Exploring 1 John: Children of God or Children of the Devil
1 John 3:10-12; Galatians 5:19-21 - Are you in the default condition or have you become a child of God?
“By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.”
1 John 3:10-12 NASB1995
When I announced this devotional in the last devotional, I indicated I would look at 1 John 3:10-11. In retrospect, it makes more sense to also include verse 12 in this devotional.
In this passage John lays out the criteria now to distinguish between being children of God and children of the devil and he says these characteristics are obvious - those who do not practice righteousness are not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother, so they are children of the devil.
This is sobering stuff, a real black-and-white picture of humanity. I found the top photo in a search and it seemed appropriate. There are two directions we can go in life: Towards God and to His light, through practicing righteousness and loving one another, or towards darkness and evil and a world dominated by the enemy, by continuing to practice sin and not loving one another. There are millions of people in this world who think they belong in a third category (they are not particularly bad nor do they hate), but this extract of an excellent sermon by Ray Stedman ministries that I found on Precept Austin belies the idea that there is a “neutral” category:
It is crystal clear from this verse that all humanity, in the sight of God, is divided into two classes. Someone has said that people may be divided into two classes, the righteous and the unrighteous; and the classifying is always done by the righteous! Unfortunately, that may be true. Certainly it is true that humanity is divided into two classes -- not three, as we often fondly imagine. We would like to think there are the children of the devil, and the children of God, and then there is a vast group in between who are morally neutral, neither devilish nor angelic. Perhaps, if pressed on the point, most people would classify themselves in the middle somewhere.
But God says "No." Characteristically throughout this letter, John draws the extremes of black and white, but these are not simply his ideas. These reflect the actual situation. Truth is truth and error is error. We have seen this before. John says there is no fellowship between them, no possible blending. There are no gray areas of truth -- it is either white or its opposite, black. There are no shades or degrees of truth. So it is in this matter of mankind -- we either belong to the children of God, or we are children of the devil, one or the other. There are not three classes… As we view humanity from the Biblical point of view we see that, without exception, every one of us were born into the family of the devil. We were born children of the devil because we are part of the fallen race of Adam. We are children of Adam who sold himself to the devil, and all his children are like him in that respect.
The tendency and proclivity toward sin, that twisted perversion, is passed along to us from our forefathers along with the color of our eyes, the eventual height of our bodies and all other physical features. We are born with a bent toward evil. You only need to live with a few babies to see this demonstrated. How utterly self-centered a baby is! There is nothing more self-centered in the world. Everything exists for him, in his thinking. The whole world is there but to serve his particular need, and that, in essence, is the expression of the life of the devil. It is only by new birth that we become members of the family of God, children of God.
So there you have it - we begin our lives in a default position of being a child of the devil due to our self-centeredness. Many people (and more every day in this world) end their lives in the same default position. They are not born again into the Kingdom of God. When I was wandering in the wilderness of rebellion against God, it was true that I was not happy with those who were righteous telling me that that I was not righteous nor was I saved. I mocked this as unscientific nonsense and primitive superstition.
In those days I went back to the default position (not smart!), trying to convince myself that I was a “good” person and I didn’t need this invisible God in my life. I was certainly a child of the devil and can say with assurance that I was not truly born again in my youth (when I “did” so much at our church and seemed like a good Christian), but only became His child after being pursued by the Good Shepherd in my later life.
As you might recall from the study of Galatians, Paul gave us a big laundry list of deeds of the flesh that keep us from righteousness:
“Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
Galatians 5:19-21 NASB1995
Every child of the devil practices at least one of these deeds regularly and some make lifetime habits out of many of them. Practicing righteousness means getting out of the practice of sinning.
The other part of John’s equation is that children of God love one another, whereas children of the devil do not. This is, of course, the unselfish agape love that is meant to be for everyone: Spouses, families, friends, strangers, enemies. The devil is working overtime in this age of social media and instant communications (it’s really more anti-social than social media) to make us hate others. Go to any platform (Facebook, NextDoor, Quora, X, Instagram, etc.) and you will see in just a few minutes of scrolling thousands of examples of hate in posts, in reactions, in comments, or in memes that are shared. I used to share my political opinion on my Facebook page quite regularly. I stopped doing that because all that did was create anger and disputes and dissensions (see Paul’s list above) and lead to the very unloving acts of “unfriending” and “unfollowing” (on both sides).
What does it mean to love one another as Jesus commands us to do? Here’s an excerpt of a pretty good explanation from Gotquestions.org:
In John 13:34 Jesus taught, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” Then He added, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (verse 35). How do we do this? What does it mean to love one another?
