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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - John 8:44 - 8:44
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44. ὑμεῖς ἐκ τ. π. τ. δ. ἐστέ. At last Christ says plainly, what He has implied in Joh 8:38; Joh 8:41. ‘Ye’ is emphatic; ‘ye, who boast that ye have Abraham and God as your Father, ye are morally the devil’s children.’ 1Jn 3:8; 1Jn 3:10 is perhaps an echo of Christ’s words.
This passage seems to be conclusive as to the real personal existence of the devil. It can scarcely be an economy, a concession to ordinary modes of thought and language. Would Christ have resorted to a popular delusion in a denunciation of such solemn and awful severity? Comp. ‘the children of the wicked one’ (Mat 13:38); ‘ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves’ (Mat 23:15). With this denunciation generally comp. Mat 11:20-24; Mat 23:13-36.
A monstrous but grammatically possible translation of these words is adopted by some who attribute a Gnostic origin to this Gospel;—‘ye are descended from the father of the devil.’ This Gnostic demonology, according to which the father of the devil is the God of the Jews, is utterly unscriptural, and does not suit the context here.
θέλετε ποιεῖν. Ye will to do: see on Joh 6:67, Joh 7:17; comp. Joh 8:40. ‘Ye love to gratify the lusts which characterize him, especially the lust for blood; this shews your moral relationship to him.’ The θέλετε brings out their full consent and sympathy.
ἀνθρωποκτόνος. See on Joh 8:40. The devil was a murderer by causing the Fall, and thus bringing death into the world. In the Gospel of Nicodemus, he is called ἡ τοῦ θανάτου ἀρχή. Comp. ‘God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of His own eternity. Nevertheless, through envy of the devil came death into the world, and they that do hold of his side shall find it’ (Wis 2:23-24): and ‘Cain was of that wicked one and slew his brother:’ and ‘whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer’ (1Jn 3:12; 1Jn 3:15).
οὐχ ἕστηκεν. Standeth not in the truth (Joh 3:29, Joh 6:22, &c.). The true reading however is probably ἔστηκεν, imperf. of στήκειν (Joh 1:26; Rom 14:4), a stronger form; stood firm. The truth is a region from which the devil has long since departed, because truth (no article) is not in him. In S. John the most complete union is expressed by mutual indwelling, ‘I in you, and you in Me:’ this is the converse of it. The devil is not in the truth because truth is not in him: there is absolute separation. The truth cannot be possessed by one who is internally alien to it.
τὸ ψεῦδος. Falsehood as a whole as opposed to ἡ ἀλήθεια as a whole: in English we speak of ‘the truth,’ but not of ‘the falsehood.’ But the article may mean ‘the lie that is natural to him;’ whenever he speaketh his lie.
ἐκ τῶν ἰδίων. Out of his own resources, or nature: the outcome is what may be expected from him: comp. 2Co 3:5.
ὅτι ψ. ἐ. κ. ὁ π. αὐ. Because he is a liar and the father thereof, either of the liar, or of the lie. Thus he lied to Eve, “Ye shall not surely die” (Gen 3:4). The article before πατήρ does not at all prevent πατήρ being included in the predicate. It is, however, possible to take this obscure sentence (comp. Joh 8:26) very differently, and to make ὁ πατήρ the subject of the last clause; Whenever a man speaketh his lie, he speaketh of his own, for his father also is a liar: i. e. a man by lying proclaims himself to be a child of the devil acting in harmony with his parentage. But the change of subject from ‘the devil’ to ‘a man’ understood is very awkward. And here again a monstrous misinterpretation is grammatically possible;—‘for the devil is a liar, and his father also.’ It is not strange that Gnostics of the second and third centuries should have tried to wring a sanction for their fantastic systems out of the writings of S. John. It is strange that any modern critics should have thought demonology so extravagant compatible with the theology of the Fourth Gospel.