Jesus spoke with a crowd of religious leaders about who their father is. They tried to associate themselves with the patriarch Abraham, but Jesus said,
If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. (John 8:39)
Their claim to Abraham was based upon physical lineage, not obedience to God’s will. Jesus then affirmed, “You do the deeds of your father.” Whether they knew yet what He meant by this statement, we do not know, but they retorted,
We were not born of fornication; we have one Father – God.(John 8:41)
Oddly enough, He had been speaking to them about God, His Father, throughout their discussion (John 8:16, 18-19, 28-29, 38). What an offense to hear them refer to His Father as their Father, since they rejected Him in most of what they did and said. He plainly declared,
If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.(John 8:42)
His Father was no more their Father than their father was His. A son bears the image of his father. He walked in the image of God, in fact, He was the express image of His person; so much so that He could tell Philip that if he had seen Jesus, then he had seen the Father. The religious leaders of His day bore the image of their father too, but their father was neither God nor Abraham. He declared:
You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. (John 8:44)
I cannot think of a single instance in the Bible where the religious leaders of His day are reported as doing anything beneficial to any but themselves. They were self-serving and cared for no one but themselves. Despite their evangelistic efforts, the proselytes they won learned to be twice a son of hell as they were (Matthew 23:15).
They taught the people to lie to their parents about the money which should be used to minister to their needs, saying it was “devoted to the temple” (Mark 7:11-13).
Stephen would eventually charge these same men with being the murderers of the Son of God, just as their fathers before them were the murderers of the prophets (Acts 7:51-53). Each snapshot of their lives showed them to be a spitting image of their father – the devil.
The Devil’s Character
Jesus tells us a lot about the devil in John 8:44. And we can see all of it played out when he tempted Eve to take of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Prior to that time, at least among men, no lie had ever been told. Adam and Eve were innocent, having no knowledge of evil. They were truthful with each other and with God, and of course God was truthful with them. The devil would not be.
Hear the devil’s words:
Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’ (Genesis 3:1)
He exaggerates the limit-ation. O, how unfair God is being; how would they ever survive on the trees that God permitted them to eat from? The truth is that they could eat from every tree in the garden but one. But that’s not how Satan represented (misrepresented) it.
Eve’s response reveals the he achieved his goal. She added to the Lord’s word, misquoting Him:
You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. (Genesis 3:3)
It was likely a good idea to not touch the tree, but that was not God’s order. With the notion that God was somehow withholding something good from them, Eve added to His command.
She took the bait, now it was time to move in for the kill. As he continued to speak, he suggested that God was holding out on them, and worse, God lied to them.
You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:4-5)
Ahh, He was holding out on them! They only knew good. But Satan presented a way for them to know about evil too! It disturbs me to hear young ones who want to grow up too fast. The innocence of a child is something to be cherished and protected, for once it has been lost, it is not attainable again. Satan presented the loss of innocence as a thing to be achieved – a step in the direction of being more like God. It is the exact opposite. It is possible to know evil without participating in it, but that is the less traveled road. And for Eve, there was no one to observe evil in – she would gain knowledge of it by her own experience.
Oh, what a crafty liar the devil is! God’s command was not unfair. They would die after eating the fruit. Their eyes were open, but it was not for their benefit, for they knew they were naked and were ashamed. They had been created in the image of God; how could disobeying His command help to make them more like God? Yes, it is true that they now knew good and evil, but to what end and at what cost? Later that same day, they were expelled from the garden of Eden, separated from the tree of life, sentenced to a life of sorrow and pain, which would end with the grave. Eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil turned the world upside down that day. Satan seeks to do the same thing in our lives, if we will give an ear to his lies today.
Fortunately, things did not end there. Though Satan has affected all of mankind (Romans 3:23), God has sent Jesus, His Son to undo the sin which results when man listens to the devil. But we need to stop listening to him. We need to turn our attention to the Lord, heed His voice and obey. Disobeying God got us into the mess; obeying Him will get us out of it.
Links: YouVersion | GROW magazine
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