Why do ye not know my speech? Because ye cannot hear my word.
Jesus has just told these listeners that if God were their Father, they would love Him. Now He asks why His plain words leave them baffled. His own answer moves the problem out of the ear and into the heart: they cannot hear, and so they cannot understand.
The verse names two things, and the second explains the first. One writer separates the outward wording from the message inside it. He traces the failure back to where these men came from.
He set forth the truth, and those who had God for their Father would both love the truth and love Him. His opponents had an evil origin, and could not hear His word — the revelation that He brought. So they were completely unable to understand His speech — the words in which He clothed the revelation. This is what verse 43 tells us.
In ordinary study you learn the words first, and the subject follows. Here the order runs the other way.
They did not understand what He said because they did not take in His thought. In human things you must understand the language, the technical terms, before you understand the thing. But in divine things you must understand the ideas before you understand the words. If I say, "You must be born again," the words do not give an understanding of what it is. Until I know the liberty of Christ, until I have the thing in freedom, no words make me understand what "free" really is.
This also answers a common complaint. When people call the Bible unclear, the problem may not be in its words.
You come to know a speaker's wording by first grasping his thought, his aim, his mind — never the other way round. If the inner purpose is not received, the outer form is unknown. So it was with Jesus speaking to the Jews; so it is above all with the testimony in John's writings now. People complain that the wording is mysterious, because they have no idea of the truth it means.
Nothing Jesus said here used hard words. One writer points to the real problem.
They could not understand His speech because they could not hear His word; it was not the mind but the heart that was all wrong.
That resistance is not confusion. It is a recoil from what the truth exposes.
Why is it that people, then as now, do not understand the Scriptures? Not really because of difficult expressions. It is the truth that grates on the reluctant will of man. This is the source of all unbelief. It is the will refusing to face the terrible fact of man's ruin. It is the pride that rejects God's grace and will not bow to its own need of it. So the guilt of unbelief is not that man's understanding is weak. It is that he does not fear God and does not believe His love.
One writer looks behind their refusal to the power that shaped it.
The hindrance is the blinding power of the devil. He is the source of their thoughts and feelings, just as surely as he is the enemy of Christ. Men's judgments flow from their will and affections, and these are under the sway of His enemy.
If the fault lies in the will, the way back opens through willingness, not cleverness. One writer points to what Jesus said about doing God's will.
The ability to receive and understand the Divine Word lies in being willing to understand it so as to obey it. Our Lord says: "If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority," and "Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."
And that inability is not a locked door.
So then, the Jews were spiritually unable to hear the voice of God… Still, being unable to hear was not beyond cure. There was a Great Physician for those who were not stubborn. He had come to make those who were not wilfully deaf "hear joy and gladness."
- Word before speech. Refuse the message He brings and His words stay a puzzle. Miss His inner purpose and the outer form means nothing.
- Reversed order. In human learning you grasp the words first, then the thing. In divine things you grasp the thing first, or words like "you must be born again" mean nothing.
- Heart, not head. The failure was not a weak mind but a wrong heart. Truth grates on a reluctant will, and that resistance is the source of all unbelief.
- A father behind it. The blinding power of the devil shaped their thoughts and feelings; men's judgments flow from a will under the enemy's sway.
- A remedy, not a verdict. Deafness that is not deliberate has a Physician. Willingness to do God's will opens the ear to know whether the teaching is from God.
Ye are of the devil, as [your] father, and ye desire to do the lusts of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks falsehood, he speaks of what is his own; for he is a liar and its father
Jesus is speaking to men who have just claimed two fathers — Abraham and God Himself — and He answers by naming a third. It gives the Bible's sharpest description of Satan, and raises two questions: who counts as a child of the devil, and what does "from the beginning" mean?
The argument of the whole passage turns on family resemblance. Descent from Abraham was never in dispute; the likeness was.
To be Abraham's seed, as the Lord lets the Jews know, is poor protection. One might be of Abraham, and be the worst enemy of God... Everyone acts according to his source; character follows it. So our Lord says, "I speak of what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have heard from your father." Being of Abraham does not save anyone from Satan... No one denied that they were descended from Abraham, the father of the faithful. But did they bear the family likeness?
Two traits gave them away, and Jesus names both in the verse.
On the one hand, they sought to kill the Lord; on the other they oppose the truth. These are the two great marks of Satan: murder, and no truth in him. They prove that these Jews were children of Abraham by birth, but children of the devil in character.
This is a specific charge, not a description of humanity at large. Writers are careful to mark the difference.
We cannot say that every unsaved person is a child of the devil. All are children of Adam and children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). A child of the devil is someone who hardens himself against what he knows to be true. He has given himself up to the service of Satan. Not that he would admit this, but his own pride and deceit are prominent.
The timing of the sentence matters as much as its content. Jesus said it only after they had made their own choice plain.
