Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 8:41
Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, [even] God.
41. Ye do the deeds of your father ] Better, Ye are doing the works of your father. The word here rendered ‘deeds’ is the same as that rendered ‘works’ in Joh 8:39. ‘Ye’ is emphatic, in contrast to Abraham. This shews them plainly that spiritual parentage is what He means. In Joh 8:39 they still cling to Abraham, although He has evidently assigned them some other father. Here they drop literal parentage and adopt His figurative language. ‘You are speaking of spiritual parentage. Well, our spiritual Father is God.’
We be not born of fornication ] The meaning of this is very much disputed. The following are the chief explanations: (1) Thou hast denied that we are the children of Abraham, then we must be the children of some one sinning with Sarah: which is false.’ But this would be adultery, not fornication. (2) ‘We are the children of Sarah, not of Hagar.’ But this was lawful concubinage, not fornication. (3) ‘We are not a mongrel race, like the Samaritans; we are pure Jews.’ This is far-fetched, and does not suit the context. (4) ‘We were not born of fornication, as Thou art.’ But His miraculous birth was not yet commonly known, and this foul Jewish lie, perpetuated from the second century onwards (Origen, c. Celsum i. xxxii.), was not yet in existence. (5) ‘We were not born of spiritual fornication; our sonship has not been polluted with idolatry. If thou art speaking of spiritual parentage, ‘we have one Father, even God.’ This last seems the best. Idolatry is so constantly spoken of as whoredom and fornication throughout the whole of the O.T., that in a discussion about spiritual fatherhood this image would be perfectly natural in the mouth of a Jew. Exo 34:15-16; Lev 17:7; Jdg 2:17; 2Ki 9:22; Psa 73:27; Isa 1:21; Jer 3:1; Jer 3:9; Eze 16:15; &c. &c. See esp. Hos 2:4. There is a proud emphasis on ‘we;’ ‘ we are not idolaters, like Thy friends the Gentiles’ (comp. Joh 7:35).
we have one Father ] Or, one Father we have, with emphasis on the ‘one,’ in contrast to the many gods of the heathen.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The deeds of your father – See Joh 8:38. Jesus repeats the charge, and yet repeats it as if unwilling to name Satan as their father. He chose that they should infer whom he meant, rather than bring a charge so direct and repelling. When the Saviour delivered an awful or an offensive truth, he always approached the mind so that the truth might make the deepest impression.
We be not born of fornication – The people still professed not to understand him; and since Jesus had denied that they were the children of Abraham, they affected to suppose that he meant they were a mixed, spurious race; that they had no right to the covenant privileges of the Jews; that they were not worshippers of the true God. Hence, they said, We are not thus descended. We have the evidence of our genealogy. We are worshippers of the true God, descended from those who acknowledged him, and we acknowledge no other God and Father than him. To be children of fornication is an expression denoting in the Scriptures idolatry, or the worship of other gods than the true God, Isa 1:21; Isa 57:3; Heb 1:2; Heb 2:4. This they denied. They affirmed that they acknowledged no God for their Father but the true God.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 41. Ye do the deeds of your father.] You have certainly another father than Abraham-one who has instilled his own malignant nature into you; and, as ye seek to murder me for telling you the truth, ye must be the offspring of him who was a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth, Joh 8:44.
We be not born of fornication] We are not a mixed, spurious breed-our tribes and families have been kept distinct-we are descended from Abraham by his legal wife Sarah; and we are no idolaters.
We have one Father, even God.] In the spiritual sense of father and son, we are not a spurious, that is, an idolatrous race; because we acknowledge none as our spiritual father, and worship none as such, but the true God. See Bishop Pearce.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Ye do the deeds of your father; you imitate him who is indeed your father; by whom our Saviour (as we shall hear more afterwards) meaneth the devil. This they fume at, and tell him they were not
born of fornication, which is, in our English dialect, as much as, We are no bastards; but it hath another sense in this place, as appeareth by the next words.
We have one Father, even God; that is, we own and worship one God, who is our Father; which makes very good interpreters think, that their meaning in those words, We are not born of fornication, is, We are no idolaters; idolatry in holy writ being very ordinarily compared to whoredom and fornication.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
41. We be not born of fornication .. . we have one Father, Godmeaning, as is generally allowed,that they were not an illegitimate race in point of religion,pretending only to be God’s people, but were descended from His ownchosen Abraham.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Ye do the deeds of your father,…. Not Abraham, but the devil.
Then said they unto him, we be not born of fornication: meaning either literally, that they were not a brood of bastards, children of whoredom, illegitimately begotten in unlawful copulation, or wedlock; or figuratively, that they were not the children of idolaters, idolatry being called fornication in Scripture; but that they were the holy seed of Israel, and children of the prophets, who had retained the pure word, and the true worship of God, though in all this they might have been contradicted and refuted; to which they add,
we have one Father, [even] God; Israel being called by God his Son, and firstborn to them belonged the adoption, in a national sense, and of this they boasted; though few of them were the children of God by special adoption, or God their Father by regenerating grace.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Ye do the works of your father ( ). Who is not Abraham and not God as Jesus plainly indicates.
We were not born of fornication ( ). First aorist passive indicative of . This they said as a proud boast. Jesus had admitted that they were physical (De 23:2) descendants of Abraham (37), but now denies that they are spiritual children of Abraham (like Paul in Ro 9:7). is from (harlot) and that from , to sell, a woman who sells her body for sexual uses. It is vaguely possible that in this stern denial the Pharisees may have an indirect fling at Jesus as the bastard son of Mary (so Talmud).
We have one Father, even God ( ). No “even” in the Greek, “One Father we have, God.” This in direct reply to the implication of Jesus (verse 38) that God was not their spiritual Father.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Ye do. Or, are doing.
Fornication [] . From pernhmi, to sell.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Ye do the deeds of your father.” (humeis poieite ta erga tou patros humon) “You all do the works of your father.”
2) “Then said they to him,” (eipan auto) “They replied to him,”
3) ”We be not born of fornication,” (hemeis ek poreias ouk egennethemen) “We were not born out of and from fornication,” like you were, they insinuated, reflecting on His Holy Spirit conception and virgin birth, Luk 1:30-34.
4) “We have one Father, even God.” (ena patera echomen ton theon) “We have one Father – the (true) God.”
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
41. We were not born of fornication. They claim no more for themselves than they did formerly, for it was the same thing with them to be Abraham’s children and to be God’s children. But they erred grievously in this respect, that they imagined that God was bound to the whole seed of Abraham. For they reason thus: “God adopted for himself the family of Abraham; therefore, since we are Abraham’s descendants, we must be the children of God.” We now see how they thought that they had holiness from the womb, because they were sprung from a holy root. In short, they maintain that they are the family of God, because they are descended from the holy fathers. In like manner, the Papists in the present day are exceedingly vain of an uninterrupted succession from the fathers. By sorceries of this description Satan deceives them, so that they separate God from his word, the Church from faith, and the kingdom of heaven from the Spirit.
Let us know, therefore, that they who have corrupted the seed of life are at the farthest remove from being the children of God, though, according to the flesh, they are not bastards, but pretend a right to the plausible title of the Church. For let them go about the bush as much as they please, still they will never avoid the discovery that the only ground of their arrogant boasting is, “We have succeeded the holy fathers; therefore, we are the Church.” And if the reply of Christ was sufficient for confuting the Jews, it is not less sufficient now for reproving the Papists. Never indeed will hypocrites cease to employ the name of God falsely, with most wicked effrontery; but those false grounds of boasting, on which they plume themselves, will never cease to appear ridiculous in the eyes of all who shall abide by the decision of Christ.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
SATANS CHILDREN
Text 8:41-47
41
Ye do the works of your father. They said unto him, We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
42
Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I came forth and am come from God; for neither have I come of myself, but He sent me.
43
Why do ye not understand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my word.
44
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.
45
But because I say the truth, ye believe me not.
46
Which of you convicteth me of sin? If I say truth, why do ye not believe me?
47
He that is of God heareth the words of God: for this cause ye hear them not, because ye are not of God.
Queries
a.
What do the Jews mean by saying, We were not born of fornication?
b.
Why did the Jews not understand Jesus teaching?
c.
What do we learn of the nature of the devil in this section?
Paraphrase
You are manifesting the nature and doing the works of your spiritual father, the devil. They replied, We are the children of our true father, even God, and we are not the illegitimate children of a spiritually adulterous union with another father. Jesus said to them, If you were the children of the true Father, God, then you would honor Me as His Son and love Me, for I came here from the presence of the Father to be among men; I have not come merely upon my own authority and witness, but manifesting the authority of the Father. Why will you not understand what I say to you? It is because you wilfully refuse to receive my message into your hearts. You are the offspring of your father, the devil, and it is evident because you intentionally do the schemes and works of your father, the devil. He planned and executed the murder of the human race in his heart from the beginning of the world, and he has not one iota of relationship to the truth because there is no truth in his nature. When he lies he merely speaks out of the very essence of his nature for he is a liar and the originator of the lie itself. It is plainly for the very reason that I say the truth that you do not believe in Me. Yet, which of you is able to prove Me guilty of ever committing a sin or telling a lie? He that is a child of God will hear Gods words. And this is just the reason you will not hear His message which I have brought, because you are not akin to the nature of God.
