Saying they were the spiritual children of God (John 8:41) meant that these Jewish authorities knew the will of God and did the will of God. In other words, they thought and acted in the same manner they believed God would. Otherwise, the relationship between man and God has no meaning, because God didn’t physically beget human children. The Jewish faith isn’t anything like the Greek religion, where gods rape one another, kill one another and show themselves as having the same lusts as mankind. However, although they understood a child of God is one spiritually, Jesus told them their statement that they were children of God couldn’t be true. Had they really been God’s children, they would have loved Jesus, for he had come to them from God as his physical representative. Jesus came willingly to witness to them, because God had sent him (John 8:42). Therefore, how could they be God’s children, if they didn’t believe the very one God had sent to them? Then Jesus asked: “Why don’t you understand my speech?” and immediately he answered his own question, saying: “Because you cannot hear my word!” (John 8:43).
The Greek word for speech is lalia (G2981). The same word is used to identify Peter as a Galilean, because of the way he talked (Matthew 26:73). The Pulpit Commentary tells us that this same Greek word “is used for any manifestation of sound: a voice, the babble of children, the cries and songs of beasts or birds…” If one listens intently one can understand what children want. They may be hungry, want to be held, desire a toy etc. When a beast cries out or a bird chirps out its song, they may be announcing their fear, identifying their territory, courting a hopeful mate, or they may simply be at play etc. So, if the Jewish authorities listened intently to Jesus, rather than seeking to find fault, they would have understood his claim of origin (cp. Matthew 25:73 above) and his purpose.
The Greek word logos (G3056), which is translated word in the text, denotes reasoning power. Beasts and birds don’t communicate with words, so they have no advanced communicative reasoning power, but humans do. Yet, Jesus’ enemies couldn’t understand his speech, because they were of the flesh, and he of the spirit (John 3:6). Jesus reasoned with them, but God wasn’t speaking to them (John 6:44-45) to draw them to Jesus, because they weren’t putting themselves in a place where they would listen to God. Instead of listening to Jesus’ speech (John 8:43), and knowing his origin (cp. John 3:1-2) and believing God sent him with a message (cp. John 3:11-12), they sought for an opportunity to seize him and kill him (John 7:25). How could anyone behaving in such a manner be willing to listen for what God might tell him?
When folks begin with a certain worldview of the spirit world, it is difficult for them to see another worldview of spirits, when spirits are the subject of a discussion. Gentiles came out of the Greek worldview of the spirit world, and mistakenly read that worldview into the Bible, when it mentioned Satan and demons etc. Therefore, since this wasn’t corrected, many folks, even today, seem to believe that, when the Jewish authorities stubbornly rejected Jesus’ claim to his origin, he then resorted to an ad hominem slur, telling them they were of their father the Devil (John 8:44).
Nevertheless, the Bible never once speaks of an evil spirit being called the Devil or Satan. Those words mean slanderer (devil) and enemy (satan). In other words, the words describe the spiritual mood of human persons. For example, when two of David’s friends offered him evil advice, he called them his adversaries (2Samuel 19:22), and the same word translated adversaries is translated Satan in 1Chronicles 21:1 for no apparent reason other than the worldview of the translator.
In the case at hand, Jesus was referring to Adam, he was the father of lies. He lied to Eve about God, and in doing so, he not only murdered her but, in effect, the entire human race. Adam murdered humanity, and the Jewish authorities were murdering the very nation they led, because they refused to listen to the very one God sent to them to save them. Jesus claimed they would rather believe what the slander (the flesh/Adam) said against him than the truth he offered them.
Jesus concluded by saying because he tells them the truth, they don’t believe, and why? Not one of them was able to prove any of the lies (slander) they said about him, because Jesus told the truth and was able to support his claims. His miracles proved God was with him. Only those who are of God are able to hear him (cp. John 6:44-45). Yet, these men, these leaders of the nation, cannot hear him, because they’d rather believe lies (John 8:45-47).
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22 responses to “You Are of Your Father, the Devil!”
Communication is more than debate or dialogue. Communication should also draw out the emotion, the “amygdala”, not to slander the adversary, but to bring forth light and understanding. In the beginning the Spirit hovered over the darkness and God said. Let their be light. The idea that the Spirit was/is female engaged to be married to Christ the Everlasting Father to raise a divine human family, Christ the Son of God, provokes an emotional response. The idea of the Spirit being female brings goddess Ishtar to mind who delighted in bodily love, and protected prostitutes and patrons of alehouses.
