Dear Alumni,
The approaching Christmas season draws our attention
anew to the Incarnation of our Lord, and one portion of
scripture that we turn to for a full answer to the
question of why God became man, to dwell among
us, is the First Letter of John, because in that letter
John reveals so fully the purpose and the
result of Christ’s coming. For example, in 3:5 we
read that Christ “appeared so that he might take away
our sins.” In 4:9 we read that God “sent his one and
only Son into the world that we might live through him.”
In 4:10 we read that God “sent his Son as the
propitiation for our sins.” In 4:14 we read that “the
Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.”
And in 5:20 we read that “the Son of God has come and
has given us understanding, so that we may know him who
is true.” We might sum up these texts as teaching that
the Son of God came to reveal the Father, to
die for sinners, to give them life.
But
here I want to draw your attention to another statement
that the apostle makes regarding the purpose of Christ’s
coming, a purpose that perhaps we too often overlook or
insufficiently appreciate. In 3:8 we read these words:
“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the
devil’s works.” Here we have presented to us Christ, the
Destroyer. “Christ, the Destroyer”—perhaps the
words jolt us a bit. What a strange title for the one
who came as a gentle baby in a humble manger cradle! I
would venture the guess that among the many greeting
cards you will receive at this coming holiday season,
there will be some with distinctly religious
themes—though far fewer than we used to receive, it
seems—but my guess is that there will be none
announcing on the card’s cover the birth of “Christ, the
DESTROYER.” I know I have never received such a card!
Much more congenial to our feelings, perhaps, is the
title “Prince of Peace,” and the angelic tidings at his
birth of “Peace on earth, good will toward men.” But we
must see that Jesus is the Prince of Peace only
because he is a prince of conquest, a prince who
has won a great victory, the Destroyer of the devil and
all the devil’s works. Too often the world paints a
sentimentalized picture of the ministry of Jesus, a
picture in which all is sweetness and light. We are
reminded in 1 John 3:8 that the dark shadow of the cross
already lay over the manger cradle, because this one
came for a dark and solemn purpose—to destroy a kingdom
as well as to establish one—to tear down as well as to
build up.
Because, you see, the one was impossible without the
other. Jesus Christ must be the Destroyer of
Satan if he is to be the Savior of those whom Satan
holds captive. And so the angels’ announcement of the
birth of the Savior was at the same time the
announcement of a sentence of judgment upon Satan.
Now, in our day, we need to take note—lest our
modern, naturalistic outlook lead us astray—that the
devil is a real person. No, not a laughable figure in a
red suit carrying a pitchfork, but a spiritual being
created by God, now in rebellion against God. The devil
is not merely a sinful principle in this world.
He is a sinful person. And is this really so
strange or so inconceivable as moderns like to suggest?
Sin is always personal. Yes, the effects
of sin can be seen in the impersonal realm of nature as
a result of man’s Fall. But sin itself only exists in
the hearts of persons. Why, then, should it be thought
strange that the author of sin, and the one in whom sin
is most fully and horribly manifested, should be a real
person—even as the author of holiness is our
personal God, and his Son the perfect manifestation of
holiness to man. We are horrified at the rise of
Satanism in our day, as well as should be horrified. But
surely such satanic cults at least serve as vivid
reminders of the grim reality of the Archenemy referred
to in our text. The devil is a real person.
What, then, are the works of the devil, these works
that Christ came to destroy? Look at the context in
which this reference to the devil’s works appears here
in 1 John 3; and you will see that the answer to that
question is clear. The devil’s most basic work—the
foundation of all his other works and the fountain from
which they flow—is sin. Sin—an unfashionable word
today—but an undeniable reality. Sin, which John defines
as “lawlessness” (v. 4). Disobedience to God and
rebellion against his lordship. The refusal to be
governed by God’s law, his revealed will for his
creatures. Casting aside that Law of God which is “holy,
righteous, and good” (Romans 7:12), and which was given
by God the Creator for the blessing of his creatures.