The “one another” in these verses is a reference to fellow believers. A distinguishing mark of being a follower of Christ is a deep, sincere love for brothers and sisters in Christ. The apostle John reminds us of this fact elsewhere: “He has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister” (1 John 4:21).
In giving this command, Jesus did something the world had never seen before—He created a group identified by one thing: love. There are many groups in the world, and they identify themselves in any number of ways: by skin color, by uniform, by shared interest, by alma mater, etc. One group has tattoos and piercings; another group abstains from meat; yet another group wears fezzes—the ways people categorize themselves are endless. But the church is unique. For the first and only time in history, Jesus created a group whose identifying factor is love. Skin color doesn’t matter. Native language doesn’t matter. There are no rules about diet or uniforms or wearing funny hats. Followers of Christ are identified by their love for each other.…..
Jesus’ statements in John 13:34–35 raise a couple of other questions that may be good to answer. First, how does Jesus love? He loves unconditionally (Romans 5:8), sacrificially (2 Corinthians 5:21), with forgiveness (Ephesians 4:32), and eternally (Romans 8:38–39). At the same time, Jesus’ love is holy—characterized by transcendent moral purity—because He is holy (Hebrews 7:26). The culmination of Christ’s amazing love for us is His death on the cross, burial, and bodily resurrection (1 John 4:9–10). Believers are to love each other like that.
Second, how then can the believer in Christ love as Christ loved? The believer in Christ has the Holy Spirit living within him (1 Corinthians 6:19–20). By obeying the Spirit, through the Word of God, the believer can love like Christ does. He shows that unconditional, sacrificial, forgiving love to fellow believers, but it doesn’t stop there. He also shows the love of Christ to friends, to family members, to coworkers, etc. (Ephesians 5:18–6:4; Galatians 5:16, 22–23). Even enemies are the recipients of Christ’s love (see Matthew 5:43–48).
You will notice that the love that Jesus manifests also includes His transcendent moral purity - He is righteous and holy, in addition to perfectly loving. Both of these traits are necessary to be a child of God. Here’s also a good explanation from Enduring Word:
Both of these are essential. Righteousness without love makes one a religious Pharisee, and love without righteousness makes one a partner in evil.
How do righteousness and love “balance”? They don’t. We are never to love at the expense of righteousness, and are never to be righteous at the expense of love. We aren’t looking for a balance between the two, because they are not opposites. Real love is the greatest righteousness, and real righteousness is the greatest love.
Love and righteousness are each most perfectly displayed in the nature of Jesus. He was both righteous, and completely loving.
John tells us that our love for one another should also not resemble the story of Cain, who murdered his brother Abel because Abel was righteous and he was not. This act of hatred was motivated by many factors. Enduring Word commentary lists those factors based on Biblical references:
Not as Cain: As a negative example, John presents Cain, who was not right with God (his works were evil) and who hated his brother. When there are two children of God who are both right with God, there will be love.
Who was of the wicked one: Cain is a good example of the failure to love.
We can presume that Cain had a godly upbringing that should have equipped him to love, but he chose not to.
Cain’s disobedience came from a lack of faith (Hebrews 11:4) which resulted in first disobedience, then hatred.
Cain’s disobedience and hatred was based in pride (Genesis 4:5).
Cain’s disobedience and hatred made him miserable (Genesis 4:5).
Cain refused the warning God gave him, and gave into the sin of hatred (Genesis 4:6-7).
Cain’s sin of hatred led to action against the one he hated (Genesis 4:8).
Cain was evasive about his sin of hatred, and tried to hide it. But God found him out (Genesis 4:9-10).
There’s that key word again: Pride! Cain’s ego could not stand the fact that God loved Abel’s sacrificial offering but not his offering. The Lord asks us to look to Him for how to be righteous and how to love others by moving away from our infantile self-centeredness.
John continues along this theme of loving one another through quite a few more verses in Chapter 3. My next devotional examines 1 John 3:13-15 - The world hates us, but we should abide in love.
Heaven on Wheels Daily Prayer:
Dear Lord - I pray that I continue to grow as a Child of God, practicing righteousness and loving others using You, Lord Jesus, as the role model. Amen.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Precept Austin was accessed on 5/16/2024 to review commentary for 1 John 3:10-12
Gotquestions.org was accessed on 5/16/2024 to review the answer to “What does it mean to love one another?”
Commentary from Enduring Word by David Guzik is used with written permission.