John 3:16 “For God so loved the world..."
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
The well-known passage naturally provokes a question that is seldom asked: How did God so love? Is there a way to have a feel [yes, just a feel, for we can’t fathom the true depth, height, breadth] of the greatness and vastness of God’s love? To that end let me TRY to draw your attention to some simple truths that are plainly declared in these verses.
Here are some thoughts in outline form:
1. The greatness of God’s love is evidenced by the object loved – the world
a. The world is often understood as indicating the largest possible number, i.e. ‘absolutely everyone.’ So it is understood that God so loved because he loved the largest possible number of people.
- This is obviously wrong because it contradicts what is plainly stated elsewhere in the Scriptures. ‘His people,’ ‘as many as God has given to Christ,’ ‘sheep,’ ‘I do not pray for the world’ etc., are all contrary to that idea.
b. Man’s double standard: no one has to love absolutely everyone to be very loving!!!
- It is to be understood in its ethical sense – the kind of object loved, not the quantity of object loved. The Scriptures do say that God loved a vast BUT specific multitude and brought them to heaven – Rev 7:9. 19:6.
- ‘World’ describes the ethical state, the spiritual condition of the people loved by God. They were of the world, the world marked by worldliness and rebellion against God, men, and women whose lives are marked by the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.
- The objects loved are the worldly sinners who are by nature lie in spiritual darkness and death:
- The objects loved are the worldly sinners who are by nature in rebellion and enmity against Him as God and Creator:
- The objects loved are the worldly sinners that are by nature utterly un-loveable and deserving of just condemnation:
- The objects loved are none other than the sons of disobedience and children of wrath, who wallow in wickedness and unrighteousness.
- Therefore, even if God had loved just one such sinner, it would have been the greatest love. But He loved a vast multitude of such. It is a sinners’ religion because it is a religion centred on the Saviour that God Himself has provided for His chosen people.
2. The greatness of God’s love is demonstrated by the immense costliness of that love
a. God so loved, He loved such sinners with an immense and immeasurable love that He sacrificed His only begotten and beloved Son for the most undeserving and ill-deserving sinners.
- He gave the most precious for the salvation of the most undeserving and ill-deserving. He did not spare His only begotten Son.
- He sent Him to the cross to suffer that horrendous agony and horrific death, in order to suffer and to bear away the just and holy wrath against their sins; yes, the sins of others, even the sins of those for whom He came to save.
b. God so loved… He sent His only begotten Son Jesus Christ to save the justly condemned, the undeserving and ill-deserving sinners that they should not PERISH in the lake of fire. They deserved to perish forever in the lake of fire. God reversed that doom!
- God so loved… He sent His only begotten Son that He might live the perfect and sinless life for His people, and to secure the perfect righteousness for them. God freely provided this perfect righteousness for His sinful people.
- Christ did what sinners cannot do for themselves… living a sinless life of perfect obedience to all the laws of God.
c. God so loved… He sent His only begotten Son to suffer and to die in the place of His people to bear away God’s holy wrath and just condemnation upon them that they deserve for all their sins and unrighteousness.
- Christ suffered for sinners what they justly deserved for their sin against God, eternal condemnation.
- It is a love that delivers the recipients from their greatest and deepest woes, eternal condemnation, and miseries.
d. God so loved… He resurrected His only begotten Son from the dead so that He might conquer death and destroy the power of death upon His people.
- He exalted His Son to the highest power, glory, and majesty; to Him is committed all power in heaven and on earth.
- Death, the wages of sin, is paid and canceled; His people are justified and reconciled to God.
3. The greatness of God’s love is vindicated by the effects of that love
a. God so loved… He imputed Christ's righteousness by free grace to His people while they were yet dead in sin, and in enmity against Him. God justified them FREELY based solely on the finished work of Christ. At effectual calling, God removes their personal condemned state and declared them personally righteous. He calls them out of the state of sin and death to righteousness and eternal life.
b. God so loved… He gives eternal life to His people while they were dead in sin through the regenerating work of His Spirit at the new birth, and adopts them as His children. “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.”
- Regeneration or new birth is the absolute prerequisite for conversion. Only those who are born of the Spirit of God can be brought to faith by the gospel preaching. To those dead in sin, the gospel is utter foolishness to them.