I don’t share your opinion that the Spirit of God is female. Indeed, God has both what we might term masculine and feminine characteristics, but he isn’t a goddess. Nor could we describe him with certainty as masculine. The pronoun ‘he’ is used for him, probably because ‘it’ would be disrespectful. To describe him as ‘she’ as well as ‘he’ would bring him down to a fleshy level, and that wouldn’t be respectful either. Rather it is for us, both male and female to image him in our own gender and allow the world to see him in us.
While I agree that communication involves emotion, emotion isn’t the whole of it, because if it were, one could never disagree for fear of hurting the feeling of one’s opponent, or it would cause the whole to be so full of emotion that wrath would be the result, and that is never correct. There is a place for a stoic approach, especially when discussing a subject that has a lot of emotional baggage (abortion, pro and con, comes to mind).
Marriage in humanity is to bring the two to a state of being one. God is ONE. He doesn’t need to get married (the Spirit and Christ, the Everlasting Father). With respect to mankind, yes, a marriage must take place to bring man into a oneness relationship with God. This is what imaging him is all about.
Hi Eddie! Greetings from Virginia.
I’m still finding it a challenge to reject the concept of the devil. What is it then that drives the concept of demons? Christ confronted them and sent them into the pack of hogs. Personally, we have experienced manifestations that we perceived as demonic. I won’t go into details here. I have always ‘felt’ that the concept of a ghost may be a demonic manifestation; particulary since ghosts are themselves fantasy and should hold no place in the life of a Christian.
When Jesus was tempted in the desert was that story a parable?
You know I am asking serious questions and am in no way trying to purport a theology or argue.
Best Regards
Dave
Greetings Dave, and thanks for reading and your questions, and I don’t ever perceive you as a person holding tightly to a more comfortable belief and want to argue it with me. You have always been an honest man in my presence. Lord bless you.
I’m still finding it a challenge to reject the concept of the devil.
So, did I in the beginning. However, I searched for a time when angels could have rebelled, and I didn’t find a context for an angelic rebellion anywhere in the scriptures. For one thing, angels don’t seem to have been created with free will. They are simply messengers sent out from the Lord to minister to man.
What is it then that drives the concept of demons? Christ confronted them and sent them into the pack of hogs. Personally, we have experienced manifestations that we perceived as demonic. I won’t go into details here. I have always ‘felt’ that the concept of a ghost may be a demonic manifestation; particulary since ghosts are themselves fantasy and should hold no place in the life of a Christian.
I too have witnessed a ‘supposed’ manifestation of demon possession. But, I interpreted it as ‘demonic’ because that is what I was taught to believe. It was also ‘suggested’ to me prior to my witness of it. Nevertheless, it is the word of God that answers any argument we may have. When did the angels rebel and become demons? There simply isn’t a time allotted in the scriptures whereby they could have rebelled against God. He created everything in the heavens and the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh. When did the ‘supposed’ angelic rebellion take place and why? There is no legitimate answer to this question. I’ve asked it of myself in my studies and have come up empty. If someone, anyone, could show me **with scripture** when the event took place, I’ll bow to that understanding.
When Jesus was tempted in the desert was that story a parable?
It isn’t a parable, but once again we have a ‘time’ problem. John doesn’t permit a literal temptation of 40 days in the wilderness, because three days after his baptism, Jesus is in Cana of Galilee. Check it out! So, how was Jesus tempted and by whom? A study of the early chapters of the Synoptics reveal he was tempted by the scribes and Pharisees. He was tempted for 40 days in a wilderness of people (cp. Ezekiel 20:35). I have a study on this: Jesus’ Temptation in the Wilderness.
Lord bless you, Dave.
I can see your point. God is ONE. So why would God the Everlasting Father get married if He is the three in One, the Spirit, the Father and the only generated Son who declared: I AM the Light of the World. The Hebrew uses the feminine word Ruach for the Spirit hovering over the deep dark water. Her hovering generated the Father’s [thunderous] words. “Let there be light.” Light and thunder are two who work as ONE to bring Jesus to life as the second person of the Trinity. Would not the 3rd person be his Mother, the Light?