A New Creation – Pt 5

if God’s people would take their
Bibles and turn once again to the Gospel of John, John chapter
3. And in our study we come to one
of everyone’s favorite verses. Perhaps No simpler words echo
in the hearts and lives of believers as those simple words of the
children’s song. Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so. And
this passage is at least one of those that tells us so abundantly
clearly that God loves us. That God has loved us in the
most practical terms. He’s loved us enough to do something
about it. And what he did supersedes all efforts that anyone
ever could have extended. We come again to this chapter,
John chapter 3, where Jesus is in a dialogue with Nicodemus.
Been a lengthy dialogue. And Jesus has graciously interacted
with this man whose heart he knew. He knew exactly where Nicodemus
was and we’re even Led into that a bit at the end of chapter 2
that Jesus knew the heart of all Jesus knew what was in Nicodemus
his heart, but Jesus never criticizes Nicodemus for coming at night.
He never Criticizes Nicodemus for all of his many questions
He graciously deals with this man as he deals with all Graciously With great long-suffering If
you would, let’s pick up this narrative all the way back at
the beginning. Which actually begins, as you know, in chapter
2, verse 23. Now, when he was in Jerusalem
at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in his name, observing
the signs which he was doing. But Jesus, on his part, was not
entrusting himself to them, for he knew all men. and because
he did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for he himself
knew what was in man. Now there was a man of the Pharisees
named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus
by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you have come from
God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that you do
unless God is with him. Jesus answered and said to him,
truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot
see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, how can
a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time
into his mother’s womb and be born, can he? Jesus answered,
truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the
spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which
is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of spirit
is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said
to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes
and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes
from and where it is going. So is everyone who is born of
the spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, how can these things be? Jesus answered and said to him,
are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?
Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify
of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony.
If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will
you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into
heaven but he who descended from heaven, the son of man. As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the
son of man be lifted up so that whoever believes will in him
have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him
shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the
Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might
be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not
judged. He who does not believe has been
judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the
only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment that the
light has come into the world and men loved the darkness rather
than the light for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does
evil hates the light. It does not come to the light
for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices
the truth comes to the light so that his deeds may be manifested
as having been wrought in God. We come to a familiar verse,
a beloved verse, a verse that one theologian said is the heart
of the evangel, the gospel. Martin Luther called it the Bible
in miniature, the little gospel. And in fact, one of the cute
posters that I’ve seen that was produced, if you capitalize the
first letter of the following words, God, Only, Son, Parish,
Everlasting, and Life, it literally spells out the gospel. Jesus
here, as one said, summarizes the entire gospel in one lovely
sentence. It is so rich in content. that
if man had only these words and nothing of the rest of the Bible,
he could, by truly apprehending them, be saved. Do you believe
that? John 3.16, that that’s enough to lead someone to salvation? I absolutely believe so. God, in His infinite love here,
is declared as revealing in this incredible manner. this truth. One called it the golden text
that has endeared itself to the hearts of all of God’s children.
Another called it everybody’s text, the very essence of the
gospel itself. One faithful shepherd called
it undoubtedly the most familiar and beloved verse in all of scripture. Writing on these things, One
pastor said, what proclamation of the gospel has been so oft
on the lips of missionaries and preachers of every age? What
has sent such thrilling sensations through millions of mankind?
What has been so honored to bring such multitudes to the feet of
Christ? What to kindle the cold and selfish
hearts of mortals and the fires of self-sacrificing love to mankind
as these words of transparent simplicity. John 3.16 Yet another said, perhaps no
verse in the Bible has been so much explained as this. And then
he goes on to say, perhaps no verse can be so little explained
These words are the revelation of the nature of God. One pastor, in dismantling these
words, laid them out, and perhaps you’ve seen that familiar poster,
where every word of John 3.16 is essentially placed in a column
at the left and then over at the right a descriptive. One
faithful pastor did it another way. He referred to the divine
nature is love. The nature of that love is self-sacrifice,
his only son. The object of that love is the
whole world. The result of that love is the
gift of the Messiah. the divine nature of the Messiah,
God’s only begotten Son, the object of that gift, salvation,
the sole condition, faith in the Savior, the effect of accepting
it, eternal life. What we have here in John 3.16
is essentially an explanation. Remember Jesus is in a dialogue
with Nicodemus and he’s challenging Nicodemus as to his apparent
ignorance of some of the things that Jesus had already shared
with him. Jump back into verse 12. If I
told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you
believe if I tell you heavenly things? And he begins to tell
him heavenly things. First of which, no one is ascended
into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the son of man.