Summary
Jesus openly charges these Jews with being the children of Satan. Then He vividly gives the reasons for this terrible indictment. The Jews are exhibiting the nature of the devil by their rebellion to Gods Son, their lies, and their open intention to kill Jesus. They cannot be the children of God for they reject His word, not erroneously, but wilfully.
Comment
In rebuttal to Christs inference that they were bondservants to sin, these Jews had vociferously claimed descendancy from Abraham (cf. Joh. 8:33). Now Jesus infers more pointedly than ever that Abraham is not their father. The Lord is talking about spiritual kinship! He admitted their physical relationship to Abraham (Joh. 8:37), but denied their spiritual kinship (Joh. 8:39) to him, And now, in Joh. 8:41, Jesus implies that they are the offspring of a spiritual father other than Abraham.
Their pride wounded and their ire aroused, these men exclaim We were born of no adulterous union, we have never had any spiritual father but Jehovah-God. In the Old Testament God was, in a special sense, the Father of Israel (cf. Exo. 4:22; Deu. 32:6; Isa. 63:16; Isa. 64:8; Mal. 2:10). When Israel forsook Jehovah and worshipped any other God, she was said to have gone awhoring after strange godsto have committed spiritual adultery (cf. Jdg. 2:17; 1Ch. 5:25; Eze. 6:9; Hos. 2:4; Hos. 4:12; Hos. 5:4).
As most commentators point out, either one of two meanings may have been intended here in the answer of these Jews. When they said to Jesus that they were not the children of any adulterous union, they might have meant (a) they did not belong to a nation of idolatersspiritual adulterers, or (b) they were not born physically of adulterous parentsinferring that Jesus was, for the Jews had very early circulated the story that Mary, mother of Jesus, had been unfaithful to Joseph and had a lovera Roman soldier by the name of Pantheraand that Jesus was the child of this adulterous union. In view of the context, we prefer the first interpretation. These Jews knew that Jesus was talking about their spiritual relationship to God for they defended themselves by claiming God as their Father. By emphasizing their spiritual kinship to God they were inferring that Jesus was Himself the spiritual descendant of another father (the devil) (cf. Joh. 8:48).
Jesus states in Joh. 8:42 a very basic truth. The spiritual parentage of any man is known by his manifest relationship to Jesus Christ. The Lord said it earlier in this manner, Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them (cf. Mat. 7:15-20; also Joh. 5:42-43; Joh. 5:46; 1Jn. 5:1). William Barclay says it so well, Here again is the key thought of the Fourth Gospel. The test of a man is his reaction to Jesus . . . To be confronted with Jesus is to be confronted with judgment. Jesus s the touchstone of God by which all men are judged. (The Gospel of John, Vol. 2, by Wm. Barclay, p. 33, Saint Andrew Press.) If they were true loving, obedient, believing children of God they would have loved Jesus because He came revealing Himself as the Incarnate God. He gave abundant witness to His claims by signs and wonders performed in their very midst (cf. Mat. 9:1-8). Their trouble was that they did not want Him as their Messiahthey refused to surrender their ideas to the will of God and, as a result, refused to recognize Jesus (cf. Joh. 7:17).
The Great Cross-examiner continues with His indictment. The next few verses (Joh. 8:43-47) contain tremendously incriminating questions and statements. The Divine Barrister not only elicits the facts of the case, but He also lays bare the motives of those indicted.
Jesus asks them the piercing question, Why do ye not understand my words? And before they have opportunity to deny or rail irrelevantly He answers for them the answer that is evident to all honest-hearted menthey simply refuse to hear His teaching, not out of ignorance, but out of their rebellious and evil nature. They are like their forefathers of whom the prophet wrote, To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? Behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of the Lord is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it (Jer. 6:10). (cf. Eze. 12:2; Zec. 7:11; Mat. 11:25-26; 2Ti. 4:4; 1Co. 2:14.) They could not understand because they would not hear. They could not understand the spiritual nature of Christs Messiahship because they wilfully carnalized their hearts.
