Context No. 3112 of 4322 · John

John 8:39-47: in context

39They answered him, “Our father is Abraham.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham. 40But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham didn’t do this. 41You do the works of your father.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father, God.” 42Therefore Jesus said to them, “If God were your father, you would love me, for I came out and have come from God. For I haven’t come of myself, but he sent me. 43Why don’t you understand my speech? Because you can’t hear my word. 44You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and doesn’t stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks on his own; for he is a liar, and the father of lies. 45But because I tell the truth, you don’t believe me. 46Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? 47He who is of God hears the words of God. For this cause you don’t hear, because you are not of God.”

The leaders claim Abraham, and then God, as their father. But Jesus tests the claim: if you were Abraham's children, you would do the works of Abraham; instead you seek to kill me for telling the truth. If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God. Whoever is of God hears the words of God; the reason you do not hear is that you are not of God.

Jesus makes a searching point about spiritual paternity: we are, in truth, children of whatever we imitate and obey. These men claimed God as Father, but they were doing the works of the devil, seeking to kill and refusing the truth, and so revealed whose children they really were. Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The test of our true father is not our claim but our conduct and our response to the truth: do we love it and receive it, or resist it? What we actually do reveals whose children we are.

Do my actions and my response to the truth show that I am truly a child of God, or do I claim him as Father while doing otherwise?

Sources

John 8:44: "You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father."
John 8:47: "He who is of God hears the words of God."
1 John 3:10: "In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil... whoever doesn't do righteousness is not of God."