“Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” (John 8:34-36)
Recall the verse immediately preceding this passage. In verse 33, the religious Jews retort to Jesus and His assertion that they are in bondage and say “We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?” Therefore, what Jesus says in verses 34-36, and even onward in the discussion, is in response to these Jews’ argument of being Abraham’s seed.
When they made this statement, they fell back on the Jewish belief that simply being a seed of Abraham was enough to get them into heaven. As a matter of fact, it was even taught that Abraham stood by in the afterlife, to snatch any Jew that may inadvertently end up in hell and pull them to heaven. Therefore, what Jesus says in this passage is in response to the religious Jews’ belief that they are children of Abraham.
Because those Jews rejected Jesus as the Messiah, they were then considered in bondage, and not free, and are still in bondage under the Law. This is why Jesus begins talking about freedom and enslavement. By not believing in Jesus’ Messiahship, and continuously rejecting Him, they were committing sin. And by committing sin, they were not living according to the Mosaic Law and wouldn’t be fit for eternal life so long as they continued to seek it by their works. It was in this that they were a servant, a slave to their sin. I believe this is what Jesus meant, stating they were in bondage to their unbelief (positional enslavement vs experiential enslavement). And if they remained in their unbelief, they would not receive eternal life. The only way one could receive eternal life was by placing faith in Jesus being the Messiahship.
Nothing in these two verses say that “unless you abide in Christ” you’re not a Son. That is inferring into the text. As a matter of fact, Jesus doesn’t say ‘servants of sin don’t abide’, but rather ‘no servant’ abides in the house. Only the Son abides in the house. Therefore, the key is to be “in Christ”, which is often mentioned in the Gospels, and elsewhere in the New Testament. And to be “in Christ” is to have the “new birth”, be born-again, regenerated, which is by faith-alone, not by abiding.
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