Their failure to recognize Jesus as the Christ is due, as Jesus continues to explain, to their willing submission to the devil. They voluntarily became Satans cohorts. There is the answer; terrifying in all its stark reality and horrible implications. They cannot bear or tolerate the truth of God, so they embrace false doctrine and willingly choose error and lies rather than truth. Thus they become sons of Helloffspring of Satanfor the devil by his very nature stands in no kinship whatever to the truth. It is his very nature and work to deceive and when he speaks a lie, he merely expresses his character. He was a murderer from the beginning of time. He seduced the whole human race when he deceived Adam and Eve. He brought the penalty of death upon us all in the Garden.
The verdict in the charge against these Jews, then, must be Guilty. They were seeking how they might kill Jesus who was completely innocent of any of their accusationshence they were murderers at heart. Not only that, they could not tolerate the truth and thus they manifested their spiritual kinship to the devil.
What a morally impeaching indictment Joh. 8:45 brings upon these Jews. Because Jesus spoke the truth, they rejected Him. There was no doubting now whose side they were onthe devils. How reprobate has a man become when truth is rejected because it is truth and error is received and practiced because it is error (cf. Rom. 1:18-32). Are there not those today, even in the guise of being religious seekers after the truth, who reject truth because it is truth and receive a lie because it is a lie?
Then comes the challenge, Which of you is able to convict me of sin? What a dramatic moment! None but the Son of God would dare to make such a challenge. There must have been a silent pause while Jesus waited for anyone to speak out. Were there none who could convict Him of some sin or falsehood? Not one! Neither here nor forever after! By their silence they admitted that they could find no sin, falsehood or inconsistency in Himthen why did they not accept His words?
The answer is inevitable! They were not, as they claimed to be, sons of God. The man that is of God (or is disposed toward righteousness, truth, justice and the attributes that are Gods nature) will listen and endeavor to obey Gods word. But these men were haters of the truth and lovers of darkness (cf. Joh. 3:19-21) and it was evident that they were not of God.
May God grant us the wisdom, courage and conviction to accept the truth (wherever it is) because it is the truth, and reject that which is false (wherever it is) because it is false?
Quiz
1.
What did the Jews probably mean by their answer, We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God?
2.
What is the basic truth asserted in Joh. 8:42?
3.
Why could they not understand Jesus words?
4.
What is significant in Joh. 8:45?
5.
What is the inevitable answer to Jesus questions in Joh. 8:46?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(41) Ye do the deeds of your father.It is better to read works rather than deeds, as in Joh. 8:39. They did not the works of Abraham. They did the works of that father, who is now more clearly pointed out, but still not named. Before, when he was referred to (Joh. 8:38), they could answer that Abraham was their father; but their works prove that they are not the true children of Abraham (Joh. 8:39-40). They see that a spiritual father is intended, and they will claim God as their Father.
We be not born of fornication.The meaning of this is to be found in the fact that the word became in the Old Testament prophets a frequent symbol for idolatry. Comp. Isa. 1:21; Jer. 2:20; Jer. 3:8-9; Ezekiel 16; Hos. 1:2 (especially), 4:12, and 5:7.) They, as distinguished from the nations among whom they dwelt, had maintained a pure monotheism, and had never been idolaters, or children born of spiritual fornication.
We have one Father, even God.We is strongly emphatic, expressing their pride in the theocracy, and their spiritual superiority to other nations. There may be in this pride also a touch of the scorn with which they asked Will He go unto the dispersion of the Gentiles? (Joh. 7:35), or with which they call Him a Samaritan, as they do in this very discussion (Joh. 8:48). Howbeit every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwelt. This is the historians account of the spiritual paternity of the Samaritans, and these Jews may well have felt their superiority in contrast with their neighbours. (See the whole passage in 2Ki. 17:26-41, especially Joh. 8:30-31.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Children, not of God, but of Satan, Joh 8:41-47.
41. Born of fornication True, legitimate sons of Abraham, we have our Divine Father, God alone. The one paternity insures the other paternity. And, corporeally, Jesus would admit both. Spiritually, he denies both. For as being murderers in intent, they are no children of Abraham, 40; nor of God, 42; but of the murderer Satan, 44.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
“You do the works of your father.”
He repeated His enigmatic statement. ‘You (Judaisers) are doing just what your father does.’ They could now hardly fail to realise that there was an unpleasant implication behind His words. He was linking their ‘father’, whoever that might mean, with a murderous attitude. So recognising that they could no longer defend themselves by reference to Abraham they changed tack.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
‘We (Judaisers) were not born of fornication. We have one Father, God’.
