Ver. 6. _That He might destroy the works of the devil._] The word here used for Satan (διαβολος) is found in John vii. 70, viii. 44, xiii. 2; Apoc. ii. 10, xii. 9, 12, xx. 2, 10. One class of miracles is not specifically recorded by St. John in his Gospel--the dispossession of demoniacs. Probably this terrible affliction was less common in Jerusalem than in Galilee. But the idea of possession is not foreign to his mode of thought. John vi. 70, viii. 44, 48, x. 20, xiii. 27. He here points to the dispossessions, so many of which are recorded by the Synoptics.
III. ver. 9. His _seed abideth in him_.] Of these words only two interpretations appear to be fairly possible. (1) The first would understand "His seed" as "_God's seed_," the stock or family of His children who are the true אֱלהִים זֶרצ, _seed of God_ (Mal. ii. 15). In favour of this interpretation it may be urged: first, that "seed" in the sense of "children, posterity, any one's entire stock and filiation," in perhaps nearly two hundred passages of the LXX., is the Greek rendering of many different Hebrew words. (See σπερμα in Num. xxiv. 20; Deut. xxv. 1; Jer. l. 16; Gen. iii. 15; Isa. xiv. 20, 30, xv. 9; Num. xxiii. 10; 2 Chron. xiv. 27.) Secondly, no inapt meaning is given in the present text by so understanding the word. "He is unable to go on in sin, for _God's_ true stock and family (they who are true to the majesty of their birth) abide in Him." (2) But a second meaning appears preferable. "Seed" (σπερμα) would then be understood as a metaphorical application of the grain in the vegetable world which contains the possible germ of the future plant or tree; and would signify the possibility, or germinal principle, given by the Holy Spirit to the soul in regeneration. For this signification in our passage there is a strong argument, which we have not seen adverted to, in St. John's mode of language and of thought. "His seed abideth in him" (σπερμα αυτου εν αυτω μενει) is really a quotation from the LXX. (ου το σπερμα αυτου εν αυτω--note the repetition of the words Gen. i. 11, 12). Now the Book of Genesis seems to have been the part of the Old Testament which (with the Psalms) was chiefly in St. John's mind in the Epistle. (Cf. 1 John i. 1, Gen. i. 1.--iii. 8, Gen. ii.--iii. 12, Gen. iv. 8--iii. 15, Gen. xxvii. 41.) St. John, also, connects the new birth of the sons of God, as did our Lord, with the birth of the creation, whose first germ was "the Spirit of God moving upon the face of the waters" (Gen. i. 2; John iii. 5). This parallel between the first creation and the second, between creation and regeneration, has always commended itself to profound Christian exegesis as being deeply set in the mind of Scripture. Witness the magnificent lines.
Plebs ut sacra renascatur, Per Hunc unda consecratur, Cui super ferebatur In rerum exordium. Fons, origo pietatis, Fons emundans a peccatis, Fons de fonte Deitatis, Fons sacrator fontium! Adam of St. Victor, Seq. xx., _Pentecoste_.
It is instructive, to study the treatment of our Lord's words (John iii. 5) by a commentator so little mystical as Professor Westcott. St. John, then, might point at this as another hint of regeneration in the parable of creation, viewed spiritually. The world of vegetation in Genesis is divided into two classes. (1) _Herbs_ צֵשֶׂב = all grasses and plants which "_yield seed_." (2) _Trees_ מְּרִי צֵץ = shrubs and arboreous plants which have their seed enclosed in their fruit (Gen. i. 11, 12) Such are the plants of God's planting in His garden. Of each the "seed" from which he sprung, and which he will reproduce unless he becomes barren and blighted, "is in him." "He cannot sin." It is against the basis of his new nature. Of the new creation as of the old, the law is--"his seed is in him."