1 John 3:8 - Exposition

The contrary position given to make the statement clear and emphatic. The devil ὁ διάβολος is the great accuser or slanderer, as in Job 1:1-22 and Job 2:1-13 (comp. John 13:2 ; Revelation 2:10 ; Revelation 12:9 , Revelation 12:12 ; Revelation 20:2 , Revelation 20:10 ). The devil sinneth from the beginning ἀπ ἀρχῆς . From the beginning of what? From the beginning of sin. The devil was the first sinner, and has never ceased to sin. Other answers are: from the beginning

Some of these are scarcely in harmony with Scripture; none, perhaps, fit the context so well as the explanation adopted. If the devil committed the first sin, and has sinned unceasingly ever since, then whoever sins is akin to him, is morally his offspring ( John 8:44 ). There is the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the evil one, and man cannot find or make a third domain; if he is not in the one he is in the other. This verse, like John 8:44 , seems to be conclusive as to the personal existence of the devil. ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου balances ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ : if the one is a mere personification of a tendency, why not the other? Both should be personal or neither. "It is not true that St. John speaks so confidently of a devil because he was a Jew and was filled with Hebrew opinions. For once that the devil is introduced in the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, he is spoken of twenty times in any Gospel or Epistle" (Maurice), and not least in the Gentile Luke. With the latter half of verse 8. comp, verse 5. Christ's act in removing our sins from us destroys the devil's works; for by the manifestation of the Light ( John 1:5 ) the darkness is dispersed and destroyed. Our sins are the evil one's works: what is sin in us is his natural occupation. (For λύειν in the sense of unbinding or dissolving, and therefore destroying—a use specially frequent in St. John—comp. John 2:19 ; John 5:18 ; John 7:23 ; John 10:35 .) The φανέρωσις includes the whole work of Christ on earth.