This the devil introduced into the universe when he
rebelled and fell. This the devil brought into man’s
life when he tempted our first parents to disregard
God’s Word and make their own decisions regarding what
was best for them. And this the devil has seen corrupt
the entire human race as men and women continue to bring
forth children who are like their parents in their guilt
and in their depravity—and who reveal that their hearts
are full of sin, as this third chapter reminds us, by
the fact that when all is said and done they really
despise others and love only themselves.
John reminds us that the devil is the Father of sin
and of sinners, and as such he is the sworn enemy of our
holy God—and the very antithesis of the Son of God, “who
is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners”
(Hebrews 7:26). Christ is the Truth; the devil is a liar
and the father of lies. Christ is Life; the devil is a
murderer.
And what terrible consequences sin brings in its
wake. The apostle Paul speaks of “the fruitless deeds of
darkness” (Eph. 5:11); and in Gal. 5:19 catalogs at
least some of those life-destroying, sorrow-producing
works of the sinful nature: “sexual immorality, impurity
and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred,
discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition,
dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and
the like.” These are the devil’s works:
suffering, which grows out of sin and follows sin
wherever it goes; strife, fighting between one person
and another, between family and family, and even between
church and church. The devil is the sponsor of them all.
And the final consequence and terrible wages of sin
is death. In bringing men and women, the image of God,
down to death, the devil seems to win the ultimate
triumph.
Yes, to survey the works of the devil is to consider
a most bitter and depressing picture indeed. And that is
just why the “message of Christmas” is such good
news! Because it is the news that God purposed from the
beginning of history to destroy the devil’s
works; and in Jesus Christ, his Son, God has fulfilled
that purpose.
Immediately after man’s fall in Eden, and in the
midst of pronouncing righteous curses upon man for his
sin, God announces good news, glad tidings of hope. In
Gen. 3:15 we read these words addressed to man’s
Tempter: “And I will put enmity between you and the
woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will
crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” The
human race is not to be cut off because of sin, as we
might have expected it would be. The woman will have a
seed, a descendant. And that offspring will destroy
man’s Enemy, the one who appeared in the form of a
serpent, “that ancient serpent called the devil or
Satan” (Rev. 12:9). This victory will be a costly one.
Satan will inflict a wound upon the woman’s offspring.
But this will be but a bruising of his heel, whereas the
woman’s offspring will deliver upon the devil a capital
blow, a deadly blow—crushing his head beneath his feet.
Long ages elapsed in preparation for the coming of
this Seed of the Woman, this great head of the new human
race, this Second and Last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45,47), the
Man Christ Jesus. The nation Israel was called out,
redeemed from the satanic power of Pharaoh, a chosen
nation from which the Savior was to be born. Prophets
were raised up to foretell the coming of this one who
would “preach good news to the poor…bind up the
brokenhearted…proclaim freedom for the captives and
release for the prisoners” (Isaiah 61:1). The one who
would come, you see, to defeat the devil and to nullify
his works.
And at this Advent season, indeed at every season, we
rejoice that this great event has taken place! This is
the most important event in all human history; and it is
an event—not that will take place some day, but
that has already taken place. The Son of God, the
great Destroyer of the devil’s works, has
appeared, John says, to accomplish this purpose.
Notice carefully the words John uses here to speak of
the Incarnation. This one who has appeared is “the Son
of God.” This is the first time that full title is used
in John’s letter; and it is used here with very good
reason, because it explains how this one is able
to destroy the devil’s works. If the devil’s works were
ever to be destroyed, someone greater than the devil had
to step in. The powers that the Scriptures attribute to
the devil have no match among the sons of men. As Luther
wrote: “On earth is not his equal.” None but God himself
can destroy the devil’s works. Praise God that God
himself has come! Immanuel, God with us. And therefore
John can say with confidence: “The one who is in you is
greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
And it is just because he is the Son of God that John
speaks of his Incarnation as an “appearing,” a becoming
manifest. It is an unusual word to use for a birth. No
birth announcement you’ve ever received spoke of this
newborn as having “appeared.” But, you see, Christ did
not come into being when conceived by the Holy Spirit in
the virgin’s womb. As God he has always been, from all
eternity. But now the invisible God, who dwells
eternally in unapproachable light (1 Timothy 6:16),
appears in human flesh that can be seen and heard
and touched. (Look back at the opening verses of this
first letter of John.) The appearing of the Son of God
was the fulfillment of prophecy, was nothing less than
the fulfillment of God’s purpose in history: the
destruction of the devil’s works.