This may well have been a sneer at the mystery surrounding the birth of Jesus. They may have been saying, ‘Well your birth may be doubtful but there is no doubt as to our position.’ Alternately it may have been because they saw non-Jews as impure, and not true children of God. Both were possibly in their thoughts. They may well also have been still smarting at having been called ‘slaves’ to sin, for slaves were equated by them with bastards. So they were contrasting that state with their own. They were proud of the fact that God was their Father as the Old Testament often implied (Isa 63:16; Isa 64:8; Hos 11:1; Mal 1:6; Mal 2:10) and overlooked the strictures in Malachi, which they thought (rightly to a certain extent) no longer applied to themselves. They overlooked the fact that there might be other things that could exclude them from God’s Fatherhood.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Joh 8:41. We be not born of fornication, &c. The Jews, it seems, perceived at length that Jesus talked not so much of natural, as of spiritual bondage; and replied, “In that respect undoubtedly we are the children of God, as we are not born of fornication;” alluding to the marriage covenant, which in scripture is represented to have subsisted between God and the Jewish nation; and by which their obligation to reverence, love, and obey him, was held forth to them in a lively manner, “We are neither idolaters ourselves, nor are we sprung of idolatrous ancestors; and therefore, in respect of spiritual descent, we are, without dispute, the children of God.” Accordingly, God himself calls all the Jewish males his sons, because he was the husband of their parents. See Eze 23:37. Jer 3:4. Hos 2:4.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Joh 8:41 . You do what your father is in the habit of doing , result of Joh 8:39-40 , though still without specifying who this father is. “Paulatim procedit castigatio” (Grotius).
As the Jews are not to look upon Abraham as their father, they imagine that some other human father must be meant. In this case, however, they would be bastards, born of fornication (the fornication of Sarah with another man); and they would have two fathers, an actual one (from whom they descend ) and a putative one (Abraham). But inasmuch as their descent is not an adulterous one, [25] and notwithstanding that Abraham is not to be regarded as their father, there remains in opposition to the assertion of Jesus, so they think, only God as the one Father; to Him, therefore, they assign this position: “ We be not born of fornication ,” as thou seemest to assume, in that thou refusest to allow that Abraham is our father; one father only (not two, as is the case with such as are born of adultery) have we , and that God , if our descent from Abraham is not to be taken into consideration. For God was not merely the creator (Mal 2:10 ) and theocratic Father of the people (Isa 63:16 ; Isa 64:8 ); but His Fatherhood was further and specially grounded in the power of His promise made at the conception of Isaac (Rom 4:19 ; Gal 4:23 ). The supposition that they implicitly drew a contrast between themselves and Ishmael (Euth. Zigabenus, who thinks that there is an allusion to the birth of Jesus, Ruperti, Wetstein, Tittmann) is erroneous, inasmuch as Ishmael was not born . We must reject also the common explanation of the passage as a denial of the charge of idolatry (Hos 1:2 ; Hos 2:4 ; Eze 20:30 ; Isa 57:3 ); “our filial relationship to God has not been polluted by idolatry” (De Wette; comp. Grotius, Lampe, Kuinoel, Lcke, Tholuck, Lange, Hengstenberg, Baeumlein, and several others). It is quite opposed to the context, however, for the starting-point is not the idea of a superhuman Father, nor are the Jews reproached at all with idolatry; but the charge is brought against them, that Abraham is not their father; hence also the supposition of an antithesis to a combined Jewish and heathen descent (Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theophylact, Godet), such as was the case with the Samaritans (Paulus), is inadmissible. Ewald also takes the same simple and correct view; [26] comp. Erasmus, Paraphr . Bengel, however, aptly characterizes the entire objection raised by the Jews as a “novus importunitatis Judaicae paroxysmus.”
] spoken with the emphasis of pride.
[25] implies one mother, but several fathers. Who is the one mother, follows from the denial of the paternity of Abraham , consequently Sarah , the ancestress of the theocratic people. Hence the inadmissibility of Luthardt’s explanation based on the idea, “Israel is Jehovah’s spouse;” according to which the thought of the Jews would have been: they were not sprung from a marriage covenant of Israel with another, so that Jehovah would thus be merely nominally their father, in reality, however, another; and they would thus have several fathers. Moreover, a marriage covenant between Israel and another would be a contradiction, this other must needs also be conceived as a true God , consequently as a strange God, a notion which Luthardt justly rejects. It is surprising how B. Crusius could adduce Deu 23:2 for the purpose of representing the Jews as affirming their theocratic equality of birth.
