Bible Study series: John 8:37-47. Jesus did not hold back.
Friendly greetings and a warm welcome to this Bible study! I write to learn, so let’s learn together how to apply these truths to our lives.
I also translate to learn. The translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click here:
For the Greek text, click here:
At that link, I provide a lot more commentary.
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: John 8:37-47
37 I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill me because my word does not make progress among you. 38 What I have seen from my Father, I speak, yet you therefore do what you hear from the father. 39 In reply, they said to him, “Our father is Abraham.” Jesus said to them, “If you are the children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham. 40 But now you seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you, which I have heard from the Father. Abraham did not do this. 41 You do the works of your father. So they said to him, “We were not born in sexual sin; we have one father—God.” 42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your father, you would love me, for I have come from God and am here present. For neither have I come on my own, but he has sent me. 43 Why do you not understand my way of speaking? Because you are unable to listen to my word. 44 You are from the father, the devil, and you intend to do his strong desire. He was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand in the truth because the truth is not in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks on his own because he is a liar and the father of it. 45 But because I speak the truth, you do not believe me. 46 Does anyone of you convict me of sin? If I speak the truth, why do you not believe me? 47 The one who is of God listens to the words of God. For this reason, you do not listen because you are not of God.” (John 8:37-47)
Comments:
37:
We now begin a debate between fathers: God, Abraham, or the devil.
Jesus knows that biologically, these Jews he is talking with descend from Abraham. However, they are not truly his descendants because they seek to kill him. And why is that? His word or message does not remain in them. (See v. 31 for a deeper look into logos.)
38:
Jesus has a clear and direct line to and from the Father, so Jesus speaks what he hears the Father say. Yet they listen to a different father. Who? He is about to punch them with a hard truth in v. 44.
39:
So they again proclaim the superiority of their ethnic heritage. Abraham is their ancestor. But Jesus drops another truth bomb on them. If they really were his descendants—not just ethnically—they would do the works or deeds of Abraham, which means to put God first. No, it does not mean Abraham behaved perfectly, but at least he surrendered his life and his most precious person (Isaac) to God (Gen. 22). He listened to God and did a good work.
Simple logic: If you are the children of Abraham, you would do the works of Abraham. But you do not do the works of Abraham. Therefore you are not the children of Abraham. How do I know? You seek to kill me. Abraham would not do this (v. 40).
40:
Instead of humbling themselves before God, even to the point of sacrificing their lives to follow Jesus, as Abraham did in sacrificing everything, they seek to kill Abraham. Abraham had said that God would provide a lamb (Gen. 22:8), but instead, God provided a ram (Gen. 22:13). So where is the lamb which Abraham had predicted to be the provision? He is standing right there, talking to them. He is the lamb of God who takes away the sin (singular) of the world (John 1:29).
41:
They do the works of their father, who will be revealed in v. 44. They shot back about sexual immorality and being born from it. This is a reference to Jesus’s questionable birth (questionable by appearances). They did not know the truth of the supernatural birth stories, which we read in Matt. 1-2 and Luke 1-2. Jesus’s name means the “LORD saves” people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). So once again the opponents live in a state of irony, believing that they know more than they do. (See v. 22 for a deeper look at irony).
They also lay claim to God being their father.
42:
No, sorry, Jesus replies. If God were their father, they would love him. Before we move on let’s look at the verb love. It is the verb agapaō (pronounced ah-gah-pah-oh, and the noun is agapē, pronounced ah-gah-pay), and it goes a lot more deeply than a gooey feeling. It means total commitment or giving oneself over to something or someone.
“The term ‘love’ does not intend to refer to emotional or personal affection but to allegiance, commitment, even obedience” Klink, comment on v. 42).
More simple logic: If God were their father, they would love Jesus. But they do not love him; therefore, God is not their father.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. (1 John 5:1)
43:
Another simple piece of logic. Why don’t his opponents understand his way of speaking or his speech or language? Because they do not dig deep and listen to his word or message (see v. 31 for a deeper look at logos).
John’s readers, however, understand that Jesus is the Logos who has tabernacled among them (John 1:1-4, 14). He is the perfect expression of the Father. Yet, these Jews fail to understand who Jesus really and deeply is. He was outside of their small box of oral traditions.