Jesus himself revealed that early in his ministry. He
revealed that the meaning of his miracles, his miracles
of healing, and especially the casting out of demons,
was just this: that the great Conqueror of Satan has
come and has begun to destroy Satan’s works. You
remember how Jesus answered the charge that he cast out
devils by the devil’s power. Our Lord pointed out how
ridiculous it would be for Satan to cast out Satan; and
then he said: “But if I drive out demons by the Spirit
of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or
again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and
carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the
strong man? Then he can rob his house” (Matthew
12:28-29).
Healing the sick, casting out demons, raising the
dead—what Jesus announced in words he accomplished in
acts. He announced the arrival of the rule of God, and
by breaking the power of Satan and his hosts he was
bringing in the rule of God. Men and women seemed to
find it difficult to accept Jesus’ teaching concerning
his person and his work, but the demons themselves knew
the truth only too well. We hear the demons crying out,
in Mark 1:24: “What do you want with us, Jesus of
Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who
you are—the Holy One of God!”
But Jesus’ miracles were but the beginning, were in a
way but a sign of the destruction of the devil’s
works, because Christ accomplished that not in his life
but in his death. No wonder that Satan tried so
desperately to keep Jesus from that obedient death—using
the apostle Peter at one point, you remember, to tempt
Jesus away from that death. The wonder of the
Incarnation is climaxed in the wonder of the Cross. How
strange is the method of destruction! How surprising the
means used! Man would never write the story this way,
because the Destroyer comes not as we would have
expected him to come—in glorious majesty with the angels
of his power in flaming fire—but rather he comes as one
of us, his majesty laid aside, lying in a manager—a
baby, born under a sentence of death.
But it had to be so. A human, remember, the offspring
of a woman, had to gain the victory over the Adversary
for his brothers and sisters. And it had to be by the
suffering of death. It is as the devil strikes his heel
that he crushes the devil’s head. As we read in Hebrews
2:14, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too
shared in their humanity so that by his death he might
destroy him who holds the power of death—that is,
the devil—and free those who all their lives were held
in slavery by their fear of death.”
Sin, we have seen, is the devil’s great work.
It is that upon which all his other works rest. Those
works can be destroyed only when sin is removed. And
this Christ accomplished for his people by dying in
their place and bearing the penalty for their sin. As we
read later in Hebrews, in 9:26: “But now he has
appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do
away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.” Who can now
bring any charge against God’s chosen people? Their sins
have all been laid on Christ and in his righteousness
they are clothed. The terrible blow of divine justice
that falls upon Christ on the Cross is the judicial
stroke that collapses the foundation of Satan’s entire
structure. No longer can the devil hold those whose sin
has been put away by the atoning sacrifice of Christ. No
longer can he hold them enslaved to the guilt of sin.
No longer can the devil hold them in bondage to the
fear of death. Death is the wages of sin (Romans 6:23).
How can it hold in its power those whose sin has been
forgiven? And so even this final work of Satan is
destroyed by Christ, who is the Resurrection and the
life, “who has destroyed death and has brought life and
immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy
1:10).
And so it is that the devil can no longer hold us
enslaved to the power of sin. Here, notice, is where
John’s accent falls in 1 John 3:8. Return with me to
that wonderful text one last time. From at least v. 15
of chapter 2 down to the end of chapter 3, John reminds
us that a great war continues to rage until the Son of
God appears a second time, not to bear sin that
time, for that he has already done, but to bring in
perfect and complete salvation to those who are waiting
for him—Hebrews 9 again, v. 28. But the decisive battle
in that war has already been fought, at the Cross, with
the victory won and proclaimed in Christ’s Resurrection.
