JOHN, AS WE’VE seen, likes to paint with bold strokes of black and white, with little grey between. In both his gospel and his letters, he works with the stark contrasts like light versus darkness, truth versus lies, and sin versus righteousness. Then, in chapter 3, he adds another striking contrast, this time between God and the devil:

Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one 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. (1 John 3:7-8, NIV)

John never loses sight of the pastoral purpose of his letter: to warn his readers against being bamboozled by people who sound spiritual but live in rebellion against God’s authority. In a sense, there’s nothing new in verse 7: God is righteous, and the one who does what is right — as God defines it! — is righteous as well, showing that they do in fact belong to God.

In verse 8, though, John seems to reach back to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. He says that the devil, who took the form of a serpent in Genesis 3, “has been sinning from the beginning.” It’s not his first mention of Satan in the letter; in 2:13, he praises the “young men” for overcoming “the evil one.” But now he seems to refer to the story of the first temptation as something of a parable for what had been happening in John’s community.

THE SERPENT IS the slithering embodiment of lawlessness, of rebellion against God’s authority. God had issued a command that set a limit on the first couple’s desires: “you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Gen 2:17). Knowing that Eve already wanted to eat the fruit from that tree, the serpent twisted God’s words, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” (3:1).

No, in fact, God did not say that, and Eve corrected the serpent:

We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.” (Gen 3:2-3)

But again, the serpent knows what she wants. His question opens a space for her own doubts. Indeed, her addition of the words “you must not touch it” to God’s command may be betraying her confusion and resentment: why did God make this arbitrary rule? Despite all the bounty of the garden, despite all the trees from which she could eat freely, the one that occupies her thoughts is the one with the forbidden fruit, the one God says she can’t have.

We know how that goes, don’t we?

The serpent, having hooked her with the conversation, springs the trap. He not only flatly contradicts what God has said, he casts aspersions on God’s character by suggesting that God is deceiving her and holding back something good:

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:4-5)

Think back to what we noted earlier about children. They want what they want, and can’t yet understand why grownups make so many rules; many if not all of them may seem arbitrary. And of course, they don’t understand that they don’t understand. The older they get, the more parents will be able to reason with them (at least in theory). But when they’re still in that “You’re not the boss of me” stage, desire trumps reason.

Hopefully, the parents are mostly calm, loving, and stable, able to deal with tantrums and rebellion without taking them personally, even when the kids scream, “You’re so mean!” And hopefully the kids will eventually come to understand that their parents meant well and had their best interests at heart (though it might take having their own kids for the lesson to really sink in).

But until that time, they may be susceptible to someone coming alongside them, questioning their parents’ authority and intentions, and whispering lies in their ear.

JOHN, REMEMBER, NOT only told his readers that “sin is lawlessness,” but also reminded them that Jesus came to “take away [their] sins” (1 John 3:4-5). Here, three verses later, he says in parallel fashion that Jesus came “to destroy the devil’s work” (vs. 8). From the very beginning until now, the Lawless One has been tempting humanity to rebel against God, sometimes using smooth-talking humans as his agents.

Don’t fall for it, John says. Don’t let anyone lead you astray. Jesus died to undo the devil’s work, to break the power of sin. Don’t let anyone talk you out of the true gospel that you heard and believed!

Moreover, in case his language still isn’t sharp enough, he pushes it even further. There is God, and there is the devil. So, if there are children of God, guess what: the devil has his children too.

And you can see it in the way they live.