No one is more qualified to elucidate these truths than I am, said
Jesus. I am the only one who has been
in heaven, who has had access to God in heaven, who has interfaced,
communed with God. Only I am prepared to reveal
these deep truths, heavenly things to you, Nicodemus. And then,
as we saw last Lord’s Day, he opens up to him another heavenly
truth. Look at verses 14 and 15. As
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. We looked at that obtuse, strange,
unappreciated little passage in Numbers 21. The lifting of
the snake, the brazen serpent. And it didn’t make any sense
to Israel. Israel didn’t appreciate it for
what it was. And really, no one could appreciate
it until Jesus revealed the heavenly mystery. Which was the fact that
that was a forecast. A foreshadowing, a type of what
was going to come with regards to the Messiah. That the Messiah
himself, the Son of Man, must be lifted up. And we saw that
that referred to Christ’s crucifixion. so that whoever believes in him
will have eternal life. That is the means. It is Christ
lifted up on the cross that we’re called to place our faith in,
not just faith, not just faith in faith as we’ve heard about
even this past week, that as long as we’re people of faith,
we’re on good footing, not so. It’s faith in Christ, but faith
in a particular Christ. It’s Christ on the cross. It’s
Christ in his finished work on the cross. And what John wants
to do is explain why this is so necessary. He says, as Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must, it
is absolutely necessary that the Son of Man also be lifted
up. Why? And he begins to explain,
beginning in John 3.16. Why is it necessary? For God
so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever
believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. It’s absolutely
necessary. But as you’ll quickly see, not
only is this undoubtedly one of the best known verses in the
New Testament, it’s one of the most abused People take this
and make it mean whatever they think it wants to mean, they
want it to mean. There are three traditional controversies
that are directly associated with this verse. The first of
which is, are these Jesus’ words or John’s? The second one is that it teaches
universalism because it does say, God so loved the world,
so if Jesus paid for the sins of the entire world, then the
entire world is saved. The third controversy that it
tends to breed is that it places salvation in man’s hands, that
whosoever believes that God simply loved the world enough to provide
a way of salvation for everybody, but we all have to go and get
on board. Well, in just briefly treating
these controversies, and the second two I’ll treat in the
course of considering the passage, the first, let’s just get it
out of the way. Are these Jesus’ words or John’s? There’s this
long-standing dispute about these words, and if you’re looking
down at your Bible and you see that your Bible has red letters,
Don’t put a ton of stock in that. Don’t say, well, this answers
it once and for all time because they’re in red here in my Bible.
It may come as a surprise to you that Paul didn’t use red
ink when he wrote. Neither did the Apostle John.
No one did. In fact, it wasn’t even black,
it was almost a dark brown ink that was used on papyrus. The
interesting thing is that about the turn of the century, not
the previous century, but the 20th century, in the early 1900s,
there was a device that was really utilized almost as a gimmick
to sell more Bibles. And the man came up with this
red letter, and he said, let’s put the words of Christ in red,
and anything in the Old Testament that Christ quotes will be in
red, and anything in the Old Testament that alludes to Christ
will be in red, at least with a red mark upon it. It was a
device. It didn’t mean that words in
red were more divine than the rest. Because we know, based
on our understanding of Scripture, our faith in God’s Word, is that
God’s Spirit inspired it all. It is God-breathed. So whether
it’s in red ink or black ink, it’s God’s Word. This dispute
centers on whether these words, beginning in verse 16 down through
verse 21, are the continued words of Christ himself or whether
they are inserted as the explanatory words of John, kind of a commentary
on what Jesus has just said to Nicodemus. Those who suggest
that these are John’s words argue that this is proved by a number
of features in the passage. If you glance down at the passage,
one of the indications says that there’s no longer a dialogue
with Nicodemus. Well we have seen this building
that the first reply that Jesus gives is short and then Nicodemus
comes back with a question. A little bit longer answer and
another question and now here a very lengthy answer. I don’t
think that there’s any proof in the fact that just because
Nicodemus doesn’t chime in again, if anything, perhaps he even
put his hand over his mouth at beginning to hear and digest
these heavenly truths. Another said that the speaker
now only uses the past tense and what it points to is this
idea that John is writing years down the road and he looks back
and he uses the past tense. Well, Jesus used the past tense
in many occasions. That’s not really an argument.
