What does it mean to be Satan’s seed?  Obviously, few people would want to be such, and most people at least think that they are righteous in their own eyes.  Even those who have sympathy for the devil want to believe that they are good and decent people.  And those who claim to follow the God of the Bible certainly do not want to be viewed as being Satan’s seed.  Yet we find in John 8 a particularly nasty debate between Jesus Christ and some of the Jews of Jerusalem.  This debate is a long one and it extends from John 8:13 to John 8:59, only ending when Jesus miraculously escapes an attempt to stone Him after he reveals his identity as the “I Am.”  It is not our point today to discuss this whole passage, much of which centers on the question of how Jesus justified and defended his identity in the face of the obstinate refusal of the Jews to accept the authority of His self-attestations to His identity as the Son of God in a unique way.

Rather, it is our intent to discuss the contrast between Abraham’s seed and Satan’s seed in John 8:37-47:  ““I know that you are Abraham’s descendants, but you seek to kill Me, because My word has no place in you.  I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.”  They answered and said to Him, “Abraham is our father.”  Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do the works of Abraham.  But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this.  You do the deeds of your father.”  Then they said to Him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father—God.”  Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and came from God; nor have I come of Myself, but He sent Me.  Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.  You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it.  But because I tell the truth, you do not believe Me.  Which of you convicts Me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?  He who is of God hears God’s words; therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.””

This is a particularly fierce discussion as Jesus Christ points out the consequences of His identity when it comes to the identity of the people who were harshly speaking about Him while proclaiming their own closeness to God.  The logic is inescapable.  If someone truly is the Son of God, He will act as God does.  If someone is the child of Abraham, they will do as Abraham did.  Fatherhood here is not merely origin, but belonging through imitation.  It is in this sense that believers end up being children of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob whatever their ethnic heritage because their changed beliefs and practices to follow God’s ways makes them true Israelites and sons and daughters of Abraham in a way that this audience was not because of their hostility to the Christ.  And the rhetoric here was surely harsh on both sides, for Jesus’ critics did not accept being considered children of Satan but wanted to claim (as at least some Jews do to this day) that Jesus was born of fornication rather than having been the divinely born son of a virgin who did not engage in sexual relations until after Jesus’ birth with her husband Joseph, at which point she gave birth to several younger children, two of whom, James the Just and Jude, wrote books of the Bible.

What does the Bible say about someone being of the seed of Satan?  What qualities are referred to here?  Well, Jesus says that a hostility to Jesus’ work (and a misrepresentation of his character and origin) make someone a seed of Satan rather than of Abraham.  Likewise, he states that those who are the seed of Satan act out what they have seen their father do, and so they mimic the behavior of Satan, which would include hostility towards righteousness as well as a murderous hostility towards opponents.  These are obviously elements of Satan’s children that we can see in the contemporary world as clearly as we can read it here in scripture.  Jesus states that the children of Satan want to do the desires of Satan, which is also something that we can see in evidence, since John 8 begins with a discussion of adultery and Jesus’ audience accuses Jesus falsely of being born of fornication, which include at least some of the desires of Satan that his children wish to do.  Likewise, the children of Satan lie on their own resources, or the resources of their father, and like their father wish to accuse believers of evil rather than admit their own darkness.  If this sort of thing sounds like you, you may be a child of Satan at present rather than a child of God.

While this is truly a dreadful and hideous thing, it is worthwhile to note at least that it is possible to move from one category to the other.  This was the case with Paul, for example, who would fit the bill of Jesus’ interlocutors at this part of his career, being hostile to Jesus Christ but of the belief that he was serving God until he was forcefully reminded of his hostility and of the wrong that he had done by imprisoning and killing Christians and seeking to coerce them to blaspheme Jesus.  Paul’s repentance and subsequent loyal service of God is a reminder that one is not stuck in being a child of Satan if one indeed is rebellious and hostile to God’s ways at present.  One can repent and be forgiven and change one’s behavior and loyally serve God instead of being hostile to Him.  If it is unclear how many in Jesus’ audience were able to make that leap and change their identity, such an option is at least open to us.  Who wants to be a child of Satan, knowing his fate, after all?