Children of Satan

The Devastating Opening: Jesus's Own Words

The church speaks of lost sheep. Jesus spoke of children of the devil.

This is not metaphor. This is identity. This is origin. In the starkest, most personal confrontation in all of Scripture, Jesus looked into the eyes of the most devout people in Jerusalem—the ones who kept the law, who memorized Torah, who believed they were serving God—and told them the truth they did not want to hear:

Notice the structure: You are of your father. Not "you serve his purposes." Not "you're influenced by him." You ARE OF him. He is your father. Your will IS to do his desires. Not can be. Not might be. IS.

The Arminian system teaches that even before conversion, humans have the capacity to choose God. But Jesus identifies the unregenerate as children of Satan, bound to do his will. The question becomes urgent: if your father is the devil and your will is enslaved to his desires, where does the ability to choose God come from?

The Family Identity: Born Into Darkness

The Greek word for "children" in John 8:44 is tekna (τέκνα)—not a metaphorical association but a designation of nature and origin. A child shares the nature of their father. A child is born of their father. To say someone is a child of the devil is to identify their spiritual lineage, their inheritance, their very essence.

John makes this explicit in his first epistle:

Notice the binary: there are the children of God and the children of the devil. No middle ground. No neutral spiritual status. Every person who practices sin belongs to Satan's family. Every person born of God ceases to practice sin. The distinction is not subtle—it is absolute.

Paul echoes this in Ephesians:

The unregenerate are identified with multiple layers of bondage: children of disobedience, children of wrath, enslaved to the prince of the power of the air. These are not descriptions of behavior alone—they are descriptions of identity, of nature, of the kingdom to which the person belongs.

The Family Business: Doing the Father's Will

If someone is a child of Satan, what do you expect them to do? What would it mean to be the devil's offspring if not to participate in his work?

Jesus is unambiguous: your will is to do your father's desires. The will of the unregenerate is not neutral. It is enslaved to sin (Romans 6:17-20). It is bound to produce unrighteousness (Romans 6:19). The person practices sin because they are of the devil, and the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

Paul describes this slavery in devastating terms:

The unregenerate are not free agents negotiating with God. They are slaves of sin, "obedient" to a master who demands their allegiance. You do not negotiate with a slave. A slave does what their master commands.

What, then, would it mean for a slave of sin to make a "spiritually good choice" to leave their master and serve God? The slave would have to first break free from their master. But that is precisely what Romans 6 insists they cannot do on their own. The only way a slave goes free is if someone outside their bondage has the power to set them free.

The Family Blindness: Cannot See, Cannot Believe

Not only are the unregenerate enslaved to Satan's will. They are blind. Not unwilling—unable to see.

Paul doesn't say they are unwilling to see. He says they are blinded. The god of this world—Satan—has taken active steps to keep them from seeing the gospel. The veil is not merely on their perception; it is placed there. The blindness is not merely lack of sight; it is actively maintained.

How can someone choose God when they have been deliberately blinded to His truth? This is not a deficiency in human will. This is an assault on human perception by the prince of this world. The unregenerate cannot see the light because the light has been hidden from them by the one they serve.

Jesus himself taught this:

The inability to believe is not a matter of insufficient evidence or hardness of heart alone. It flows from their spiritual identity: they are of the devil. Therefore they cannot bear to hear God's word. They are incapable of believing because they are captive to the one who is "the father of lies."

The Family Prison: Captives of Satan's Domain

The unregenerate are not merely enslaved and blinded. They are prisoners in Satan's kingdom. They live under his dominion. They are held captive to do his will.

The language is not metaphorical. The unregenerate have been captured. They are in a snare. They serve the devil's will. Paul is describing not spiritual sickness but spiritual captivity—military capture, imprisonment.

Colossians reinforces this:

Notice: before conversion, believers lived in the domain of darkness. They didn't choose to leave it. God delivered them. God transferred them. The language is that of rescue, of military extraction, not of invitation accepted or permission granted.

John describes this reality with urgency:

The whole world. Under the power. Of the evil one. This is not a statement about the world's bad choices. It is a statement about the world's bondage. The unregenerate lie in Satan's power as surely as a prisoner lies in the power of their jailer.

The Devastating Question: Where Is the Capacity?