Remember this: God's Word never says it of anyone until their own ways have shown who and what they really are. Note also who gives this short account of the devil: the One who is the Word, who was with God, was God, and was in the beginning with God. So it must be true.
Some have taken the phrase to mean that Satan always existed as he now is. Commentators reject that reading.
But John 8:44 points neither to eternity past nor to the start of creation... "From the beginning" is quite different from "in the beginning." That second phrase is used of the Word Himself, and of the moment creation began. The devil has not always existed. He was an angel who grew proud and fell... The Greek phrase here cannot mean "from all eternity." That would deny that the devil is a creature. It would mean God made him a devil from the start, instead of his being an angel who, unlike others, did not keep his first state.
The two titles in the verse are not separate items on a list. One produced the other.
He brought this in at the start, and he brought it in by deceit; for "he was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth." ... He was and is a liar: that is his character, exactly opposed to Christ, who is the truth... Satan is the destroyer; Christ is the giver of life. Satan is the accuser of the brothers; Christ is the Mediator for them. Christ is the truth of God; Satan is the father of lies... By misrepresenting the truth and character of God, he became the murderer of the souls of men.
He does not usually tell a bare lie.
He puts it forward under the guise of truth, in the form of truth, and in some sense mixed up with the truth... He says, "You will not surely die." That was a plain lie. But he adds, "You will be like God, knowing good and evil" — and we know that was partly true... But he held back the one truth man most needed to know: what would follow if he took the advice.
When Christ spoke, He drew from the Father. The contrast is in the source each one speaks from.
When Christ spoke He spoke the truth, that which was indeed His own, but was also of the Father. But when he speaks a lie, he speaks out of what belongs to him, out of his own store. Our Lord had the right to speak of him this way: he is a liar, lies come from him, and he is the father of them.
The first lie attacked God's goodness. The cross answered it.
Satan is a liar from the beginning, and at the cross the Lord proved this. It cost the Lord His life to prove that God was good. Christ came to contradict the devil's lie, which man believed, and under which the whole world is lying... Christ takes my sin on His own sinless person. He bows His head in death on the cross. In this way He sets aside that lie of Satan, "You will not surely die."
- Lineage — descent from Abraham settled nothing. Character follows its source, so the family likeness shows who your father is.
- Lie — falsehood is Satan's own property, drawn from his own store. He serves it mixed with enough truth to be swallowed.
- Murder — the lie was the weapon. By misrepresenting God's character, Satan became the murderer of souls. Liar and murderer are one career, not two.
- Limit — Jesus uses the title "child of the devil" only after a person's own ways have shown it. It is not the same as being a child of Adam.
- Answer — the cross contradicted the first lie at the cost of Christ's life, proving God good where Satan said otherwise.
and because I speak the truth, ye do not believe me.
Jesus has just told these listeners who their father is. Now He names the reason they will not believe Him: people usually reject a message because it is false, but here the truth itself is what they cannot accept.
Everything hangs on that one connecting word. One writer points out what the verse does not say:
Notice the force of verse 45: it is not, "although I tell you the truth," but "because I tell the truth, you do not believe me." They had become so used to falsehood that, when truth is presented, it is the very thing they will not believe! A lie would be much easier for them to accept.
Why would truth itself drive people away? Because of what truth does to the world it shines on:
But truth can never be popular in this world. Even philosophers are puzzled that men love lies for the lie's own sake, when lies bring them neither pleasure, as they do the poet, nor profit, as they do the merchant. Truth shows men's follies and hidden motives too clearly, and sheds too broad a light on the play-acting of the world, for the world ever to welcome it… The truth exposes all human over-valuing, self-conceit and false fancies; and things that sparkle and look bright by the world's candlelight lose their shine in the light of day. Men cannot afford this, for it strips the world of its glory and shows it up as a cheap counterfeit.
The verse just before this one described a liar. Jesus is his complete opposite:
Jesus alone among men is the Truth; He is not only God, but the One who reveals God to man. In Him is no sin, nor did He sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth. He was in every respect the plain opposite of the devil, who, whenever he speaks falsehood, speaks out of his own store, because he is a liar and the father of it. Jesus is the truth, and makes it known to those who otherwise cannot know it. "But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me." How terrible, yet how just, is God's judgment of such people!
So unbelief is not a failure of understanding. The words are not hard. The will refuses them:
Why is it that people, then as now, do not understand the Scriptures? Not really because of difficult expressions. It is the truth that grates on the reluctant will of man. This is the source of all unbelief. The will resists, and refuses to face the terrible fact of man's ruin. It is the pride that rejects God's grace and will not bend to its own need of it. So the guilt of unbelief is not that man's understanding is weak. It is that he does not fear God and does not believe His love.
These men were not irreligious. They had a mark of privilege to boast in, and old false impressions die hard:
Experience of human nature tells us that false impressions of a superstitious kind are harder to get rid of than any others. They suit human nature and prop up human nature, whereas the truth is enjoyed spiritually and is foreign to human nature. "But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me." The Jews were circumcised, the Gentiles were not: that was something they could boast in and hold onto, when all its value was gone.