The third argument is that John the Apostle is the only one who
elsewhere uses the phrase, only begotten. In fact, he’s already
used it in chapter 1 verse 14, chapter 1 verse 18. He uses it
again in his first epistle, 1 John 4, 9. But we know well that if
John is writing, 50 plus years later, he very easily
could have looked back and utilized the very words of Christ spoken
here in this passage. The only begotten, it’s not as
if John copyrighted that or registered that as a trademark. Jesus easily
could have used that of himself here. And I believe he did. The last argument is that it
is commonplace for the Apostle Paul to insert a short commentary
into the narrative of the text. That’s partly what an author
does, is he’s narrating throughout as he goes, and then he inserts
his own thoughts and commentary. That happens frequently. John
4.44. It even occurs there in parentheses,
for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in
his hometown. It happens again in chapter 6,
verse 6. He said this to test him, for
he knew himself what he would do. And so you have this device
that John the Apostle uses from time to time, but I don’t think
there’s any proof, there’s no necessity that he’s using that
here. These are Christ’s words. The
fact that the conversation seems to come to a screeching halt
makes sense. Nicodemus should be silent at this point. And it seems really, really unlikely
that John would make this transition to add to Christ’s words here
with some of the most profound words in all of scripture without
at least acknowledging that switch. that Jesus had stopped speaking
and that John himself was beginning to comment upon it. So regardless
of what the color of your ink is, I believe that these are
Christ’s words. And really, if you back up and
look at it, it’s not a big deal regardless. The words are all
inerrant. The words are all given to us
by virtue of the Holy Spirit, by inspiration in the men who
wrote. And whether John is recording
Christ’s very words or inserting a comment of his own, we lose
nothing. We have the very Word of God
before us. I’m beginning to look at John
3.16. I recalled a familiar poster
that I had seen really probably almost in the earliest days of
my salvation. It was John 3.16, and as I indicated,
each word was broken up and each word was characterized. And there
was this word greatest that was interspersed throughout. And
I’ve taken that as kind of our formula as we begin to work through
this, but I, in going back, I realized that I needed to adjust and make
this my own. We’ll see, I’ll let you examine
the poster and see if we’ve made it better. But as you come to John 3.16,
What you have in that first word, for, is the beginning of the
greatest explanation that’s ever been provided. It’s the greatest
explanation that’s ever been provided. Verse 16, as we’ve
already indicated, is explaining verse 14. The opening word, for,
points back to that specifically, and what it does is take us back
to the very beginning of everything, even to eternity past. God provided
a sacrifice. God provided his own son that
Jesus Christ himself was God’s gift to the world in a very profound
way. And so this must, when God uses
this word must of Christ in verse 14, under the inspiration of
the Holy Spirit, Jesus said he must be lifted up He knows that
that needs to be explained and so he begins to do so here and
Jesus uses that very language in building upon those verses
14 and 15 to tell precisely why the Son of Man must be lifted
up. And as this explanation begins
to grow, we see that it’s, it begins to snowball. It’s a, it’s
a profound argument that Jesus is bringing. And he says, not
only is this, we see that not only is this the greatest explanation,
but it’s the greatest being. Look at verse 16 again, for God
so loved the world. This isn’t just anyone, this
isn’t the collocation of a committee, this isn’t the creation of a
great plan that man came up with, it’s God himself that dictated
that Christ must die. It wasn’t the Romans, it wasn’t
the Jews, it was God who said he must die. Obviously what is
implied here, based on the context, is that Jesus is referring to
God the Father. And as we just observed, Jesus
here is giving an explanation to Nicodemus. It’s an explanation
as to why he must be lifted up, why he must die on the cross,
and the reason here begins with God himself. It’s all according
to his plan. What he tells us here. is that
this great plan of redemption, this plan of salvation, this
idea that Christ, like the brazen serpent in the wilderness, must
be lifted up, it was God’s plan. And we even see that tying all
the way back and letting this mystery sit for ages in the nation
of Israel, this idea, this experience that they had with
this brazen serpent that just didn’t register. They would have
gotten rid of it completely out of their history books if they
could. They didn’t understand it. They didn’t grasp it. But
the whole thing lies in the great plan of redemption that was conceived
by God himself. The initiative in salvation,
the plan of redemption, it’s all God’s story. It’s his story of redemption.
