John 8:44

“You are of your father the Devil, and it is your will to do the longings of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and did not stand 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 a father of them.”

Now He no longer restrained His words, and explained His enigmatic earlier statement about them being like their father. Far from showing themselves to be children of God and children of Abraham they were showing themselves to be like their father the Devil, for they were behaving just as he did. They were plotting to murder the One Whom God had sent and they were unwilling to face up to the truth. For the Devil too was a murderer, right from the beginning, and he too did not hold to the truth, and that was because there was no truth in him. When he lied he spoke according to his own nature, for he was a liar and ‘the father of lies'. The corollary was that there was no truth in them either, and that they too were deceivers.

‘He was a murderer.' He brought death into the world for Adam and Eve, and through his interference Cain slew his brother and from then on all men died.

‘Did not stand in the truth' could be aspirated to mean ‘does not stand in the truth', meaning ‘has nothing to do with the truth'. He had ever been, and would always be, a deceiver.

‘According to his own nature.' From his first efforts in the Garden of Eden he had demonstrated that deceit and falsehood were an intrinsic part of him. That is what his nature had become through rebellion against God. Indeed deceit began with him. He was ‘the father of lies'.

They were like ‘their father the Devil' in that they longed for His death and could not bear the truth. They clung to their beliefs regardless of reality, deliberately refusing to see the weaknesses in them. These were traits of the Devil which were clearly coming out in them. Far from being the children of God, they were showing themselves by this to be as far from God as it was possible to be. Among the Jews it was customary to say that someone was a ‘child of' whatever influenced them. Thus Jesus was saying to the Judaisers that their behaviour marked them out as ‘children of the Devil' because they behaved like him.

We can compare here Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 4:4. ‘The god of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe lest the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ shine through to them'.