- Except one is born again, he is spiritually dead, he has no spiritual sight to see, and he has no spiritual life to enter…
c. God so loved... He adopts those born again by the Spirit; they are not just saved, they are made members of His family; they are given the rights and access to all the blessings of the divine household. Behold what manner of love... 1John 3:1f
d. God so loved… He gives eternal life to His people SO THAT they may believe the gospel, the good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ to save His people. ‘Whoever believes HAS eternal life.” This is grace indeed!
- John 17:1 “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
- John 5:24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.” Note the tenses. This is a declaration of fact: whoever believes HAS eternal life; whoever believes DOES SO because he possesses eternal life. It is not a conditional offer: if you believe, you will receive eternal life.
- Spiritual life is the absolute prerequisite to any spiritual activity – such as knowing, understanding, believing, and obeying spiritual truths. God gives spiritual life to His people when they were spiritually dead.
e. God so loved… He nourishes and trains His children to live godly and holy through the ministry of the Word in the church. He preserves His children in their eternal salvation. Eph 4:11f. He trains and guides and comforts His children as they journey through this world to their celestial home.
f. God so loved… He shall resurrect and gather all His children to dwell with Him in the eternal bliss of the new heaven and new earth after the Great Judgment Day.
- Jesus Christ said, “I give them eternal life… My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”
4. The greatness of God’s love is affirmed by the simplicity of the means appointed to manifest that free grace salvation
a. Whoever ‘believes’ has life… It is like saying, ‘whoever breathes has life.’
- To believe is the easiest activity of a living child. This is so evident that it doesn’t need to be proven. Nothing is easier than the act of believing. It requires no hard work whatsoever.
- There are so many things a little child cannot do, but he can and will believe the great and mighty things the parents will tell him. The capability to believe is innate in a child unless of course has mind has been poisoned and prejudiced against those things.
- So also with a person born again by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God who dwells in him enables him to believe the good news of what God has done through His Son Jesus Christ to save him. The grace of faith is a fruit of the Spirit… the Spirit works the grace of faith so that a child of God may believe the gospel of his salvation by the free and sovereign grace of God.
- Whoever believes in Christ as the Saviour gives proof and evidence that he has been saved by God through Christ Jesus. He has passed from death to life… It is because he has passed from death to life that he is able to believe. Not the reverse.
- Many believe a lie, contradict Christ and rob the glory and honour due to Him.
b. Imagine, if some other means were appointed, say ‘whoever theologizes, rationalizes, is consistent, is sound-minded, etc… then it would be very difficult, wouldn’t it?
- Believe what the word of God tells us about Him as our God and Creator, our sinful condition and utter helplessness, Christ sent to save poor sinners such as us and gives us eternal life that we may believe all that He has done for us… for our salvation from eternal condemnation.
- Salvation is by grace and grace alone, without your co-operation whatsoever. All your co-operation is only possible AFTER you have been saved, bestowed eternal life.
- Whoever believes that Jesus Christ is the one and only Saviour CAN KNOW AND KNOW WITH certainty that he has the eternal life that God has freely bestowed upon ill-deserving sinners.
- It is very necessary to believe Jesus Christ as the one and only Saviour… for that’s is the only way that you may know that you are among those whom Christ came to save.
- That explains for the ultimatum in Christ’s words – Mk 16:16 He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
God so loved… 1John 3:1 ¶ Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is."
Rebel sinners in enmity against God, children of disobedience and children of wrath, slaves of sin in bondage to the devil are turned into sons of God by the love of God exercised toward them.
O what manner of love!
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Look at these related articles:
https://things-new-and-old.blogspot.my/2011/10/john-316-what-is-imagined.html
https://things-new-and-old.blogspot.my/2013/07/a-man-has-scrupple-with-have-in-john-316.html
https://things-new-and-old.blogspot.my/2013/07/whoever-does-believes-will-receive-b.html
https://things-new-and-old.blogspot.my/2013/10/john-316-conditional-or-declarative.html
https://things-new-and-old.blogspot.my/2013/11/john-316-18-excessively-mouthed-but.html
https://things-new-and-old.blogspot.my/2008/08/calvin-on-john-316.html
