John 8:41

41 Ye do the works of your father. They said [therefore] to him, We are not born of fornication; we have one father, God.

John 8:41 Meaning and Commentary

John 8:41

Ye do the deeds of your father
Not Abraham, but the devil.

Then said they unto him, we be not born of fornication:
meaning either literally, that they were not a brood of bastards, children of whoredom, illegitimately begotten in unlawful copulation, or wedlock; or figuratively, that they were not the children of idolaters, idolatry being called fornication in Scripture; but that they were the holy seed of Israel, and children of the prophets, who had retained the pure word, and the true worship of God, though in all this they might have been contradicted and refuted; to which they add,

we have one Father, [even] God;
Israel being called by God his Son, and firstborn to them belonged the adoption, in a national sense, and of this they boasted; though few of them were the children of God by special adoption, or God their Father by regenerating grace.

John 8:41 In-Context

39 They answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. Jesus says to them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham;

40 but now ye seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you, which I have heard from God: this did not Abraham.

41 Ye do the works of your father. They said [therefore] to him, We are not born of fornication; we have one father, God.

42 Jesus said to them, If God were your father ye would have loved me, for I came forth from God and am come [from him]; for neither am I come of myself, but *he* has sent me.

43 Why do ye not know my speech? Because ye cannot hear my word.

Footnotes

• [a]. poieo; usually 'practise' (see ch. 5.29), but it hardly suits here or in vers. 39,40; still it refers to habitually or characteristically doing, not a mere act.