He is the author. The greatest explanation is that
the greatest being, thirdly, expressed the greatest emotion.
We hold love to be a great emotion. We would all admit that we’ve
expressed the anger or the emotion of anger We’ve felt the emotion
of sadness. But we would all echo, as Paul
would say, that love is the superlative of all emotions. And here we
see that God himself expresses the greatest emotion. And so
if it’s God himself, the greatest being, expressing the greatest
emotion, this is a truly superlative moment in the life of humanity.
God loved. This is a truly great explanation
as to why Christ must die because God loved. It’s an all-embracing love. It’s a different kind of love.
There is the love of emotion. There is the love of feeling.
This is a different kind of love. This is the purest and highest
kind of love. Agapao, it’s the love of choice
and commitment. I’ve used this as a wedding illustration
for many times that great theologian Elvis said that he couldn’t help
falling in love. The problem is That the other
side of that equation is that we want to say that we can’t
help falling out of love. That’s not the kind of love that Jesus is talking about here.
This is the kind of love that chooses to love. This is the
kind of love that commits to love no matter what. As one said,
the tense shows that this is God’s love in action, reaching
back to eternity, coming to fruition in Bethlehem and Calvary, viewed
as one great central fact. That love was rich and true,
full of understanding, tenderness, and majesty. Let’s stand back
and look at this. God’s love encapsulates the garden. It encapsulates Adam and Eve. It encapsulates the fall. It
encapsulates not only the fall, but even the great plan of redemption
that began to unfold as soon as they fell. God began to practically
love. God loved us in creating us.
God loved us in sending Adam and Eve as our representatives.
And God loved us and continued to love us even through that
in the unfolding of his great plan of redemption. God loved
us in sending the law. God loved us in sending us the
prophets. God loved us in sending us the
Lord Jesus Christ. God loved. Some of the greatest
two words that have ever been uttered. Because we know that
if the greatest being has exercised the greatest emotion, good must
come. Good must come from that. One pastor said, it is a distinctively
Christian idea that God’s love is wide enough to embrace all
mankind. His love is not confined to any
national group or any spiritual elite. It proceeds from the fact
that He is love. It is His nature to love. God
is love, said the Apostle John, 1 John 4.10. When he says it’s a distinctively
Christian idea, you think of even the day and age in which
we live. Where entire religions justify what they do, their militant
approach to so-called evangelism, believe or die. Where Christianity
is based on love, and not even a love that orients with the
believer, but a love that orients with God himself. God loved. And that changed everything,
didn’t it? Now get this. The greatest being,
pardon me, the greatest explanation is that the greatest being expressed
the greatest emotion to the greatest degree. Look at verse 16 again. It isn’t that God loved, for
God so loved. And that little word so is even
blended and absorbed in some translations as if it isn’t even
there. But it speaks that little word
of degree and manner. It says essentially that God
loved greatly. He loved so much. He loved so intensely. One writing on this said, the
magnitude of His love, there are dimensions to the breadth
and length and depth and height of His wondrous love that none
can measure. It is magnanimous love, it is
immeasurable love. The love of God goes so far beyond
our feeble ability to understand it. We look up, we receive His
love, we understand not why, We can’t begin to grasp why He
would love such unlovely creatures such as ourself. We know our
heart. We know our lives. We know our sin. God knows it
better. And God hates our sin more. But to ignore this little word,
This emphasis upon the nature of God’s love is to miss the
entire point that God loved with such great intensity to the greatest
degree he loved. It could have been attributed
to God’s love to close the whole thing down at the garden. It could have been attributed
to God’s love to flood the entire earth, Noah’s family included.
