What did Jesus say about the devil?

Children of the Devil. — And now the time came for Him to speak with unmistakable clearness. Come from God, and sent by Him, He had authority to do that. "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe Me not. Which of you convinces Me of sin? If I say the truth, why do ye not believe Me? He that is of God hears God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God" (44-47). Plain speaking indeed! The occasion called for it. Children of the devil they were. God's words, which Christ spoke, who is God, they would not have. The truth they refused, and sought His death. Their ways and their purposes marked out their father. But this grave statement, let us remember, is never made in the Word of any of the human race, till they have shown by their ways who and what they really are. Further, let us remark, we have here a short account of the devil by Him, who is the Word, who was with God, was God, and was in the beginning with God. It is, it must be, therefore, a true one.

But to all this their minds were blinded, and He questions why they did not understand. He Himself gives the answer: “Because you are not able to listen to My word” (v. 43). Basic, callous unbelief rendered them impervious to the plain, pointed declarations of His lips. They had given themselves up to the blinding power of the devil; and He pronounces upon them the awful truth that they are of their father, the devil, willfully determined to engage in the lusts that have ensnared their father (v. 44). We cannot at all say that every unsaved person is a child of the devil, though all are children of Adam and children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). A child of the devil is rather one who has, by hardening himself against what he knows to be true, given himself up to the service of Satan. Not that he would admit this, but his own pride and deceit are prominent. Two things are here said of the devil. First, he was a murderer from the beginning; not from the time of his creation, but from the time of his attempt to “be like the most High” (Isa. 14:14). His murderous spirit is seen in his temptation of Eve: he was determined to accomplish her destruction. Secondly, he abode not in the truth, for the truth is not in him: he is a liar, and the father of it. Terrible designation! Of course it was by falsehood that he deceived Eve. Only Satan and antichrist are in scripture directly called liars, as well as these to whom the Lord speaks (v. 55); though the term is used to describe the general character of the inhabitants of Crete (Titus 1:12-13). One must be soberly careful in his use of this term.

John 8:38-41. The Lord then draws a formal contrast between Himself and those who reject His words. He was the Son revealing the Father, as speaking of that which He had seen in His eternal existence with the Father. In spite of their claim that they had no father but Abraham, they, as indeed all men, prove their true origin by their works. On the one hand, they sought to kill the Lord; on the other they oppose the truth. These are the two great characteristics of Satan, murder and absence of the truth, and prove that the Jews, whilst children of Abraham according to the flesh, were morally children of the devil.

This was a precise picture, and they "children," and in contrast with what He was who was the Truth. All the developed points of this reasoning are concentrated here; for as seed of Abraham and of God they had not abode in the truth, and because the point our Lord urges, and they sought to kill Him. When Christ spake He spake the truth, that which was indeed His own, but was also of the Father. But he, when he would speak a lie (abstractly, as we say the truth), he speaketh out of that which is his properly, out of his own goods or household. For He (our Lord) had right so to speak of him: he [the devil] is a liar, and from him it proceeds; he is the father of it.

The good seed has been sown and is growing up: the "word of the Kingdom" preached has developed into "sons of the Kingdom;" so far, we have just what the previous parable has put before us, the effect of sowing of the good seed only. The work of the enemy cannot be accomplished by sowing seed of the same kind: he sows darnel in the midst of it, and goes his way. Such "over-sowing" is today in the East a common piece of malice; and darnel is a poisonous kind of rye, which among the Jews was credited with being a degenerate wheat: its grain is black and bitter. Thus it is evident that we have not here false profession merely, but error and its fruit: at first, deceptive and appearing at any rate not very different from the truth, but by and by developing radical opposition. The dissemination of this is accomplished "while men slept," a thing that shows an evil state among the "children of the day," however natural it may be with others (1 Thess. 5:5-7).

Notice that, throughout the New Testament, if the flesh is opposed to the Spirit, and the world to the Father, the devil is the constant enemy of Christ, and the perversion of the Word and the denial of the Person of Christ are his special work. As Christ is the truth and the true Witness, Satan is "a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44). The tempter of Christ in the wilderness, he enters into Judas for the betrayal at a later time. He it is who "deceiveth the whole world" (Rev. 12:9), and who is cast into the bottomless pit to deceive the nations no more until a thousand years are fulfilled. At the end of this time, being let loose, he again goes out as of old to deceive, and is then cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:3, 8, 10).

