Ye do the works of your father. They said unto him, We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
Verse 41. The deeds of your father. See . Jesus repeats the charge, and yet repeats it as if unwilling to name Satan as their father. He chose that they should infer whom he meant, rather than bring a charge so direct and repelling. When the Saviour delivered an awful or an offensive truth, he always approached the mind so that the truth might make the deepest impression.
In the former verses the Jews made their boast that they were the children of Abraham: in these that they are the children of God. We have one Father, even God. This our Saviour disproves, telling them, that if God were their Father, they would love him, as proceeding from him by eternal generation; and in his office employed by him as Mediator.
Ye are of your father the devil,.... Not of his substance, but by imitation and example; and as being under his authority and influence, his instructions and directions, and ready to follow after him, and obey his commands; the word "your" is rightly supplied, and is in some copies: and the lusts of your father ye will do; the Syriac and Persic versions read in...