And yet God’s love went beyond even that. As one said, the wonder of the
gospel is not that God loved the world, but that he loved
it with such a love. A love which only the sacrifice
of an only begotten son can begin to interpret. What you do is, as you begin
to look at John 3.16, you begin to see the cross, and the purpose
of the cross, and the expression of God’s love in that. That God’s
love is seen as perfectly as we can see it in the cross. It’s
seen as perfectly as we can grasp it in the giving of Christ to
die on our behalf. It is an infinite degree that
God loved because God is so infinitely holy to condescend and to love
people such as you and I was truly an amazing expression of
love and we don’t do it. There isn’t a
day or a week that goes by where we don’t react to some fellow
sinner in a way that we shouldn’t. Whether it’s just a reply that
comes from our lips or the shaking of a fist or some attitude or
some act of vengeance. But God, who deserves to strike
man more than God? Who deserves to vent his wrath
more than God? And yet, out of love, he does something entirely different. One great theologian said, only
the creator is infinite. And he is infinite in all his
attributes, including that of love. This verse tells us not
only that the love of God is great, but as is indicated by
the adverb so, it answers the question of how great that love
is. It is infinite. It’s infinite love that God expressed. And so Jesus’ explanation here,
beginning in verse 16, is that the greatest being expressed
the greatest emotion to the greatest degree by the greatest condescension. Look again at verse 16, God so
loved the world. Now, there are, and you may be
well aware of this classic argument and controversy that exists over
this little word, world. Universalists have taken this
for centuries and said that God gave Christ, Christ paid the
penalty for the whole world and thereby the whole world is saved.
Well, Then you have one faithful servant took and he looked at
all the different ways that the word world is used in scripture
and it’s used in a variety of different ways. It isn’t always
used in the same way. It’s used as he said, it’s used
of the universe as a whole. John 17, 24, the God who made
the world and everything in it. That’s pretty all encompassing,
isn’t it? He’s talking about the globe and even beyond the
globe. He’s talking about the sun, moon,
and stars. He’s talking about creation. The God who made the
world and everything in it. But he also says that this word
world is used of the earth, the globe itself, if you will. John
13, one. before the feast of the Passover
when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this
world to the Father having loved his own who were in the world.
There’s nothing evil about that. They were in and on the globe. They were on terra firma. They
were here on earth. But it’s also used to speak of
that evil world system. There’s a third way. This third way, not only of the
universe as a whole or of the earth, but the world system.
