A SIMPLE QUESTION ? HOW MANY PEOPLE DID JESUS MURDER ? (when you want to know about any religion or ideology look at the Leader and there is your answer )

A SIMPLE QUESTION ? HOW MANY PEOPLE DID JESUS MURDER ? (when you want to know about any religion or ideology look at the Leader and there is your answer ) pretty simple is it ? Who ever you follow as a Leader you will adopt that particular character trait and "by their fruit you will know them " Mathew 17:15-20 Graham Healy mom 27/7/26

**John 8:44** is a verse from the Gospel of John in the New Testament. Jesus speaks it during a confrontational dialogue with certain Jewish religious leaders (or “the Jews who had believed him” earlier in the chapter but who become hostile).

### The Verse

A common rendering (NIV) is:

> “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.”

(The King James Version is similar: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”)

### Immediate Context (Basis in John 8)

The broader passage is John 8:31–59. Jesus has been teaching about freedom through truth and about his unique relationship with God the Father. His opponents claim:

- They are free because they are physical descendants of Abraham.

- God is their Father.

Jesus responds that true children of Abraham would act like Abraham (who welcomed God’s messengers and the truth), and true children of God would love the one God sent (Jesus). Instead, they seek to kill him—the one who tells them the truth he heard from God. Their actions reveal their true spiritual “father.” Spiritual parentage, in this teaching, is shown by character and behavior rather than physical ancestry or religious claims.

The statement is sharp and polemical, fitting the escalating conflict in John’s Gospel where Jesus’ opponents increasingly plot against him.

### Biblical Background and References

Jesus draws on foundational Old Testament ideas about the devil (or Satan/the serpent) as the origin of death and deception:

- **“Murderer from the beginning”**

This primarily alludes to the events in **Genesis 3** (the serpent’s deception of Eve, which introduced sin and death into the human race) and **Genesis 4** (Cain murdering Abel). The New Testament later connects Cain explicitly to “the evil one” (1 John 3:12). The devil is portrayed as the original cause of spiritual and physical death through temptation and sin. The phrase does not mean the devil was created evil, but that from early in the biblical narrative he acted as a destroyer.

- **“Liar and the father of lies” / “no truth in him”**

This points directly to the serpent’s first recorded lie in **Genesis 3:4** (“You will not certainly die”), which contradicted God’s clear warning in Genesis 2:17. By originating that deception, the devil becomes the “father” (source/originator) of falsehood. Lying is described as his natural or native mode of speech.

These ideas fit broader biblical themes: God is characterized by truth and life; the devil opposes both. Other New Testament passages reinforce similar imagery (e.g., the devil as deceiver in Revelation 12:9 or 2 Corinthians 11:14).

### Key Point of the Teaching

Jesus is contrasting two spiritual lineages:

- Those who receive the truth he brings (from God) show they belong to God.

- Those who reject that truth and pursue harm show alignment with the devil’s nature (deception and destruction).

The verse is not a racial or ethnic statement about Jewish people as a whole (Jesus, his disciples, and the earliest Christians were Jewish). It is a specific rebuke of the spiritual condition and murderous intent of the particular opponents in the narrative. Historical misuse of the verse for antisemitism has been widely rejected by Christian interpreters as a distortion of the text’s actual context.

In short, John 8:44 roots its claims in the Genesis account of the serpent’s original deception and the resulting death, using that foundation to diagnose the spiritual source of opposition to Jesus as the truth.