42 - 1Jn 3:8
Ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστὶν, ὅτι ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς ὁ διάβολος ἁμαρτάνει. Εἰς τοῦτο ἐφανερώθη ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ, ἵνα λύσῃ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ διαβόλου. As we in this way enter into fellowship with the Lord, so through the ποιῶντὴνἁμαρτίαν [“the one who practices sin”] we enter into fellowship with the devil: this is, generally, the matter of the eighth verse. The latter part of it first of all demands our attention; as it in fact furnishes the logical basis of the former. Because the devil sinneth from the beginning, do all sinners therefore spring from him? There is certainly a suspicious tone of the post hoc ergo propter hoc about this. But all depends on the right view of ἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς [“from the beginning”]. The idea of the ἀρχή [“beginning”] is applied in such manifold ways, that it must in every individual case be explained by the context. The interpretation that the devil sins from the beginning of his being or existence is by no means justified by the expression; for the absolutely general ἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς [“from the beginning”] would be quite unsuitable to such a notion. The only tolerable reference is to the ἁμαρτάνειν[“sinning”]: the devil was the origin of sinning, or it made its beginning in him. When that beginning of sin and of his sinning took place is not here—mentioned: it is enough that his sin was the first. But there is assuredly no reason, and it would be entirely wrong, to understand this beginning of the fall of Adam. What allusion can there be in the general and indefinite ἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς [“from the beginning”] to the fall of man? It is of no use to appeal to Joh 8:44[N] in favour of such an interpretation: that passage affirms that the devil was a murderer of man from the beginning; but the ἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς [“from the beginning”] has there its closer definition in the ἀνθρωποκτόνος [“murderer”], he could have been such a murderer only when men began to exist, and thus the context in the cited passage absolutely determines the reference of ἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς [“from the beginning”] to the paradisiacal history. But here we have no closer definition of the ἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς [“from the beginning”]; and it must therefore be referred to the beginning of sin in general, to the act by which the devil became the devil. The idea of sin through him first came into life and reality. Thus viewed, the thought is the same as would have been expressed by ἐν ἀρχῇ [“inthe beginning”] or πρῶτοςὁδιάβολοςἡμάρτηκεν [“the devil sinned first”]; and that this form was not selected, is to be accounted for; by the fact that the writer thinks of his sin and would have us think of it, not as one act once performed, but as the permanent habit and at the same time the original deed of sinning. The combination of these two ideas hardly allows any other expression to be used than that which the apostle employs.
Thus the clause ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς ὁ διάβολος ἁμαρτάνει [“the devil has sinned from the beginning”], only declares really that the devil before any other being sinned, and has since been in the continual act and habit of sinning. Now again, consequently, the question arises with new force, how it follows from this that every later sin, or here human sin as such, springs from the devil, and may be traced to diabolical causality. Is it not quite conceivable that man might have sinned, after the devil indeed, but independently of him; and this being only possible, is not the deduction of St. John a vain one? But though we do not find it established in the idea of the first sin, we do find it in the idea of the first sin, that all successive sinful creatures must enter into a state of dependence on the first one. Sin has just been described as ἀνομία [“lawlessnes”]; it therefore presupposes a νόμος [“law”]; this, again, a Lord who gives the law; and he who rebels against the law thereby makes himself into a lord. This establishes the fact that he who first falls from God places himself, in virtue of this apostasy, over against God, and therefore in rivalry to His kingdom: in fact, setting up, though at first only in a germinal way, a kingdom of evil in opposition to it. No sinner that follows can erect a third kingdom, but must through his sin enter into the kingdom already opposed to God, incorporating himself into it as a member. Whether he wills it or not, whether he knows it or not, he makes himself dependent on the originator and representative of this kingdom. But more than this: after these two kingdoms, that of the light and that of the darkness, are founded, no one can any longer be good or evil of himself from his own most proper impulse; but because he is placed in the midst of the two kingdoms in their concrete reality, he necessarily receives solicitations from both sides to determine his action: thus, if he sins, his sin proceeds not from his own, but ἐκτοῦδιαβόλου [“of the devil”]; and his sinning is the evidence that he is ἐκτοῦδιαβόλου [“of the devil”]. Thus the deduction of the apostle is perfectly just; only it is based, not on the ἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς [“from the beginning”] of itself, but on the ἁμαρτάνειν ἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς[“sinning from the beginning”]. That the spiritual dependence of human sin on sin Satanic, here only expressed as a logical necessity, was an actual fact in human history needs no demonstration in the light of biblical and especially Johannaean teaching. With our apostle beyond all others it is customary to establish the Satanic origin of sin. As, in the Pauline view, the sin of Adam was not only the temporal beginning of evil, but also the principle of all sin in his descendants, so stands it when, with St. John, we carry up the matter a stage further, in regard to the relation of human sin to that of Satan. True as it is that every man is enticed or drawn away of his ἰδία ἐπιθυμία [“own desires”], it is equally true that every sin is a work of the devil, in a certain sense an incarnation of devilish thoughts. Just as the πόρνοι [“fornicators”], according to St. Paul [cf. 1Co 6:16], in virtue of their πορνεία [“fornication”] belong no longer to themselves but to the πόρνη [“prostitute”], so does the sinner belong, in virtue of his sin, no longer to himself, but has become a member and a living stone in the kingdom of Satan. The thoughts we have indicated are not only necessary consequences of the expression ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστὶ [“the one who practices sin is of the devil”], but are also needful to enable us to understand the second hemistich of the verse. The proposition, that Christ was manifested to destroy the works of the devil, is parallel with that other in 1Jn 3:5, that He appeared τὰςἁμαρτίαςἆραι [“to take away sins”]. The works of the devil are identical with our sins. But they can bear that denomination only if each of them has in fact the devil for their proper agent, is a reflection of Satanic thoughts, and a realization of Satanic tendencies. It is this relation which explains the expression λύειν τὰ ἔργα τοῦ διαβόλου [“to destroy the works of the devil”] exactly to the very letter. The devil will indeed never cease to be evil; to restore him to goodness the Lord did not appear; but to be evil is not an ἔργον [“work”]. A work requires a material to be fashioned. Without the material to be wrought upon, no created being can perform a work. Therefore the devil also requires for his work matter which he can impregnate with his thoughts. This material is the earth, and the men upon it. This being withdrawn from him, he may indeed still be evil, but he can no longer accomplish evil by ἔργοιςπονηροῖς [“evil deeds”]. From this point of view we understand how, in the well-known narrative of the Gadarene demoniacs, the devils ask the Lord permission to enter the swine: they seek the matter which they may destroy; if men no longer are available, they desire at least some equivalent. If from Satan is taken away all material that is his consummate misery. Absolutely not to be able to accomplish the evil lusts of his heart, to be obliged—let the word be pardoned—to consume his own wretchedness in himself, to find no sphere of activity while yet burning with desire for it: that is the acme of unblessedness. If men are loosed from Satan (Luk 13:17), then is he bound, the nerves of his energy are restrained. Conversely, if Satan is loosed (Rev 20:7), it means that he can bind men and does bind them. Thus the expression λύειν [“to destroy”] has justice done to it. All loosing presupposes a dissolution into the constituent elements. The devil uses in his activity his evil lust on the one hand, and, on the other, the material in which it becomes flesh. To take from him this material is to resolve his works into their elements, and thus to cause that they can no longer come to effect. This λύειν τὰ ἔργα τοῦ διαβόλου [“to destroy the works of the devil”] has been accomplished by the Lord through the fact of His manifestation: ἐφανερώθη [“made known”]. The expression is obviously to be taken in the same generality as in 1Jn 3:5. Through the appearance of the light the darkness loses its domain and is destroyed. And He who appears is with deep propriety described here as υἱοςτοῦΘεοῦ [“Son of God”]. As St. Paul in Romans chapter 5 places Christ as the bringer of righteousness over against Adam as the cause of sin, so St. John here, in harmony with his higher position, places Him over against Satan himself. Hence we find that, while in Rom 5:1-21 the Lord is described as ἀνθρωπος [“man”], here He is the υἱοςτοῦΘεοῦ [“Son of God”]: the sin of the first man is taken away by the righteousness of the second Adam; but in the place of the kingdom of the devil enters the kingdom of the Son of God.
Let us now glance, in conclusion, at the strain of the whole verse. It contains the antithesis of 1Jn 3:7. This had, by means of the καθὼςἐκεῖνοςδίκαιόςἐστιν [“just as he himself is righteous”], declared that righteousness brings us into union with the Lord; the new verse, conversely, draws the conclusion that sin proves us to be members of the Satanic kingdom. It is the same severity which we were obliged to recognise in 1Jn 3:6: there it was said that every sin gives proof that we have not yet known the Lord; here it is said to show that we belong to Satan. This bondage to Satan, however, the Lord in His manifestation purposed to abolish. Hence the latter clause obviously corresponds to 1Jn 3:5; just as similarly the first part of our verse corresponds to 1Jn 3:4. 1Jn 3:4-5 exhibit sin as a principle opposed to God and to Christ; here it is exhibited as subjection to the devil, yea, as resistance to the only means of the only redemption from it.