Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ John

[Blatt]

Do you believe that Jews are Satan's children, based on John 8:44?

I believe that Jews are Satan's children, because that's what Jesus says

[jimwalton]

No, Jews are not Satan's children. Jesus was reaming out the Jewish religious leaders for rejecting him. The text uses this language to suggest that Satan is behind human hostility to Jesus. It is thought by some that the verse is anti-Semitic, but that's not possible. That would require the author himself to be a Gentile, or he would be condemning himself. In fact, the text is more anti-Jewish if it is not historically accurate. If it reflects something the Jewish Jesus actually said, it cannot be anti-Jewish by definition. Moreover, nothing in John, or anywhere else in the NT for that matter, condemns every last Jewish person to ever live, nor even every Jew in Jesus's day. The strong language that does appear is precisely the kind of generalized condemnations of the majority of people in a particular context that one often finds in the OT prophets, and the prophets can scarcely be accused of being anti-Jewish when they were Jewish themselves and were canonized in the Jewish Scriptures!

So John 8.44 is definitely not anti-Semitic, and it is certainly not anti-Gentile.

What Jesus is saying is, "I know this is hard for you to understand, but there are only two choices here: life and death. If you are not following me on the path of truth and life, you are on the path of the deceiver, your father is Satan himself, and you are on the path to destruction." These are shocking things for Jesus to say, but the way to get someone to change their mindset and lifestyle is often to confront them with a harsh truth.

[Blatt]

Jesus said that Jews are Satan's children

[jimwalton]

This is incorrect. Read carefully. In John 8.31, he said to the Jews who believed in him that anyone who holds to his teaching is really a disciple—a true son who belongs to the family forever (v. 35). They know the truth and have been set free. But the ones who reject his word (v. 37) are false sons, children of the devil (v. 44). Anyone who sincerely believes in Jesus has the right to become children of God (Jn. 1.12). Anyone who opposes Jesus/God is in the devil's camp (Jn. 8.44). Those who follow the will of God are children of God (Jn. 8.31); those who follow the will of the devil are children of the devil (Jn. 8.44).

Jesus is not anti-Semitic. Jesus is Jewish, and so are his disciples. If, as you say, all Jews are (according to Jesus) Satan's children, then Jesus is a son of Satan and his disciples are sons of Satan. He summarizes what he's saying in John 8.47: If you hear and follow what God says, you belong to God. If you do not hear and follow, then you do not belong to God. He is making a distinction between those who follow Him and those who do not. He is not saying that Jews are Satan's children.

[Skylark]

> Anyone who sincerely believes in Jesus has the right to become children of God

Well Jews don't sincerely believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Therefore that means they oppose Jesus - making them Satan's children...
Does it not?

[jimwalton]

Good to hear from you, even three years later! It is true that most Jews do not sincerely believe that Jesus is the Son of God. That is also true of Muslims, atheists, some HIndus and Buddists. The text is not anti-Semitic, it is anti-anyone-who-rejects-Jesus-as-God. It was Jesus's point here in John 8.44 that if they opposed Jesus, as they were, they were not children of Abraham or of God, as they supposed, but rather on the side of the Adversary, Satan. What Jesus is denying to these Pharisees is that they are spiritual children of God who seek to do His will.

So, yes, their opposition to Jesus makes them "Satan's children," but the text is not anti-Semitic. Any Jew who believes in Jesus is NOT a child of Satan. Instead, the teaching is anti-hypocrisy and anti-false-theology.