41 You do the deeds of your father.” Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father—God.”
41 You do the deeds of your father.”
Jesus implied that the Jews had a “father” alright, but that their father did not manifest the faith of Abraham. The Jews claimed Abraham as their father, but Abraham did not do what they did; therefore, they must have had a different father. Jesus would say in verse 44 that the devil was their father.
The Jews imitated the deeds of their true father, the devil. They were very religious but lost.
Then they said to Him,
The Jews had reached a point of frustration with Jesus. They lashed out at Him with a fierce insult.
“We were not born of fornication;
The reaction of the Jews to Jesus’ charge that their spiritual parenthood was satanic was to try to show that they were not illegitimate. They attempted to cast aspersion on Christ instead by claiming He was not born of a virgin but by fornication. Their idea was that He did not have a legitimate father Himself.
we have one Father—God.”
The Jews appealed to someone greater than Abraham; they appealed to God. At minimum, God was their Father. This claim was a false ground of confidence.
These Jews thought that, just because they were physical descendants of Abraham, this made them his spiritual descendants as well. However, mere physical heritage did not give them an eternal relationship with the Father. God was under no obligation to deal with the physical descendants of Abraham without the spiritual factor.
PRINCIPLE:
Religious heritage does not impress God.
APPLICATION:
The Bible does not teach the universal fatherhood of God. People try to convert Christianity into something soft that conforms to the desire of man. They want their religion to be saccharin and without power. Jesus confronted false teachers by calling them out for what they did—the works of the devil. They had family characteristics of the devil.
Our heritage has nothing to do with our salvation. The issue is our personal faith in Christ, which forms a new relationship that makes us acceptable in God’s eyes.
