The Truthful Reply
“Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I speak the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God” John 8:42-47
In our passage Jesus is facing a mob. Some of their leaders have already decided that He is leading Israel astray and ought to be killed. Several want to see it happen as soon as opportunity presents itself. A party has already been sent to arrest him but have failed (7:30-32,44-46). The people are almost ready to stone him (8:59). This is a man facing a hostile crowd bent on murder but bravely speaking up against their hypocrisy.
Jesus’ basic charge against them is that they are trying to kill Him and that this shows they don’t know and certainly don’t follow the one true God. It follows that their claim to be children of Abraham is obviously not true. When someone is wanting to kill, they stand completely apart from God and right in the midst of forces of darkness. The devil opposes God and every good thing in this world. The devil then drives people to commit acts of hatred and destruction and sometimes then inspires them to use religious excuses for their dark and evil behaviour.
The devil is only mentioned three times in John’s gospel and always in relation to people who did his evil work. Apart from the reference here, the other two times Judas Iscariot is the subject (motivated by the devil in 13:2 and to be a devil in 6:70 because he betrayed Jesus). Jesus could rightly say “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire” because the crowd was intent on carrying out the devil’s desire by killing Jesus.
“He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.” In Genesis 3 the devil tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God by a lie. Then their sin spread to their children with Cain murdering Abel.
“When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” The words translated here “he speaks his native language” reads literally ‘he speaks from his own self.’ This again goes back to Genesis 3 where the devil, being true to his own self, to his true nature, introduced sin into the world by a lie, making him “the father of lies.”
“I speak the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?” Jesus is challenging the crowd to expose the sin in Him that they see as their excuse for not believing His words. If they couldn’t prove He was a sinner, they would have to face the possibility He was who He said He was.
“He who belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.” Why does the mob refuse to believe in Him? Because they are of the devil. They listen to the devil and do his work. If they belonged to God, as they claimed, they would hear Jesus’ words as the words of God.
Do you hear Jesus’ words as the words of God? It’s only by ‘remaining’ in Jesus words (8:31) that we prove we are His disciples. If you haven’t already, find a method that helps you apply Jesus’ words to your everyday life (a disciplined way of reading the Scriptures and of praying about what you’ve read). Living in God’s word soon leads to God’s word living in us.
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