John 8:38 - Meaning and Application

Here Christ and the Jews are still at odds. He is trying to persuade and change them, while they keep arguing against him. He shows that the difference between him and them comes from a different source. Jesus says, “I speak what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father” (John 8:38). Two fathers are in view here, the two family lines that divide all people, God and the devil. They are completely opposed to each other.

Christ’s teaching came from heaven. It was drawn from the wise plans of God and the loving purpose of eternal grace. “I speak what I have seen” means that what Christ reveals about God and the life to come is not guesswork or rumor. He knows it by direct sight, so he speaks with full truth and certainty. The one sent as a witness to the people is an eyewitness, and therefore cannot be challenged.

“I have seen with my Father” means more than hearing words from God. Christ’s teaching is not just a likely idea backed by strong arguments. It is a perfect match for the sure truths in God’s eternal mind. He not only heard from the Father, but saw, as it were, what was there when the counsel of peace was between them both. Moses spoke what he heard from God, but he did not see God’s face. Paul was caught up to the third heaven, but what he saw there he could not and must not repeat. It was Christ’s unique role to speak what he had seen.

Their actions came from hell. “You do what you have heard from your father” means, in effect, that their deeds showed who they belonged to. By their own works, they were proving their father. It was easy to tell who they resembled, and therefore easy to trace their origin. As children learn their father’s speech and manners, and come to resemble him by imitation, so these Jews made themselves like the devil. Their hostile refusal of Christ and the gospel showed that they had set him before them as their pattern.

Christ also answers their proud claim that Abraham and God were their fathers, and shows how empty that claim was. They said, “Abraham is our father” (John 8:39). They meant to honor themselves and make themselves look important. They had forgotten the humbling confession required of Israel, “My father was a wandering Aramean” (Deuteronomy 26:5). They also ignored the accusation against their sinful ancestors, whose steps they were following, “Your father was an Amorite, and your mother was a Hittite” (Ezekiel 16:3). When families are declining, they often boast most about their lineage. The same is true of corrupt churches, which often value themselves on age and first founders. “We were Trojans, there was once Troy,” as the old saying goes.

They also wanted to cast blame on Christ, as if he were insulting Abraham by speaking of the devil as their father. See how they looked for a reason to quarrel with him. Christ answers with a clear argument: Abraham’s children do Abraham’s works, but they were not doing Abraham’s works, so they were not truly Abraham’s children.

The argument is plain. If they were Abraham’s children in the full sense, meaning heirs of the covenant God made with Abraham and his seed, then they would do what Abraham did. God promised to bless only those in Abraham’s house who kept the way of the Lord, as Abraham did (Genesis 18:19). Only those who walk in Abraham’s faith and obedience are counted as his true seed, and the promise belongs to them (Romans 4:12). The Jews had careful family records, but that alone could not prove their real relation to Abraham. They could not claim the benefit of the covenant unless they shared his spirit. In the same way, women are shown to be Sarah’s daughters only if they do what is right, and not otherwise (1 Peter 3:6). Those who want to prove they are Abraham’s seed must not only share Abraham’s faith, but also do Abraham’s works (James 2:21-22). They must obey God’s call as Abraham did, give up their dearest comforts to him, live as strangers and pilgrims in this world, keep up family worship, and walk honestly before God. These were Abraham’s works.

The second part of the argument is just as clear: they were not doing Abraham’s works, because they were trying to kill Jesus, a man who had told them the truth he had heard from God, and Abraham never did such a thing (John 8:40). Christ first exposes what they were doing right then. They were seeking his life. That made their sin heavier in three ways. They were being unnatural, because they wanted to kill a man like themselves, bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh, who had done them no harm. They were being ungrateful, because they wanted to kill one who had told them the truth and shown them great kindness. He had not deceived them with lies, but had taught them the most necessary truths. They were being ungodly, because they wanted to kill one who brought them God’s message. To strike at him was, in effect, to strike against God.

Christ then shows that this did not fit Abraham’s character. Abraham did nothing like this. He was known for his kindness, as when he rescued the captives, and for his devotion, as when he obeyed God’s call in many hard matters. Abraham believed God, but they were stubborn in unbelief. Abraham followed God, but they fought against him. Because they were so unlike him, he would not have recognized them as his own (Isaiah 63:16; Jeremiah 22:15-17).

We should use that same reasoning to turn away from any path of evil. Would Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob have done this? If we are never like them, we cannot expect to be with them.

The conclusion follows naturally: whatever their boasts and claims, they were not Abraham’s children in the true sense (John 8:41). They had another father, because they did the works of another family and shared its spirit. He did not yet say plainly that he meant the devil, until their constant objections forced him to explain it more clearly. That teaches us to treat even wicked people with civility and respect, and not to be quick to say harsh things to them, even when they are true.

He first let their own consciences draw the conclusion. It is better to hear now, while we are being called to repent, that we must change our father and our family by changing our spirit and our way of life, than to hear it from Christ on the great day. Yet they were not humbled by his words. Instead, they claimed an even higher family tie, saying they were not born of sexual sin, but had God himself as their Father.

Some take this claim literally. They were not the sons of a slave woman, as Ishmael was, nor children born from incest, as the Moabites and Ammonites were (Deuteronomy 23:3). They were born in lawful marriage and could call God Father, since he established that honorable order in innocence. In that sense, a lawful and undefiled family line is called a seed of God (Malachi 2:15).

Others understand their words in a spiritual sense. They were now beginning to realize that Christ was speaking about a spiritual father, not a fleshly one, the father of their religion. So they denied that they were a generation of idolaters, saying they had not been born of fornication and had not been raised in false worship. Scripture often speaks of idolatry as spiritual unfaithfulness, and idolaters as children of that unfaithfulness (Hosea 2:4; Isaiah 57:3).

If they meant they were not descended from idolaters, that was false, because the Jewish nation had been deeply given to idolatry before the exile. If they meant only that they themselves were not idolaters, that was no proof of safety. A person may avoid idolatry and still perish in another sin, and still be shut out from Abraham’s covenant. A rebellious prodigal son will be disowned even if he is not born of sexual sin.

They also boasted that they were true worshipers of the true God. They said they had not many fathers, as the heathen did, with many gods and many lords. Rather, they had one Lord and one Father, and so all must be well with them. But people deceive themselves badly when they think that professing the true religion will save them, even if they do not worship God in spirit and in truth and are not faithful to what they profess.

Christ answers this false claim fully in John 8:42-43 and gives two reasons why they had no right to call God Father. First, they did not love Christ. If God were truly their Father, they would love him. He had already shown that they were not Abraham’s children by their attempt to kill him (John 8:40). Here he shows that they were not God’s children because they did not love or receive him.

A person may still seem like Abraham’s child if he does not openly oppose Christ by gross sin. But no one can truly prove himself to be God’s child unless he is a faithful friend and follower of Christ. All who have God as their Father truly love Jesus Christ. They value his person, are thankful for his love, love his cause and kingdom, rejoice in the salvation he has won, and want to keep his commandments. That is the clearest sign of our love for him.

We are now in a time of testing. God is proving us by the way we respond to our Maker, and the future state of reward will match that response. One way God tests us is by sending his Son into the world with clear proof of who he is and where he came from. Those who call God Father should welcome his Son, the firstborn among many brothers (John 1:5). Our adoption will be shown, or denied, by this question, did we love Christ or not? If anyone does not love him, he is far from being a child of God, and stands under a curse (1 Corinthians 16:22).

Christ says they should love him because he came from God. He says, “I came from God.” This means his divine origin, his coming from the Father by sharing the divine nature, and also the joining of the divine Word with his human nature. Since he is the beloved Son of the Father, he should be loved by all who are born of God (Ephesians 1:6).

He also says that he was sent by God, coming as God’s messenger to the world. He did not come on his own, like the false prophets who had no true mission or message from God (Jeremiah 23:21). He stresses this clearly: “I came from God; I did not come on my own, but he sent me.” He had both his authority and his instructions from God. He came to gather together the children of God (John 11:51) and to bring many sons to glory (Hebrews 2:10). Surely all God’s children should welcome such a messenger from their Father. But these Jews showed that they were unlike God by their lack of affection for Jesus Christ.