John 12, 31, now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler
of this world be cast out. That’s the third way that the
word world is used. But there’s a fourth. He indicates a fourth way that
the world is used. He says that it can also refer
to the whole human race, citing Romans 3.19. We know that whatever
the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that
every mouth may be stopped and the whole world will be held
accountable to God. It’s the whole human race. We
will all answer to God. But this word world is used in
yet another way. It’s used of humanity minus believers. used classically by Paul, but
also of John, John 15, 8, if the world hates you. And he’s
trying to encourage believers by saying, look, you’ll look
up one day and realize that the world, everybody else hates you. Well, but it’s also used of Gentiles
in contrast to the Jews, Romans 11. Romans 11, Paul has been speaking
of the nation of Israel and the Gentile world. Now, if their
trespass, the Jews, means riches for the world, the Gentiles,
and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more
will their full inclusion mean? In other words, he says that,
look, the entire Gentile world apart from Israel, and then he
uses it even of believers, this word world, Behold the Lamb of
God who takes away the sin of the world. He can’t possibly
mean there that he takes away all sin because sin is prevalent
even to our day. He can’t mean that he takes away
the consequence of sin from all people because not all people
are saved. So we come back to this passage
in what possible sense? Can it be that God so loved the
world And you have several really good
explanations. And I think of all the explanations
that I disagree with, this is the best. Nicodemus probably
thought, like many Jews, that God’s purposes of mercy were
entirely confined to his chosen people. That is true. It’s absolutely
true. And that all Jesus was doing
here by saying the world was that God is interested not just
in the Jews, but he’s interested in the whole world. And that
is a great explanation. I just happened to believe that
there’s a better one. A man named B.B. Warfield was the
first to identify this, and I absolutely, when I first read it, I was dumbfounded. at the simple truth of this passage. What he says is that the world
in John 3.16 is to be understood qualitatively, not quantitatively. Bear with me. We want to say
that God loves the whole wide world as if only God can fit
his arms around it all. This big, extensive, dynamic
place with all these many people. and that God loved the whole
wide world. But what Warfield says here is
that, to really understand that, Jesus Christ there is talking
about the world qualitatively. And there, he says, the emphasis
falls not on the size of the world, but on the sinful quality
of the human race. That is absolutely true. The
point then is not that the world is so big that it takes a great
deal of love to embrace it, but that it’s so bad that it takes
an exceedingly great kind of love to love it at all. It makes
an unimaginable declaration. It reveals the greatest marvel
of history, an unfathomable mystery that the holy God loves sinful
men. The love of God is sovereign.
Divine love, unlike human love, is not dependent upon its object. God loves such as are altogether
despicable and wholly repulsive. It’s easy to love your family
members. So cute, so warm, so loving. It’s easy to love the lovely,
But the amazing thing about God’s love, when it says, God so loved
the world, is that He loved those who are absolute sinners, hateful
and hating God. Kuyper finishes here by saying,
the reason why God loves them lies not in them, but it lies
in God Himself. God loves sinners because He
is who He is. Another contemporary pastor says
it this way, God’s motive for giving his indescribable gift,
Jesus Christ, was that he loved the evil, sinful, fallen world
of humanity. That’s John 3.16. God so loved
the world. And what you have then, You have
the greatest explanation. That the greatest being expressed
the greatest emotion to the greatest degree by the greatest condescension
with the greatest sacrifice. For God so loved the world that
he gave. He didn’t owe us. He wasn’t obligated in the least
to open his sovereign hands of mercy to give us anything. And the word, if you look at
it, in its original, it means much more than just God sent.
We’ve seen that. God did send his son. But this
goes even beyond that. The word here isn’t sent, it’s
gave. God gave his son. He handed him
over. And it has that idea of sacrifice. It’s love that gives for a purpose,
even the most precious thing to him. One said it this way, let no
one think that the Son was a present of God to sinful humanity. It
means surrendered and sacrificed to a life of the deepest humiliation,
to the bitter, shameful, and accursed death on the cross. God gave Jesus to the world. Do you understand that? He gave him as an example, that
we know. He gave him as a model of perfection,
we know that. He gave him as the manifestation
of God on earth, but he gave him as a savior. He gave him
to the fickle and capricious whims of men. He gave him to
scorn. He gave him to abuse. He gave
him to mockery. He gave him to the beatings of
sinful men. He gave him to arrest. He gave
him to rejection. He gave him to merciless abuse. He gave him to death. He gave
him to be killed. When it says that God so loved
the world that he gave, We can look at this and we see that
this is absolutely the greatest sacrifice. J.C. Ryle said that God, Christ is
the God, pardon me, Christ is God the Father’s gift to a lost
and sinful world. He was given generally to be
the savior, redeemer, friend of sinners, to make atonement
sufficient for all. To effect this, the Father freely
gave him. to be despised and crucified,
counted guilty and accursed for our sakes. What we have in John 3.16 is
the greatest explanation that the greatest being expressed
the greatest emotion to the greatest degree by the greatest condescension
to the greatest sacrifice involving the greatest relationship. It’s
the father-son relationship. And it doesn’t mean that it’s
from an earthly standpoint that the father-son relationship is
better than the husband-wife or better than the father-daughter
or the mother-daughter. It just speaks of that familial
intimacy, a deep and abiding relationship that he gave his
son. It’s not just a sentimental feeling,
but this is a love that he had for his son that was costly.