[26] Although characterized by Ebrard as absurd . He regards . as merely a “ caricatured form ” of the accusation that they are not Abraham’s children, and in this way, of course, gets rid of the need of explaining the words. He then takes in the sense of we and thou have one common Father , which is incompatible with the word , which also belongs to , and is, besides, altogether opposed to the context; for the entire dialogue is constituted by the antithesis of we and thou, I and ye. Ebrard’s view is an unfortunate evasion of a desperate kind.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
Ver. 41. We have one Father, even God ] Yet God is not in their heads, Psa 10:4 , nor heart, Psa 14:1 , nor words,Psa 12:4Psa 12:4 , nor ways, Tit 1:16 . In such a posture of distance, nay, defiance, stand wicked men. And yet none so forward to call God Father, Jer 3:4-5 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
41. ] not imperative, which destroys the sense.
. ] Stier remarks, that they now let fall Abraham as their father, being convicted of unlikeness to him. They see that a spiritual paternity must be meant, and accordingly refer to God as their Father. This consideration will rule the sense of ., which must therefore be spiritual also. And spiritually the , ref. Hosea, are idolaters. , , . Philo de Migr. Abr. 13, vol. i. p. 447. Ishmael cannot well be alluded to; for they would not call the relation between Abraham and Hagar one of . Still less can Origen’s interpretation be adopted, , , , , , (tom. Joh 20:14 , p. 327), for our Lord never proclaimed this of Himself. There may possibly be a reference to the Samaritans ( Joh 8:48 ), who completely answered in the spiritual sense to the children of fornication: see Deu 31:16 ; Isa 1:21 ; Eze 16:15 ff; Eze 20:30 alli [130] .
[130] alli = some cursive mss.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Joh 8:41 . . You do not the works of Abraham: you do the works of your father. And yet (Joh 8:37 ) He had acknowledged them to be the children of Abraham. The only possible conclusion was that besides Abraham some other father had been concerned in producing them. This idea they repudiate with indignation: . “We were not born of fornication: we have one father, God”; not “Abraham,” as might have been expected, but “God”: i.e. , they claim to be the children of the promise, within the Theocracy, children of God’s house (Joh 8:35 ).
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
do = are doing.
deeds = works, as in Joh 8:39.
be not born = have not been begotten (see Mat 1:2).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
41.] -not imperative, which destroys the sense.
.] Stier remarks, that they now let fall Abraham as their father, being convicted of unlikeness to him. They see that a spiritual paternity must be meant, and accordingly refer to God as their Father. This consideration will rule the sense of ., which must therefore be spiritual also. And spiritually the , ref. Hosea, are idolaters. , , . Philo de Migr. Abr. 13, vol. i. p. 447. Ishmael cannot well be alluded to; for they would not call the relation between Abraham and Hagar one of . Still less can Origens interpretation be adopted, , , , , , (tom. Joh 20:14, p. 327),-for our Lord never proclaimed this of Himself. There may possibly be a reference to the Samaritans (Joh 8:48), who completely answered in the spiritual sense to the children of fornication: see Deu 31:16; Isa 1:21; Eze 16:15 ff; Eze 20:30 alli[130].
[130] alli = some cursive mss.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Joh 8:41. , of your father) His name is not yet expressed: but presently after, when the Jews presume to call God their father, he is expressly called the Devil: see foll. verses.- , from fornication) A new paroxysm of Jewish unreasonableness [unseasonable clamour]. They stoutly insist, that they are not illegitimate.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Joh 8:41
Joh 8:41
Ye do the works of your father.-They showed the spirit of the devil so were his spiritual children.