Here is what Scripture teaches about the unregenerate:

• They ARE children of Satan (John 8:44)
• Their will IS bound to do the devil's desires (John 8:44)
• They are slaves of sin (Romans 6:20)
• They are blinded by the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4)
• They cannot hear God's word (John 8:43)
• They cannot believe (John 8:45)
• They are captives in Satan's snare (2 Timothy 2:26)
• They lie under the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19)
• They are children of wrath (Ephesians 2:3)

Given this biblical portrait, the Arminian question becomes absurd: "From where does the unregenerate derive the capacity to make a spiritually good choice to reach for God?"

This is where unconditional election becomes inescapable. If the unregenerate cannot choose God—if they are enslaved, blind, and captive to Satan—then God must choose for them. Before the world was made, God must have chosen specific people to rescue. Otherwise, no one escapes. Everyone remains in Satan's snare forever.

The Lie That Must Be Destroyed

What the Arminian system must do to survive is redefine what Scripture means by children of Satan, slaves of sin, and captives of darkness. It must soften these words. It must suggest they describe mere tendency rather than nature. It must claim that the unregenerate, despite being Satan's children, retain some capacity—some hidden reserve of freedom—to reach for God anyway.

But this is precisely the lie that cannot be sustained once you read what Jesus actually taught.

You cannot say someone is a child of the devil and the child of God at the same moment. You cannot say someone is enslaved to sin and yet free to choose righteousness. You cannot say someone is blind to God's glory and yet able to see it clearly enough to reach for it. You cannot say someone is a captive of Satan and yet possess the power to set themselves free.

Scripture allows no middle position. Either you are Satan's or you are God's. Either you are dead or you are alive. Either you are blind or you can see. Either you are a slave or you are free.

The church has taught for centuries that the unregenerate are partly capable—that they have some faint remaining ability to reach for God if they choose. This is works-righteousness disguised as faith. It claims the unregenerate did something—made a choice—that determined their salvation. But if the unregenerate are truly children of Satan with no power to escape his snare, then the power to escape cannot come from them. It must come from God. And if it comes from God, then it is not their choice that saves them. It is God's choice. It is grace. It is election.

The Only Escape: Divine Rescue

The biblical path to salvation is not negotiation with Satan's captive. It is not persuasion of the blind. It is not invitation extended to the enslaved hoping they might accept.

It is resurrection. It is deliverance. It is divine power breaking chains, opening eyes, transferring prisoners from Satan's domain to God's kingdom.

Colossians 1:13 doesn't say believers chose to leave darkness. It says God delivered them. 2 Timothy 2:26 doesn't promise the captive might escape if they try hard. It says God grants repentance. John 6:44 doesn't invite people to come to Jesus. It says no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.

This is the glory of grace. Not that you had a 51% chance and chose correctly. Not that you made the ultimate decision that determined your destiny. But that God chose you before you could choose Him. That God saw you enslaved to Satan and opted to rescue you anyway. That God saw you dead in sin and raised you to life. That God saw you lost in darkness and found you.

The unregenerate are not half-saved. They are not semi-responsive to God's grace. They are completely enslaved, completely blind, completely captive—and the only power that can save them is power from outside their bondage. That power is God. That power is irresistible grace. That power is election.

The Two Arms: The Bridge to Hope

But here is where the gospel's second arm must catch you. If you have read this far and felt the weight of your own depravity—if you have seen yourself as Satan's child, enslaved, blinded, captive—you are feeling what you are meant to feel. You are meant to despair of yourself. You are meant to see that you cannot save yourself.

Because now you are ready for the truth that will save you.

If you are a believer reading this, it is because God chose you before the creation of the world (Ephesians 1:4). It is because God, in His mercy, did for you what you could not do for yourself. He delivered you from Satan's domain. He opened your blinded eyes. He broke your chains. He gave you a new birth, a new nature, a new father.

You were Satan's child. Now you are God's beloved (Romans 8:39). You were enslaved to sin. Now you are enslaved to righteousness (Romans 6:18). You were captive to darkness. Now you dwell in the kingdom of His beloved Son (Colossians 1:13).

This is not something you did. This is something God did to you, for you, and in you. And that is why—when you understand it—you will never let it go again.