Homilies on the Gospel of John

“If the Son therefore shall make you free.”

Do you see the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and how He declares that He has the same power as the Father? “If the Son make you free, no man afterwards gain-says, but you have firm freedom.” For “it is God that justifies, who is He that condemns?” Here He shows that He Himself is pure from sin, and alludes to that freedom which reached only to a name; this even men give, but that God alone. And so he persuaded them not to be ashamed at this slavery, but at that of sin. And desiring to show that they were not slaves, except by repudiating that liberty, He the more shows them to be slaves by saying,

“You shall be free indeed.”

This is the expression of one declaring that this freedom was not real. Then, that they might not say, “We have no sin,” (for it was probable that they would say so,) observe how He brings them beneath this imputation. For omitting to convict all their life, He brings forward that which they had in hand, which they yet desired to do, and says,