And you and I show whose side we are on in that great
war by the way we live every day, by our attitudes and
by our actions. John’s conclusion is very simple, but
very sobering. Look at v. 7: “Dear children, do not let
anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is
righteous, just as he is righteous. He who does what is
sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been
sinning from the beginning.” What could be more
obviously true? “The one who is righteous is the one who
does what is right.” Why, John’s statement is so simple,
so incontestable, so obviously true, that it might seem
almost to be a meaningless truism.
But, you see, this is far from the case. Far from
being perfectly obvious to us, this is a truth that we
seem to be far too successful at times in hiding from
ourselves—or simply ignoring. You and I can come up with
all sorts of excuses for our sin. After all, as the
popular bumper sticker proclaims, a Christian isn’t
perfect, he’s just forgiven. Perhaps we know better than
to say that we can be content with being a so-called
“carnal Christian,” because we know that the so-called
“carnal Christian” doctrine is a total misunderstanding
of Paul’s comment in 1 Corinthians 3. But don’t we
sometimes try to fool ourselves into thinking that we
can receive all the eternal benefits of faith in Christ
while showing none of faith’s fruits in a changed
life here and now?
Notice what John says in v. 10. “This is how we know
who the children of God are and who the children of the
devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a
child of God; neither is anyone who does not love his
brother.” John is so simple and straightforward. Our
Reformed fathers spoke of human history revealing “a
great antithesis”—what I have called a great war. Well,
talk about an antithesis—here it is! John says: all men
and women are one or the other. They are either children
of God or they are children of the devil. And you show
which you are by the kind of person you are. Sin,
lawlessness, is the work of the devil—which the Son of
God came to destroy. How can one who lives a life of sin
claim to have been saved from sin by Christ?
No, it is not that the child of God never sins. To
imagine that would also be to be deceived. Look back to
1:8, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive
ourselves and the truth is not in us.” But the
characterizing quality of the one born of God, the
direction, the dominant chord of his or her life, will
be righteousness, not sin. We might well translate
John’s verb in 3:7 as “practicing righteousness.”
In 1:6 John speaks of “practicing truth,” “living
by the truth,” and in v. 7 of “walking in the
light.”
And as I say, this is a most sobering truth. This
“doing what is right” is the consequence of our
being God’s children, not its condition. You are not
God’s because you obey his law. You obey his law
because you are God’s child, born of him. But doing what
is right is always the result of the new birth,
and the absence of that righteousness of life points to
the most eternally serious conclusion.
But these verses in 1 John 3 not only present us with
a most sobering exhortation. They also present us with a
wonderful encouragement. As Paul also tells you,
by the Spirit’s inspiration, in Romans 6, you have been
“set free” from sin’s dominion, sin’s mastery, sin’s
rule, because sin is the work of the devil, and the Son
of God appeared to destroy the devil’s works. Just
imagine what this coming Christmas season can be like
for your family, your home, your friendships, if the
devil’s works, those works that the Son of God appeared
to destroy, are no longer evident among you. Why, your
family and your friendships can be marked by an
outpouring of love, and peace, and harmony, and joy, and
patience, and honesty, and kindness, such as the world,
the children of the devil, can never know.
“The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy
the devil’s works.” The one who continues to work the
works of that defeated enemy reveals that he or she is
on the devil’s side, and the devil is a loser. It is
those who manifest the power of the Son of God to redeem
from sin, to change the life, to fill the heart with
love—it is those who reveal that they know true
fellowship with God’s Son. May we show in our lives, in
our forsaking of sin, the work of the devil, that we are
on the Lord’s side, the side of the Conqueror.
Robert B. Strimple
President Emeritus & Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology
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