Second, they did not understand him. It was a sign that they did not belong to God’s family that they did not understand the family speech: “You do not understand my speech” (John 8:43). Christ’s words were heavenly, yet clear enough to anyone familiar with his voice in the Old Testament. Those who knew the Creator’s word well needed no other key to the Redeemer’s speech. Still, these Jews treated Christ’s teaching as strange and hard to follow, and they stumbled over it.

Could a Galilean be recognized by his speech? Could an Ephraimite be known by his “Shibboleth”? And would anyone dare call God Father if the Son of God was like a stranger to him, even while speaking God’s will in the words of God’s Spirit? Those who are not familiar with God’s speech have reason to fear that they are strangers to God’s nature.

Christ spoke the words of God (John 3:34) in the language of God’s kingdom. Yet those who claimed to belong to that kingdom did not understand its ways or meaning. They treated his words like strangers would, and even mocked them.

The reason they did not understand Christ’s speech made their guilt worse. He says, “You cannot hear my word,” meaning, “You will not bring yourselves to listen carefully, fairly, and without prejudice.” This “cannot” is really a stubborn refusal. The Jews could not hear Stephen (Acts 7:57) or Paul (Acts 23:22) in the same way.

The deep dislike of human hearts for Christ’s teaching is the true reason people stay ignorant of it and make mistakes about it. They do not like it or love it, so they will not understand it. It is like Peter, who said he did not know what the servant girl was saying (Matthew 26:70), when in truth he did not know how to answer her.

“You cannot hear my words,” because you have stopped up your ears (Psalm 58:4-5). And God, in fair judgment, has made their ears dull (Isaiah 6:10).

After showing that they were not truly children of Abraham or of God, Jesus now tells them plainly whose children they were: “You are of your father the devil” (John 8:44). If they were not God’s children, then they were the devil’s, because God and Satan divide the human race. That is why the devil is said to be at work in the children of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2).

All wicked people are the devil’s children, children of Belial, that is, worthless and godless people (2 Corinthians 6:15), the serpent’s seed (Genesis 3:15), and the children of the evil one (Matthew 13:38). They share his nature, bear his likeness, obey his orders, and follow his example. Idolaters once said to a piece of wood, “You are my father” (Jeremiah 2:27). This is a severe charge, and it sounds terrible that any human beings, especially people within the church, should be called children of the devil. So our Savior proves it fully.

He proves it first by a general argument: “The desires of your father you want to do.” You do the devil’s desires, the things he wants you to do. You please him, give in to his temptations, and are taken captive by him to do his will. More than that, you do even those desires that the devil himself carries out.

The devil tempts people toward fleshly desires and worldly desires, but as a spirit he cannot carry them out himself. His own special sins are spiritual evils, the sins of the mind and thought, along with pride, envy, anger, and hatred. He hates what is good and lures others into evil. These are the desires the devil fulfills, and those ruled by them look like him, just as a child looks like a parent. The more sin involves thought, planning, and secret delight, the more it resembles the devil’s own desires.

He also says, “You will do the desires of your father.” The more the will agrees with these sins, the more of the devil is in them. When someone sins by choice, not by surprise, with pleasure rather than reluctance, and keeps on doing it with boldness and stubborn resolve, then that person is doing the devil’s desires. As Dr. Hammond puts it, “The desires of your father you delight to do.” They are like a sweet morsel held under the tongue.

Jesus then gives two clear examples where they plainly resembled the devil, murder and lying. The devil is an enemy of life, because God is the God of life and life is man’s happiness. He is also an enemy of truth, because God is the God of truth and truth holds human society together.

The devil “was a murderer from the beginning,” not from the beginning of his own existence, because he was created as an angel of light and once had a good and pure state. Rather, it was from the beginning of his rebellion, which began soon after man was created. He was a man-slayer. He hated mankind in his heart, and so he was a murderer in affection and purpose. He took his name, Satan, from a word meaning hatred. He hated God’s image in man, envied man’s happiness, and wanted his ruin. He was openly against the whole human race.

He was also man’s tempter to the sin that brought death into the world, and in that way he became the real murderer of all mankind, which in Adam had only one head. He murdered souls by deceiving them into sin and then killing them by it (Romans 7:11). He poisoned man with the forbidden fruit, and, to make it worse, made man his own murderer. So he has been a murderer not only at the beginning, but from the beginning. That shows this has been his work ever since. As he began, so he continues, murdering men by his temptations. The great tempter is the great destroyer. The Jews called the devil the angel of death.