If the will is the barrier, evidence alone will not break through. The same writer holds two things together: man is responsible, and God gives life:
Man is responsible because God has given full and adequate evidence, suited to man (John 5:33-40). But man's will and desires are such that he loves darkness rather than light. And so God's power gives life sovereignly (John 5:21; see John 3:11; 3:32; 8:45). Conscience is the way in for light, and there is no other — except that love draws. God is love as well as light, and reveals Himself in Christ.
- Because, not although. Truth was not the obstacle Jesus overcame; truth was the reason they refused Him. A lie would have gone down more easily.
- Truth exposes. It shows up men's follies and hidden motives. It strips the shine off what the world calls bright, so it can never be popular.
- Truth has a Person. The liar speaks out of his own store. Jesus alone is the Truth, and He makes God known to those who could not otherwise know Him.
- Truth meets the will. Unbelief is not weak understanding. It is a will that grates against the truth, and pride that refuses its own need of grace.
- Truth needs love. Conscience is the only way in for light. But love draws, and God gives life sovereignly, because He is love as well as light.
Which of you convinces me of sin? If I speak truth, why do ye not believe me?
Jesus is speaking to openly hostile critics. He asks them to name one sin in Him, then asks why they refuse His word.
The question would be simple to answer about anyone else.
His challenge to them then is most appropriate. Could any of them convict Him of sin? This would be the easiest thing in regard to any other person. But they can point no finger at any occasion of sin in Him. Then it follows that everything He says is truth.
He could ask it because His life lay open to people who badly wanted to find a fault.
During His three and a half years of ministry the Saviour lived in the fierce glare of hostile criticism. He did not live a withdrawn, strict life as John the Baptist did; the desert was not His home; He moved freely in and out among the people. All the facts of His life were therefore fully known. If His foes could have discovered a single flaw in Him, how it would have delighted their evil hearts! But He was God's holy One. The Passover lamb had to be "without blemish." Only such a lamb could picture One who was holy in nature and stainless in all His ways. In the end His judge had to say he found no guilt in Him. His enemies could only produce the appearance of a charge by paying men to lie in court.
He asked others for what He never once asked for Himself.
Never once did He confess sin; never once asked for pardon, though He required both of all others. For everyone else, coming back humble and repentant, like the prodigal son, was the one road He marked out. It leads to the peace and rest of the Father's forgiveness. Yet He never gave a hint, He never breathed a prayer, that implied that He needed this. He declared plainly that He always did the things that pleased His Father. He had power on earth to forgive sin, but needed no forgiveness Himself.
The unanswered question points past good behaviour to who He is.
Again, His challenge, "Which one of you convicts Me of sin?" remains unanswered — we well know why. But a man without sin in a fallen world is a divine Person.
The second question appeals to what He said, not to who backed Him. In men's eyes He had no standing with any recognised authority.
Even the Lord's appeal in His own case was to the truth He spoke: "If I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?" When He came forward in the Jewish synagogues, or elsewhere, He was, in men's eyes, only a poor carpenter's son. No school or group of men had approved Him. All the weight of authority was ever against Him. He disclaimed even "receiving testimony from men." God's word alone should speak for God. And how did His teaching prove itself? By the fact that it was truth. Truth was to make its way with those who are true. God will not leave people in ignorance and darkness if they are seeking to do His will.
Put the two questions together and only one explanation survives.
They refuse to believe the Lord who had told them the truth. Why then, if they could not convict Him of error, did they not believe on Him? There can only be one answer: the one who refuses to believe in Jesus is not of God, for he that is of God hears His words.
The questions were meant to expose them, and they did. Their charges against Him rebounded onto themselves.
Finally, the Lord goes on to challenge them, to lay bare their groundless malice... He was the Holy One, no less than the Truth, and surely both go together... Instead of convicting Christ of sin, they were themselves slaves of sin. Instead of speaking truth, they rejected Him who is the Truth. Instead of hearing the words of God, they hated Him who spoke them.
Earlier in the same chapter He had spoken to a woman caught in adultery.
Never was a person so accessible, such a Minister of good, and at the same time so holy, so absolutely apart from sin. Even to His enemies He could say, "Which one of you convicts Me of sin?" Almost in the same breath He said to the convicted sinner, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."
- Challenge. He invited His enemies to name one sin, and no one answered — a question anyone else on earth would have lost.
- Evidence. He lived in full public view under hostile watch. His accusers had every motive to find a fault, and even His judge found none.
- Person. A man without sin in a fallen world is a divine Person; He asked others to confess sin, but never confessed any Himself.
- Consequence. If no one can convict Him of sin, His words must be true. Unbelief is left with no argument, only exposure.
- Grace. The same lips that could face down every accuser said to a guilty woman, "Neither do I condemn you."