They said unto him, We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.-As they were the children of Abraham after the flesh and Abraham was a child of God, they insisted that God was their original Father. [They seem now to get a glimpse of the moral sense in which Jesus takes the notion of Sonship, and proceed to assert that they whose lineage on both sides is unimpeachable in the flesh cannot be successfully impeached in the Spirit.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
do: Joh 8:38, Joh 8:44
We be: Isa 57:3-7, Eze 23:45-47, Hos 1:2, Hos 2:2-5, Mal 2:11
we have: Exo 4:22, Deu 14:1, Isa 63:16, Isa 64:8, Jer 3:19, Jer 31:20, Eze 16:20, Eze 16:21, Mal 1:6
Reciprocal: Gen 6:2 – the sons Deu 23:2 – General Deu 32:5 – their spot Deu 32:6 – thy father Isa 48:2 – and stay Hos 2:4 – children of Mal 2:10 – hath Mal 3:2 – who may abide Mar 7:6 – honoureth Joh 8:54 – ye say Joh 9:34 – wast Rom 2:17 – makest 2Th 2:9 – is
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
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The Jews would swing back and forth from one position to another, as they felt the need to keep up their defence. When they thought, it was to their credit to be the children of Abraham, they were inclined to boast of it. They knew that Jesus would not say anything against Abraham, yet he implied by this last statement that they were begotten of some unknown man; one among the morally promiscuous. Then they changed their base and denied any parentage but that of God.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Joh 8:41. Ye do the works of your father. Yet the principle of Joh 8:39 cannot but be true: certainly they are doing the works of their father.
They said to him, We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. The words of Jesus have made two things clear:(1) He is not referring to national origin, but to spiritual descent; and (2) the father whose sons Jesus declares them to be is not good but evil. In answer to this they indignantly assert that they are sons of God. Their spiritual is as undoubted as their natural descent. Whatever may be the case with others (the word we is strongly emphatic), there is no stain on our origin. We cannot but think that some antithesis is distinctly present to the thought of the Jews as they use the words we and one And if we bear in mind the regular meaning which the word fornication bears in Old Testament prophecy, when used in such a connection as this, viz. the unholy alliance with idols instead of Jehovah (Jer 3:1, etc.), it will appear very probable that Joh 8:48 gives the clue to the meaning here. Jesus was called a Samaritan. Samaritans were taunted with their descent from men who feared Jehovah and served their own gods (2Ki 17:33). This thought, not yet plainly expressed, but existing in their minds, explains at once the emphatic we, the reference to fornication, and the stress laid on one Father.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
In the former verses the Jews made their boast that they were the children of Abraham: in these that they are the children of God. We have one Father, even God. This our Saviour disproves, telling them, that if God were their Father, they would love him, as proceeding from him by eternal generation; and in his office employed by him as Mediator. Also, if God were their father, they would understand him speaking from God; whereas now they were so transported with malice, that they could not endure his doctrine with patience, though it came from God. All which were undeniable proofs, that they were not the children of God.
Hence learn, That none can justly pretend any interest in God as his children, but they that love Christ, as being the express image of his Father’s person, and do hear and receive his doctrine, as coming from God: this the Jews did not do; therefore, says Christ, they are not the children of God.
Observe farther, Having told them whose children they are not, our Saviour tells them plainly whose children they were, Ye are of your Father, the devil. This appears by their being actuated by him, by their resembling and imitating of him; their inclinations, dispositions, and actions, being all to fullfil the lusts of the devil. Now, as his servants we are, whom we obey; so his children we are, whom we resemble.
Learn hence, That men’s sinful practices will prove them to be Satan’s children, let their profession be what it will; if in the temper of their minds, and in the actions of their lives, there by a conformity to Satan’s disposition, and a ready compliance with his temptations, they are certainly his children, what pretensions soever they make of being the children of God. None could pretend higher to the relation of God’s children than the Jews did: yet, says Christ, Ye are the children of the devil, for his works ye do.
