JOHN 8:42–47
“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth …”
(John 8:44).
Several themes that thread their way throughout John’s Gospel come into focus in this passage: Jesus as the Word, the truth, and the life, the nature of fallen man and his relation to Satan, and man’s total dependence on God for salvation. Jesus makes two significant remarks concerning the Pharisees and towards the unregenerate in general—that if they were truly God’s children, they would love Him and understand His Word. But because their “foolish hearts are darkened,” they do not understand the things of God. Instead, they focus on the things of their father, Satan.
One thing we learn from Jesus’ comment is that we cannot expect unbelievers to understand the teaching of Christ. Sometimes we get so frustrated by their dullness, by their hostility to the truth, but we can expect nothing else. They are the children of their father, who is a liar and a murderer. These two traits of Satan are put in opposition to the portrait of Jesus in John’s Gospel: He is the truth and the life. Where Satan spreads lies, Jesus is the truth. And where Satan brings death, Christ brings forth life. The inability, therefore, of the Pharisees to know the truth and to recognize it, and their desire to destroy it, is understandable in light of their relation to Satan.
Jesus makes a point to tell the Pharisees that they cannot understand the truth. This is a recurring theme in John. Verses 3:3, 5:44, 6:44, and now 8:43 teach the inability of man to embrace life. You cannot, you cannot, you cannot—this is the message. We are not like the “little engine that could,” huffing and puffing our way up the mountain of life. No amount of work, no amount of effort on our part will enable the light to penetrate our darkened minds. Only God can give us that ability.
Jesus said, “He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God” (John 8:47). This is a sober message to us all. If we continue in our failure to grasp the most basic truths of the faith, then we cannot presume to be a child of God. We might attend church, have made a profession of faith, but if as a rule we fail to understand Christ’s essential teachings, we testily to our true nature as children of Satan.
CORAM DEO
2 Chronicles 17–19
John 15
Read John 8:37–47 and the verses listed below. How are unbelievers portrayed in these passages? Is there a connection between ignorance of God’s ways and wicked behavior? What exhortations are given to the believer in these passages? Make a list of those exhortations. Pray through them today, applying them to yourself.
For further study: Rom. 1:18–32 • Eph. 2:2–10; 4:17–24 • 1 John 2:15–17
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