Lyonnet on 1 John 3:8

Usually, when a good writer uses block quotes, it's for a good reason. I'm not talking about someone like Voline, who quotes chapters of another author because it's his only source. I'm talking about someone like Colin Kruse, who in his commentary on 1 John quotes the following paragraph from Stanislaus Lyonnet.


Colin Kruse, The Letters of John pp. 122-123.

Just as a Christian lives under the influence of God living in him, so do sinners live under the influence of the devil and allow themselves to be seduced by him. Consequently, just as he who is born of God and in whom God dwells does what God does, or concretely, 'lives the same kind of life as Christ lived' (1 Jn 2:6), that of a son of God, so the 'children of the devil' can only do what their 'father wants' (Jn 8:44), those very deeds which the Son of God came to undo. (1 Jn 3:8)

 1 John 3:8 says "He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work."