants of corruption; they are under the government of sin, that has dominion over them; and they obey it in the lusts thereof, and are drudges and slaves unto it, and will have no other wages at last but death, even eternal death, if grace prevent not; see Romans 6:16.

Geneva Study Bible

Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

John 8:34. Δείκνυσιν (and that with solemn asseveration), ὅτι δουλείαν ἐνέγηνεν ἀνωτέρω τὴν ἐξ ἁμαρτίας, οὐ τὴν ἐκ δυναστείας ἀνθρώπου, Euth. Zigabenus.

ὁ ποιῶν] instead of keeping himself free from it.

δοῦλος] as to His moral personality or Ego, comp. as to the figure and subject-matter, Romans 6:17 ff; Romans 7:14 ff. Analogous examples from the Classics in Wetstein; from Philo in Loesner, p. 149.

Expositor's Greek Testament

John 8:34. The answer is: ἀμὴν … ἁμαρτίας [τῆς ἁμαρτίας is bracketed by W.H[68]]. The liberty meant is inward, radical, and individual. “Every one who lives a life of sin is a slave.” Cf. Romans 6:16; Romans 6:20; 2 Peter 2:19; Xen., Mem., iv. 5, 3; Philo’s tract “Quod omnis probus sit liber,” and the Stoic saying “solus sapiens est liber”. The relations subsisting ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ in the house of God, the Theocracy to which they boasted to belong, must be determined by what is spiritual, by likeness to the Head of the house; “this servitude would lead to national rejection,” Edersheim. It behoves them therefore to remember this result of the generally recognised principle that sin masters the sinner and makes him a slave (John 8:35), viz., “that the slave does not abide in the house,” does not permanently inherit the promises to Abraham, and the blessedness of fellowship with God; it is the Son who abide for ever. Cf. Hebrews 3:6. The slave has no permanent footing in the house: he may be dismissed or sold. The transition which Paul himself had made from the servile to the filial position coloured his view of the Gospel, Galatians 4:1-7; but here it is not the servile attitude towards God but slavery to sin that is in view. From this slavery only the Son emancipates, ἐὰν οὖν … ἔσεσθε. This implies that they were all born slaves and needed emancipation, and that only One, Himself the Son, could give them true liberty.—ὄντως ἐλεύθεροι in contrast to the liberty they boasted of in John 8:33. How the Son emancipates is shown in Galatians 4:1-7. The superficial character of the liberty they enjoyed by their birth as Jews is further emphasised in John 8:37.

[68] Westcott and Hort.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

34. Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin] Better, Everyone who continues to commit sin is the bond-servant of sin. ‘Committeth sin’ is too weak for the Greek: Christ does not say that a single act of sin enslaves. ‘To commit (poiein) sin’ is the opposite of ‘to do the Truth’ (John 3:21). Again, ‘servant,’ though often a good translation where nothing degrading is implied, is not strong enough, where, as here, the degradation is the main point. Moreover, the connexion with John 8:33 must be kept up. The words for ‘bondage’ and ‘servant’ are cognate; therefore either ‘bondage’ and ‘bond-servant,’ or ‘slavery’ and ‘slave,’ must be our renderings.

Some have thought that we have here an echo of Romans 6:16, which of course S. John may have seen. But why may not both passages be original? The idea that vice is slavery is common in all literature: frequent in the classics. 2 Peter 2:19 is probably an echo either of this passage or of Romans 6:16. Comp. Matthew 6:24.

Bengel's Gnomen

John 8:34. Ἀπεκρίθη, answered) Jesus replies in inverse order to the twofold objection of the Jews, and first goes on with the portion of the discourse concerning freedom, then discusses the portion concerning the children of Abraham, from John 8:37.—ὁ ποιῶν) he who habitually committeth sin, as opposed to the truth.—δοῦλός ἐστι, is the slave) by the very fact, 2 Peter 2:19, “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption; for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage;” Romans 6:16, “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness.”

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 34. - Jesus answered them; i.e. those "Jews who believed him," but whose retort showed their faith to be of the most feeble and imperfect kind, and which, if it were momentarily assumed, was ready to disappear at the first touch of trial. A promise of Divine love had been treated by them as an insult, not so much to their national history, as to their religious triumph over their civil and political disasters. There is no reason to believe that in these, or in the following words, the unbelieving Jews had once more become the interlocutors, as Tholuck and Hengstenberg have done on different grounds. Meyer, Ellicott, Lange, and many others agree with the view here advanced. The answer to them (αὐτοῖς, those who were the subjects of ἀπεκρίθησαν) is introduced with peculiar solemnity: Verily, verily I say unto you, every one (πᾶς) that doeth sin - ὁ ποιῶν ἁμαρτίαν is different from πράσσων φαῦλα of John 3:20; it is the precise opposite of ποιῶν ἀλήθειαν of John 3:21, and does not mean "everyone who committeth separate acts of transgression," but it means "everyone who is living a life of sin" - is the bond slave (of sin). Godet is strongly disposed, on the ground of the exceedingly small authority of D and b alone (and certain quotations of Origen), to believe that the τῆς ἁμαρτίας is a gloss. Certainly the whole passage would be easier to interpret if our Lord had simply said that the man under the habitual power of sin is a slave, and had then, in vers. 35 and 36, advanced to the contrast between the slave and the Son. But there is great unanimity among all the authorities as to the accuracy of the Received and Revised Texts, though Westcott and Hort place it in brackets. The interpretation, consequently, is simply this, that Christ did "pass from the idea of bondage under sin to that of bondage generally, and from the idea of sonship to the Son" (Westcott). The notion of personal transgression producing a bondage, and enfettering the soul and the will, and separating it from the glorious liberty of true sonship, lay outside of their notion of discipleship. They were not requiring deliverance from sin or its bondage; what they wanted was the full realization of the national hope. The language of this verse can be paralleled from the writings of the classics and rabbis, and is largely handled by St. Paul (Romans 6. and 7.). The relation between sin as a principle and sins as acts of the will is a great New Testament revelation. The personal commission of sin augments the force of the corrupt tendency which leads to and facilitates fresh transgression. Every compliance with evil forges a new fetter, and imposes it on the will of the transgressor. "The strong man guards his house, and his goods are in peace" (Luke 11:21). John 8:34

Vincent's Word Studies

Whosoever committeth (πᾶς ὁ ποιῶν)

Rev., more correctly, every one that committeth.

Sin (τὴν ἁμαρτίαν)

The definite article, the sin, shows that Jesus does not mean merely a simple act, but a life of sin. Compare 1 John 3:4-8, and doeth the truth (John 3:21); doeth the righteousness (1 John 2:29).

The servant (δοῦλος)

Or, a servant. Properly, a bond-servant or slave. See on Matthew 20:26.

Of sin

A few authorities omit, and read whosoever committeth sin is a bond-servant. Compare Romans 6:17, Romans 6:20.