“listen”: The fact that they are quarreling with him indicates their noncompliance and disobedience.
44:
Jesus finally reveals who their father is: the devil. Who is he? In this passage he is a murderer and liar. He was a murderer from the beginning because he was lurking around the garden when he tempted Eve. God said they will surely die if they eat the fruit, but the serpent—later taken to be Satan—lied and said they will not die. Adam and Eve partook of the fruit and they lost immortality and were destined to die. Ever after, the pattern was set. After the Fall, sin—or possibly Satan through sin—was crouching at the door and prompted Cain to murder Abel (Gen. 4:8). Now Satan is prompting the religious authorities to kill Jesus (v. 37).
The religious establishment are following the devil’s strong desire. It can mean “lust.” So it is true to say that the devil lusted to kill Jesus. This idea echoes this verse in Paul’s letter: “None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8, NIV).
The wise of this world, prompted by the devil, were actually foolish. But they still accomplished God’s plan by crucifying the Lord of glory; God vindicated him by raising him from the dead.
Bottom line in this verse:
The devil ≠ the truth
The devil = the lie
The truth is not in him. He may manipulate flawed and shortsighted human ingenuity and make certain things seem truthful, but they are lies from the deeper and fuller perspective.
He is the liar and the father of the lie. In Greek the phrase reads he is the father of “it.” Of what? Of “the lie.” So what is the lie? It bundles up all other lies into one category, “the lie” or “the falsehood.” So many translations say “father of lies”; it would be better if they said “father of the lie.” But I get their point. All lies flow out of his own evil character; taken together, they are all “the lie.”
45:
It would seem that when people listen to the truth, they would be drawn to the speaker, the truth teller, but they often are not. Why not? Because truth is painful. It crushes one’s own lust or strong desires. They were very confident in their ancestry, but Jesus just enlightened them. Their actual father was the devil, and they were enslaved to sin because they commit (present tense participle) sin as a habit. Once anyone is enslaved to sin, they are probably being attacked by the devil. No, the devil does not cause all sin, but he nudges and temps people towards their own sinful desires and to conceive them.
The devil’s “control of the minds and actions of the Jewish leaders is so extensive that it can be truthfully said that he is their father. In contrast, Jesus tells the truth, and it is for this very reason that they do not believe him. They have drink so deeply at the wells of falsehood that they are unable to even recognize the truth. Error has become truth, resulting in a dramatic reversal in which all genuine truth is necessarily judged to be erroneous. When darkness becomes light, all light is darkness” (Mounce, comment on v. 43).
I hope everyone (myself included) can see themselves in that quotation.
I am reminded of this verse: “If therefore ‘the light’ in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matt. 6:33).
Remain in his word. Remain in Jesus. Only then will you remain in the truth.
46:
No one convicts him of sin, and we learn from the rest of Scripture that he is sinless.
Bible Basics about Sin: Word Studies
Why don’t they believe him? He is about to answer his own question.
47:
We have simple logic again. If someone comes from God, they will hear (and heed) Jesus’s words. But they do not listen to (or heed) his words; therefore, they do not come from God. But the logic is also circular. They do not listen to his words because they are not from God. It may be circular, but it is not vicious. The source of their beliefs is the devil and their own shortsighted traditions which block them from hearing, listening to and heeding his words.
“A clearer and more damning conclusion is hardly conceivable. And yet the reader cannot forget that these opponents of Jesus, intentionally unnamed in this verbal exchange, are the epitome of those Jesus came to save and the object of God’s love (3:16)” (Klink, comment on v. 47)
See my posts about Satan in the area of systematic theology:
Bible Basics about Satan and Demons and Victory Over Them
Bible Basics about Deliverance
Magic, Witchcraft, Sorcery, and Fortunetelling
GrowApp for John 8:37-47
1. How has God set you free from the snares and lies of the devil? You may have to mention at least one big lie in your old life, from which you have been freed.
RELATED
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
12. Eyewitness Testimony in John’s Gospel
4. Church Fathers and John’s Gospel
3. Archaeology and John’s Gospel
SOURCES
For the bibliography, click on this link and scroll down to the very bottom:
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 