There is an acknowledged difficulty in rendering the proper force of the word given in verse 8 as "reprove." It is variously translated in different places, and hence the context must be taken into account if the mind of the Spirit of God is to be ascertained. The following note will explain, better than any words of our own, where the difficulty lies: "'Convince' (this word is often substituted for 'reprove') supposes effect in the person convinced; convict' would not do for righteousness or judgment. I have said 'bring demonstration,' though it supposes the action of the Spirit when come too much; but I use it in the sense that His presence and all that He does affords this demonstration." Accepting this interpretation, we may briefly consider it in connection with the three things here named - sin, righteousness, and judgment. The presence of the Holy Spirit, then, in this world, and all that He does, affords or furnishes the demonstration of the world's sin, "because," as the Lord said, "they believe not on Me." To seize the force of this it must be remembered that the crowning sin of the world was the rejection of Christ. As He said in chapter 15, "Now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father"; and, secondly, the Holy Spirit is in this world in consequence of the rejection and crucifixion of Christ. His being here, and His activities, proclaim, and loudly proclaim, the world's sin. This will be readily understood. The next statement is, "Of righteousness, because I go to My Father, and ye see Me no more." Without denying in any way that Christ, having glorified God to the uttermost in His death on the cross, is righteously glorified, and this in the love of the Father's heart, it may yet be submitted that the righteousness here is in relation to the world. This is clear, we judge, because it is the presence of the Holy Ghost which furnishes, as before pointed out, the demonstration of it. As another has said, "The righteousness of God as against sin the cross proclaims (Romans 3:25-26); and equally as against a world that knows not the Father, by His (Christ) being taken out of it, to be seen by them no more." That God will judge the world by-and-bye in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained, was declared by Paul when standing in the midst of Mars' hill; but we learn from these words of our blessed Lord that the righteousness of God is now against the world which has rejected His beloved Son, and that this is shown by His departure from it to the Father. Lastly, we have, "Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged." Satan proved himself to be the prince or ruler of this world in the crucifixion of Christ, for he succeeded in banding together every class of the people, whether Jews or Gentiles representatively, for the accomplishment of this design. But the prince of the world is the enemy of God, and in that very cross judgment was passed upon him, upon man, and the world. God in His longsuffering, and for the accomplishment of the counsels of grace, may delay the execution of the judgment; but having already passed sentence upon Satan himself, He will as certainly, when the day of grace is ended, deal in righteousness with the world that rejected Christ and accepted His adversary as its ruler. Hence it is that the activity of the Holy Ghost in this world contains for those whose ears are opened a solemn and audible warning of the coming judgment. The prince being judged, his dominion in this world must sooner or later endure the awful weight of God's judicial rod.

I find now in the end of the fourth chapter of Matthew that Satan being overcome, Christ comes out to bless and deliver man: "And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people" (Matt. 4:23). In plain language, He fulfils that striking verse found in Luke's Gospel. There the Lord Jesus says, "When a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in peace: but when a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, he takes from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divides his spoil" (Luke 11:21-22). And what is the meaning of that? Satan is the strong man, and he is armed with everything that can encircle and hold his vassal — man. This strong man keeps his palace. His armour is the knowledge he has of the weakness of man, a weapon which he has well learned to use in upsetting and overcoming man. His palace is the world. His goods are sinners. And while he holds them thus, they are in peace. You were never in anxiety about your soul? Never. You have been in peace all your days. You do not believe in Satan. Not you. You are just an illustration of the truth.

Lastly, the Spirit testifies that the prince of this world hath been judged (kekritai). We have the two great protagonists, the Son of God and the devil, each, so to speak, bidding for the soul of man, and we see the one raised to the right hand of God the Father, the other judged. "I beheld Satan as lightening fall from heaven," said our Lord, at an earlier date to the Seventy, who however were rejoicing too much in the fact of their power over evil spirits, too little in the higher blessing of names written in heaven. But even then Christ anticipated the day when evil would be overcome. Thus then, three cardinal facts are stated in terms of matchless conciseness as well as sublimity. The very order is perfect; first, the fact of sin, secondly, the triumph of the Deliverer, thirdly, the discomfiture of the great enemy of God and man. It is all anticipative of course, but of what soon came to pass. R.B.

There are characteristic differences in the way the temptation is presented. Matthew gives the historic order, and the full sequel. Satan first sought to turn Him from the only true place of man — namely, obedience to and dependence upon God. Baffled at both these points by the perfection with which the Lord kept His place in both, he presented the world to the Lord, offering Him all the kingdoms of it and the glory of them if He would only worship him. Then it is, when the tempter has come out in his full character as claiming divine worship, that the Lord says: "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve."

The New Testament reference is to the apostle Peter. He was the most outstanding of the apostles, always named first in the lists of the apostles, yet with a weakness well known to our Lord, and in view of the great service he would ultimately render, this needed to be dealt with. Once again we see Satan used in the matter, and the Lord allowing him to attack His servant. We read, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren," Luke 22:31-32. May we ever remember that no matter what Satan desires, not one hair of our heads can he touch without divine permission. Both Job and Simon are seen in the hands of Satan for a time, but in each case Satan could go only as far as divine wisdom allowed him. So whilst Satan was allowed to lead Simon into a temptation, and caused him to fail in it, all he really succeeded in doing was to destroy Simon's self-confidence; he could not destroy his faith. Thank God he never will be able to destroy the faith of any saint of God, however severe the trial may be through which he may be allowed to pass.