He was also the first moving force behind the first murder ever committed, when Cain killed his brother Abel, and Cain “was of the evil one” (1 John 3:12). If the devil had not been strong in Cain, Cain could not have done such a cruel and unnatural thing as killing his own brother. Since the devil drove Cain to kill his brother, the devil is rightly called the murderer. That does not make Cain less guilty, but it shows the devil’s guilt even more. His punishment will be greater when the time comes, for all the evil he has led people into. We should guard ourselves against the devil’s tricks and never listen to him, because he is a murderer and always means harm, even when he speaks kindly. It is striking that the one who murders the children of men can still, by their own consent, rule over them so much.

These Jews were following him here, too, and were murderers like him. They murdered souls by leading them blindly into destruction and making them children of hell. They were sworn enemies of Christ and were now ready to betray and kill him, for the same reason Cain killed Abel. These Jews were that seed of the serpent that would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman. “Now you seek to kill me.”

The devil was also a liar. A lie stands against truth (1 John 2:21), and so the devil is described here as an enemy of truth, and therefore of Christ.

First, he is a deserter from the truth. He did not remain in the truth. He did not continue in the purity and uprightness of the nature in which he was created, but left his first state. When he turned from goodness, he turned from truth, because his rebellion was built on a lie. The angels were the Lord’s armies, but those who fell were not loyal to their commander and King. They could not be trusted, because they were marked by folly and rebellion (Job 4:18).

By “the truth” here, we can understand God’s revealed will about saving people through Jesus Christ, the truth Christ was preaching and the Jews were resisting. In this, they acted like their father, the devil. When God honored human nature in the first Adam, and planned even greater honor in the second Adam, the devil would not accept that purpose of God or stay with the truth about it.

Instead, from pride and envy, he set himself against it and tried to ruin it. So these Jews did the same thing as his children and agents. Christ then shows that the devil is cut off from truth itself: “There is no truth in him.” His power in the world is held up by lies and falsehoods. Nothing in him can truly be trusted, and nothing he says or does can be relied on.

The ideas he spreads about good and evil are false. His signs are lying wonders, and his temptations are all tricks. He knows the truth, but he has no love for it. Since he is a sworn enemy of truth, it is said that no truth lives in him.

He is also a friend and supporter of lying. “When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own.” Three things are said here about the devil and the sin of lying. First, he is a liar. His oracles were lying oracles, his prophets were lying prophets, and the images he was worshiped through taught lies. He tempted our first parents with a straight lie. All his temptations work through lies, calling evil good and good evil, and promising safety in sin. He knows they are lies, and he uses them to deceive and destroy.

When he later opposed the gospel through the scribes and Pharisees, he did it with lies. When he later corrupted it through the man of sin, meaning the great lawless figure who opposes God, he did it through strong delusions and a huge, tangled lie. Second, when he speaks a lie, he speaks “of his own,” from himself, not from God. God never put lying into him. When people lie, they borrow it from the devil, because Satan fills hearts to lie (Acts 5:3).

But when the devil lies, the pattern comes from his own mind, and the motives come from himself. This shows how deeply evil those fallen spirits have become. In their first fall, they had no tempter, so their wickedness was entirely their own. Third, he is the father of lies. That means he is the source of every lie, not only the lies he suggests himself, but also the lies others speak. He is the maker and source of all lies. When people lie, they speak from him and as his mouth. Their lies first came from him and carry his image.

He is also the father of liars. God made human beings with a natural bent toward truth. Reason, common sense, the way our minds work, and the needs of society all call for truthfulness. But the devil, the author of sin, has so corrupted human nature that wicked people are described as being estranged from birth and speaking lies (Psalm 58:3). He has taught their tongues to use deceit (Romans 3:13). He is the father of liars because he produced them, trained them in lying, and they resemble and obey him. All liars will share his final judgment forever.

Christ has now shown that all murderers and all liars are children of the devil, and leaves it to the consciences of his hearers to see the truth about themselves. Yet in the next verses he helps them apply it. He does not directly call them liars, but shows that they were no friends of truth. In that, they resembled the one who did not remain in the truth, because there is no truth in him.

