“He was a murderer from the beginning”

by Sandy Simpson, 8/14/14

 

John 8:44  You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning,

not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

Revelation 21:8  But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters

 and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

Revelation 22:15  Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers,

the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

 

Satan is the “father of lies”. He is the father of “all liars” who are unrepentant.  They will be in hell with him.  But he is also a “murderer from the beginning”.  We often associate this with the story of Cain and are right to do so.

 

1 John 3:12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.

 

Cain was tempted by the evil one and therefore gave himself over to Satan’s leadership.  We must remember, however, that it was a choice Cain made and God warned him not to give in to evil, not that the devil caused him so sin.

 

Genesis 4:7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

 

The devil can only tempt.  He cannot sin for a human being.  Those who sin are choosing to do so, and in so doing are bending to the will of the father of murder and lies.  When the devil tempts people they have a choice between good and evil, between God and Satan, if they are born again. If not they will follow their sinful nature. Cain made the wrong choice and allowed his first sin of disobedience to God to blossom into the sin of murder.  Unrepentant murder is a sin that ultimately will send a person to be with their mentor, the devil, in hell (Rev. 21:8).

 

But where did the sin of murder originate?  Was it with Cain the first human murderer?  We have to go back further to realize that Satan rebelled in heaven in attempting to be “like God”.  He convinced a third of the angels to follow his example. 

 

Revelation 12:4 Its (Satan’s) tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born.

 

Thus he, in effect, murdered them by guaranteeing their judgment in hell.  The word in John 8:44 for “murderer” in reference to Satan isanthropoktonos”.  This means murderer or manslayer.  Satan certainly set the course of human beings when he tempted Adam and Eve and they caused the sin nature to affect all mankind. But he also caused a third of the angels to sin, and thus be condemned to judgment and hell. He continues to try to bring as many as he can into God’s judgment with him. So he truly was the first to lie, the first to set his will against that of God …

 

Isaiah 14:12-15 How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.

 

and the first to murder (John 8:44).  Anyone who follows the example of Satan from his rebellion in heaven till today is also destined to his destiny.

 

1 John 3:15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

Numbers 35:31 “Do not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die. They are to be put to death.

 

The penalty for murder is death (Numbers 35:31). The penalty of sin is death (Romans 6:23).  The Bible states from the beginning to end that people are not to follow Satan and commit murder.

 

Exodus 20:13 You shall not murder.

 

But we cannot blame the devil if we commit the sin of murder or any other sin.  It is a choice we make to give into temptations of the enemy because we are both born with a sin nature and because we choose to sin.

 

Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

 

We also cannot blame God as He does not tempt or cause people to sin.

 

James 1:13 When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;

 

The fact is that, before Babel when a false world religion was being put together by the disobedient sons of Noah, and after God had to forcefully disperse them away from their Polytheistic and Animistic worship of Nimrod and Semiramis (who they considered to be the sun and the moon), everyone outside of the line of Shem decided to go their own way.  Therefore God gave them over to their sins and disobedience.  It would only be through the witness of Noah, Shem Job, Terah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and finally Moses that anyone could find out about God (Deut. 32:7-11.  Later under the New Covenant it remains a similar same situation where the only way to hear about God and His Son is through the preaching of the Gospel by a Christian (Rom. 10:14).

Romans 1:26-32 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Deut. 32:7-11  "Remember the days of old, Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; Your elders, and they will tell you: When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. For the LORD’S portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance.”

Deuteronomy 7:6 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.

God was setting the boundaries for the nations according to the children of Israel so that the Gentile nations would end up in proximity to Israel and thus possibly come to know the God of Israel. It was not that God was creating nations and giving them “promised lands”. He was going to spread Israel out among the nations as a witness from the establishment of Israel till the incarnation of Jesus Christ. After Jesus Christ the message of the Gospel would be spread through Jews and Gentiles who had come to understand and believe in the mystery of the Gospel.

Deut. 32:15 They abandoned the God who made them and rejected the Rock their Savior. They made him jealous with their foreign gods and angered him with their detestable idols. They sacrificed to false gods, which are not God—gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your ancestors did not fear. You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth.