John 8:48-51

Say we not well that Thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil

The Anti-diabolism of Christ

I. CHRIST HONOURS THE FATHER; THE DEVIL DOES NOT (John 8:49).

1. How does Christ honour the Father?

(1) By a faithful representation of the Father’s character. The revelation of the Infinite in the material creation is dim compared with His who is the “faithful and true witness” and “the express image of” the Father’s “Person.”

(2) By supreme devotion to the Father’s will. He came to this world to work out the Divine will in relation to humanity, to substitute truth for error, purity for pollution, benevolence for selfishness, God for the devil--in one word, to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

2. Now this is what the devil does not do. He seeks to dishonour God

(1) By misrepresenting Him, calumniating Him.

(2) By opposing His will.

II. CHRIST SEEKS NOT HIS OWN GLORY; THE DEVIL DOES (John 8:50).

1. Ambition and self-seeking had no place in Christ. “He made Himself of no reputation,” etc. Love to the Infinite Father seemed to swallow up His ego-ism. He was self-oblivious. Often does He say, “I seek not my own will.” Had He sought His own glory, He would have been the Leader of all armies, the Emperor of all nations, instead of which, He was born in a stable, lived without a home, and died upon a cross.

2. All this is Anti-diabolic. Ambition is the inspiration of Satan. His motto is, “Better reign in hell than serve in heaven.” He cares for no one else, and would kindle hells for a thousand generations in order to maintain his own dominion and gratify his own ambition.

3. Just so far as a man loses his own ego-ism in love for the Infinite, He is Christlike. Just so far as he is self-conscious and aiming at his own personal ends, he is devil-like.

III. CHRIST DELIVERS FROM DEATH; THE DEVIL CANNOT (John 8:51). What does He mean by death here?

1. Not the dissolution of soul and body, for all the millions that “kept His sayings” have gone down to the grave.

2. Does He mean extinction of existence? If so, it is true, All genuine disciples of Christ will inherit perpetual existence. This He Himself has taught (John 6:40).

3. Does He mean the destruction of that which makes death repugnant to man’s nature? If so, the dying experience of millions demonstrates its truth. The sting of death is sin. Take sin away, and the dissolution of soul and body becomes the brightest prospect in the pilgrimage of souls. It is a mere step over a river from a wilderness into a Canaan; the mere opening of the door from a cell into a palace. Now the devil cannot deliver from death; and if he could he would not. Destruction is the gratification of his malignant nature. He goes about seeking whom he may devour. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

Christ’s controversy with the Jews

I. THE ACCUSATIONS.

1. “Thou art a Samaritan,” and not only worthy of the contempt of a Jew, but one whose declaration on a matter of faith was unworthy of regard, inasmuch as He was a heretic. The charge has reference

(1) To the fact that He followed not the rigid traditions of the elders, which constituted in the minds of the people, the very essence of their religion.

(2) Because He had held intercourse with the Samaritans, had preached to them, and had been received by them.

(3) Because in one of His recorded parables, as doubtless in others not recorded, He had commended one of this nation for his charity, and had held him up as an example to His Jewish hearers.

(4) Because, as the Samaritans had mingled their own Gentile traditions with the law of Moses, so our Blessed Lord, in expounding the law, had drawn out its spiritual meaning, which was as alien to the teaching of the Scribes and Pharisees as the traditions of the Samaritans.

(5) There may have been also a special reference to the circumstance, that Nazareth, where He had been brought up, was nigh to the country of the Samaritans. By this first term of reproach they declared that He had no interest in the promises made by God to Israel.

2. “Thou hast a devil.” They denied that He had any fellowship with the God of Israel. He had a devil

(1) Because, as they said, He did His miracles by the power of Beelzebub, the chief of the devils.

(2) Because, as the devil attempted to make himself equal with God, so did Christ declare Himself to be equal to and one with the Father.

(3) The seeming folly of His words and pretensions was another reason for attributing His actions to the inspiration of the Evil Spirit. He hath a devil, and is mad, why hear ye Him?

II. THE DEFENCE.

1. To the first accusation He made no reply.

(1) It was personal, and did not concern His life and doctrine, and so He passes it by. One mark of His sinlessness is the absence of all anger at personal slights. It is the mark of a mind enfeebled by sin not to be able to bear personal affronts, as it is the mark of a diseased body to shrink from touch.

(2) Since He came to break down the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile, He would not, by replying to this charge, sanction the contempt of the Jews for the Samaritans, a people called to salvation equally with themselves.

(3) He passes over this charge, it may be also, in tenderness to the Samaritans, amongst whom were many who believed on Him. When Christ would abate the pride of those who flocked around Him, which was the cause of so much of their blindness of heart, He at times used roughness; now, when He had to suffer rebuke, He answers with the greatest mildness, leaving us a lesson to be strict and uncompromising in everything that really concerns God, whilst we are indifferent to all things that merely regard ourselves.

2. “I have not a devil,” He says. None of us are free from having a devil, for all sin in some measure comes from him; so that here again we have a declaration of the perfect sinlessness of the Son of Man. He, and He only, never had a devil. Again, His words reach beyond this; I cannot, He says, do these things by the power and assistance of Satan, for I at the same time honour My Father, who is the enemy of Satan

(1) By the holiness of My life; for which of you convinceth Me of sin?

(2) By condemning the works of the devil--murder, and lying, and all those other sins which are his special works.

(3) By not attempting to do what Satan is always striving to do in seeking to usurp to himself the glory which belongs to the Father. Our Blessed Lord’s argument to those who blasphemed Him is this: No one who has a devil honours God or can honour Him, but on the other hand he dishonours Him; but I honour my Father--God: therefore I have not a devil. (W. Denton, M. A.)

The force of the accusation

The rendering “devil” cannot now be improved. Wiclif’s word is “fiend,” which in this sense is obsolete. But every reader of the Greek must feel how little our English word can represent the two distinct ideas represented by two distinct words, here and in John 8:44. “Demon,” used originally for the lower divinities, and not unfrequently for the gods, passed in the Scriptures, which taught the knowledge of the true God, into the sense of an evil spirit. Thus the word which could represent the attendant genius of Socrates came to express what we speak of as demoniacal possession, and the supposed power of witchcraft and sorcery. Socrates is made to say: “For this reason, therefore, rather than for any other, he calls them demons, because they were prudent and knowing.” The history of Simon Magus reminds us that the people of Samaria, from the least to the greatest, had been for a long time under the influence of his sorceries (Acts 8:9, etc.), and it is probable that there is a special connection in the words note, “Samaritan” and “devil.” (Archdeacon Watkins.)

A hard name easy

A hard name is easier than a hard argument. (Van Doren.)