He charges them with two things. First, they would not believe the word of truth (John 8:45). This can mean two things. It may mean, “Even though I tell you the truth, you will not believe that I do.” He had given clear proof of his mission from God and his love for people, yet they would not believe him. In that case, truth had fallen in the streets, as in (Isaiah 59:14, 15). Even the greatest truths won little trust from them, because they rebelled against the light (Job 24:13).

Or it may mean, “Because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me.” That is, they refused to accept him as a prophet because he told them hard truths they did not want to hear. He told them the truth about themselves and their own condition. He held up a mirror that would not flatter them, so they rejected everything he said. It is a terrible thing when divine truth becomes a torment to someone.

To show how unreasonable their unbelief was, Jesus puts the matter to a fair test (John 8:46). Since he and they stood opposite each other, either he was wrong or they were. So take it either way. If he were in error, why did they not prove it? False prophets were exposed either by the harmful nature of their teaching (Deuteronomy 13:2) or by the bad character of their lives. “You will know them by their fruits.” But Christ asks, “Which of you convicts me of sin?” He means, which of you can prove I have taught or done anything sinful?

They had accused him of many serious crimes, gluttony, drunkenness, blasphemy, breaking the Sabbath, and working with Satan. But those charges were malicious lies, and everyone who knew him knew they were false. Even after they used trickery, false witnesses, and perjury to build a case against him, the judge who sentenced him admitted that he found no fault in him. Christ challenges them here to prove one sin in him, first in his teaching, and second in his conduct.

Could they show that his doctrine was false, inconsistent, or against Scripture? Could they point to any corruption of truth or morals in what he taught? Or could they charge him with any word or deed unfit for a prophet? This shows the wonderful gentleness of our Lord Jesus. He did not ask for belief beyond the reasons that should have persuaded them. Ministers can learn from this to live so carefully that even their strictest observers cannot convict them of sin, so the ministry will not be blamed. The only sure way not to be convicted of sin is not to sin. They should also be willing to welcome close examination. Even when we are sure we are right, we should be ready to have it tested whether we are wrong.

If they were in the wrong, why were they not convinced by him? “If I speak the truth, why do you not believe me?” If they could not prove him mistaken, then they had to admit that he spoke the truth. So why would they not trust him? Why would they not deal honestly with him?

A person who pauses to ask why he does not believe what he cannot answer against will often see the problem clearly. He will find that unbelief in Jesus Christ usually comes from a refusal to give up sin, deny self, and serve God faithfully. In the end, refusal to believe in the Redeemer is really rebellion against the Creator.

Another charge against them is that they would not hear the words of God (John 8:47). This also shows how empty their claim to belong to God was. Jesus lays down this rule: the one who belongs to God hears God’s words. That means, first, he is willing and ready to hear them. He truly wants to know God’s mind and gladly accepts what he learns to be true. God’s words carry such authority, and fit so well with the heart of everyone born of God, that they answer like young Samuel did, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

Second, the one who belongs to God understands God’s words. He hears them in a way that lets him recognize God’s voice in them. The natural person does not do this (1 Corinthians 2:14). He quickly notices God’s own presence when God makes it known, like members of a household who know their master’s footsteps and open the door at once (Luke 12:36). Sheep know their shepherd’s voice and can tell it apart from a stranger’s voice (John 10:4-5; Song of Solomon 2:8).

Jesus then applies this truth to convict these unbelieving Jews: “You do not hear them.” That is, they did not heed, understand, believe, or care about God’s words, because they were not of God. Their deafness and deadness toward God’s words was clear proof that they did not belong to him. God makes himself known and present among us in his word, so the way we respond to his word shows whether we are rightly or wrongly set toward him (2 Corinthians 4:4; 1 John 4:6).

Or, to say it another way, their not being of God was why they did not profit from the words of God that Christ spoke. They did not understand and believe him, not because the message was unclear or lacked proof, but because the hearers were not of God and were not born again. If the word of the kingdom does not bear fruit, the fault lies in the soil, not in the seed, as the parable of the sower shows (Matthew 13:3).