Anchor My Faith

Are You of God?

Scripture: John 8:44-47

Because the previous lesson was getting too long for us to finish this section, we decided to end the lesson in the middle of verse 44, with Jesus telling the Jews why they could not understand him.

Jesus said, ^{Jn 8:44} “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

We will begin this lesson by determining the meaning of “He was a murderer from the beginning.” Looking back to Genesis 2:17, God gives instruction to Adam to not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for if you do you shall surely die. The devil knowing this comes to the garden in the form of a serpent and deceives Adam and Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. At that moment they died spiritually and would die physically later after suffering through a life of sin (Genesis 3).

The sin that Adam committed caused damage to God’s human design that would be passed down to all future humans. “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12 ESV). From the beginning, the devil was a murderer and continues to take unsaved souls to hell with him through death.

Besides being a murderer, he is the father of lies. The devil knew the truth but chose to depart from it and seeks to keep others from the truth and hold them in bondage through deception. Jesus is truth and if we know the truth we will be set free (John 8:32). The devil is doing his best to keep us from the truth with his lies.

Jesus continues: ^{Jn 8:45} But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. ⁴⁶ Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? ⁴⁷ Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

The Jews are used to listening to the lies of the devil and believing what they hear as truth, and so when Jesus speaks the truth they can’t accept it. One of those lies is that Jesus is also a sinner. Jesus asks them to produce convicting evidence of any sin.

Jesus asks them a question and then answers it for them. The question is, “Why do you not believe me?” The answer is, “You are not of God.” If you were of God, you would believe my words.

Conclusion

After hearing Jesus tell these Jews what they were like and who their father was and then seeing their desire to kill him, I can imagine the response from our congregations if Jesus were to stand in our pulpits and speak a similar message to us. If the full truth was spoken as Jesus spoke it, we would have instant persecution in this country. It is our worship of the idols of comfort, security and safety that holds truth in bondage and keeps persecution at a distant.