Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to 1 John · About this commentary
The Works of the Devil
1 John 3:7-8
7 Little children, let no one lead you astray. He who does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. · WEB
The letter names an origin for sin outside the sinner and then states what the Son came to do about it, in the plainest sentence it contains.
Verse 7 opens with a warning about deception — let no one lead you astray — which is the second time the letter has said it in ten verses 1 John 2:26. The thing being resisted is a teaching that separated righteousness from conduct, and the answer is a near-tautology: the one who does righteousness is righteous. The letter is content to state the obvious when the obvious is what is under attack.
The standard is again a person: as he is righteous. This is the third time in the chapter that a comparison ends there 1 John 3:2 1 John 3:3.
Verse 8 supplies the other origin. The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The phrase does not say sin began with him at the beginning of everything; it says his sinning has continued from the beginning of whatever the readers understood by it, and the letter adds nothing further. The great division of the whole letter — children of God, children of the devil — is stated openly two verses later 1 John 3:10.
Then the sentence the paragraph exists for. To this end the Son of God was revealed: that he might destroy the works of the devil. The verb means to loosen or undo, and the object is works rather than the devil himself. What is dismantled is the thing he has made, which is why the letter can speak of that undoing as already at work in people who still sin.
settled What this mark means