Note hence, That the devil hath the relation of a father to all wicked men: and this fatherhood doth not proceed from the act of the father, but of the children; for the devil doth not make wicked men his children by begetting them: but they make the devil their father, by imitating of him.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Joh 8:41-43. Ye do the deeds of your father By your deeds ye show whose children ye are. They said, We be not born of fornication We are not bastard Jews, a mixed, spurious blood, descended from Gentile idolaters or apostate Israelites; nor are we ourselves worshippers of idols: but have one Father, even God Whose true children we are, by virtue of our descent from his people, and our profession of his religion. It seems that they perceived, at length, that Jesus spake not so much of natural as of spiritual lineage; and that they alluded to the marriage-covenant, which, in Scripture, is said to have subsisted between God and the Jewish nation, and by which their obligation to reverence, love, and obey him, was represented as fidelity to their heavenly husband, and their violation of that obligation, as spiritual whoredom. Jesus said, If God were your Father And you were his genuine children, as you profess to be; you would love me And therefore would be far from forming designs to take away my life; for I proceeded forth and came from God Greek, , I proceeded, namely, originally, and do come from God, and appear among you as his messenger. Neither came I of myself As the false prophets did, who had neither their mission nor message from God; but he sent me As is evident from the many proofs of my mission, which I am daily giving you. Observe, reader, all that really have God for their Father, have a true love to the Lord Jesus, an esteem for his person, a grateful sense of his love, a sincere regard for his cause and interest, a complacency in the salvation effected by him, and in the method and terms of it, and a care to keep his commandments, which is the surest evidence of our love to him. We are here in a state of probation: and God is trying, so to speak, how we will conduct ourselves toward him; and we shall be treated accordingly in a state of retribution. God has taken various methods to prove mankind, and this was one: he sent his Son into the world with sufficient proofs both of his Sonship and mission, concluding that all, who called him Father, would kiss his Son, and bid him welcome, who was firstborn among many brethren. By this our adoption will be proved or disproved, namely, by our loving, or not loving Christ. Why do ye not understand my speech What is the reason that you do not comprehend the true meaning of the things which I have spoken to you? Even because Or, interrogatively, Is it not because ye cannot hear my word Cannot give obedience thereto, it being contrary to your lusts? Not being desirous to do my will, you cannot understand my doctrine, chap. Joh 7:17. Or, as Dr. Campbell renders the clause, Ye cannot bear my doctrine. For, the verb, , denotes frequently in Scripture, and even in profane authors, not barely to hear, but to hear patiently; consequently, not to hear, often means not to bear. The English verb, to hear, has also sometimes the same meaning.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Vv. 41b-43. They said therefore to him: We are not children born in fornication; we have only one father, God. 42. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, you would love me; for I came forth and am come from God; for neither am I come of myself, but he sent me. 43. Why do you not recognize my speech? Because you cannot understand my word. The Jews now accept the moral sense in which Jesus takes the notion of sonship and use it in their own behalf: Let us not speak any more of Abraham, if thou wilt have it so; whatever it may be, in the spiritual domain, of which it seems that thou art thinking, it is God alone who is our Father. And we have been able to receive in His house only good examples and good principles. We, , at the beginning of the clause; persons such as we are! From the time of the return from the captivity (comp. the books of Nehemiah and Malachi), the union with a Gentile woman was regarded as impure, and the child born of such a marriage as illegitimate, as belonging through one of its parents to the family of Satan, the God of the heathen. It is probably in this sense that the Jews say: We have only one Father, God. They were born in the most normal theocratic conditions; they have not a drop of idolatrous blood in their veins; they are Hebrews, born of Hebrews (Php 3:5). Thus, even when rising with Jesus to the moral point of view, they cannot rid themselves altogether of their idea of physical sonship. Meyer, Ewald and Weiss think that they mean that their common mother, Sarah, was not a woman guilty of adultery. But how could a supposition like this come to their thought! Lucke and de Wette suppose rather that they assert the fact that their worship is free from any idolatrous element. But the question here is of origin, not of worship. It would be possible, according to the sense which we have given, that they were alluding to the Samaritans born of a mingling of Jewish and heathen populations.
But Jesus does not hesitate to deprive them even of this higher prerogative, which they think they can ascribe to themselves with so much of assurance. And He does this by the same method which He has just employed, in Joh 8:40, to deny their patriarchal filiation: He lays down a moral fact against which their claim is shattered. By virtue of His origin, of which He is distinctly conscious (Joh 8:14), Jesus knows that His appearing carries with it a divine seal. Every true child of God will be disposed to love Him. Their ill-will towards Him is, consequently, enough to annihilate their claim to the title of children of God. The true translation of the words: , is: It is from God that I came forth and am here, (, present formed from a perfect). Jesus presents Himself to the world with the consciousness that nothing in Him weakens the impression which the heavenly abode that He has just left must make upon accessible souls. , I came forth, refers to the divine fact of the incarnation; , I am here, to the divine character of His appearing. And along with His origin and His presence, there is also His mission which He has from God: For neither am I come of myself.
This second point is fitted to confirm the impression produced by the first ones. He does not accomplish here below a work of His own choice; He continues in the service of that work which God gives to Him at each moment (for…neither). If they loved God, they would without difficulty recognize this character of His coming, His person and His work.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
The Jews rejected Jesus’ claim that they were not genuine children of Abraham. Their reference to fornication may have been a slur on Jesus’ physical paternity. Who was He with His questionable pedigree to deny their ancestry? They then claimed that on the spiritual level God was their father (Exo 4:22; Deu 14:1-2). They apparently believed that Jesus surely could not deny that, though He disputed their connection to Abraham.