God gave what was most precious to him in the gift of his son. One remarked that it was difficult
to find a verse in the New Testament that speaks about God’s love
without also speaking in the same verse or the same context
about God’s gift of his son. God’s love was the gift of his
son. God’s love is so infinitely practical
that it must include the gift of his son. Galatians 2.20, 1 John 4.10. Why is this so special? Why is
it involved the greatest relationship of all? I love the way one pastor
explained it. A human father shares parenthood
with a mother, with generations of grandparents. God shares that
with no one. All the honor of parenthood is
his. He loves his son incomparably
more than any father could possibly love his son. It was part of
himself as deity. And so what you have here is
the greatest explanation that God, the greatest being, expressed
the greatest emotion to the greatest degree by the greatest condescension
with the greatest sacrifice involving the greatest relationship in
the greatest measure. Look again, for God so loved
the world that he gave his son, not just any son, his only begotten
son. And we looked at this when we
saw verse 14, that this meant, this has reference to the fact
that this is God’s only son. This is deity, God incarnate. And this, John said in his first
epistle, 4.9, in this the love of God was made manifest among
us, that God sent his only son into the world. That’s how we
know God loves us. That’s how we can begin to understand
and grasp and put our arms around this idea of the love of God. Because we see it. Because He
sent not only His Son, He sent His only Son. Truly is the greatest. It’s the greatest expression
of love. And it comes in the greatest measure. What you have
in John 3.16 is the greatest explanation that the greatest
being expressed the greatest emotion to the greatest degree
by the greatest condescension with the greatest sacrifice involving
the greatest relationship by the greatest measure by the greatest
provision. What do I mean by that? Look
at the passage. For God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him
shall not perish. In this gospel, God lays out
the means of salvation. It is justification by faith.
Nicodemus came from a completely different place. So did all of
humanity. All of humanity said, let me do something to earn my
way to heaven. Let me pay you back at the very
least. Jesus Christ said, believe. You’re
justified by faith. It’s the greatest provision in all of history. Because for
the first time, Jesus begins to unfold to Nicodemus and to
all others that salvation is by faith. Salvation is by faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ alone. This is where the so-called controversy
came in. That this verse, this phrase,
whosoever believes in him or whoever believes in him, takes
salvation out of the hands of God and puts it squarely in the
hands of men. You can have salvation provided
if only you will accept on God’s terms. Now I want you to know,
I have preached for nearly these 20 plus years. I’ve preached
through passages. the talk about God’s sovereignty
and salvation. First Peter 1.3, blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his
great mercy has caused us to be born again. Ephesians 1, blessed
be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed
us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ
just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that
we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined
us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself. Romans
8, we know that God causes all things to work together for good
to those who love God, to those who are called according to His
purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become
conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn
among many brethren. And whom He predestined, these
also He justified, and whom He justified, these also He glorified. Are we to understand that John
3.16, like a mighty javelin, pierces through and skewers and
pokes holes in all of those truths? Not at all. You remember, we
have already, in working through this gospel, we have already
reviewed our anthropology. our understanding of mankind.
We are already in a state of having been condemned. We are
already judged. In fact, we are already dead.
There is no one seeking God. We are already in a state of
unbelief. We are already in need of a Savior. And you might remember that when
Jesus begins to interact with Nicodemus throughout this whole
episode, Jesus never tells Nicodemus to do anything. Nothing. Not even believe. He tells him
it’s an absolute necessity. But we’ve already seen before
Nicodemus can do anything, he must be born again. He must be
regenerated. People, it’s this simple. Regeneration
must precede faith. It must. Can we hardly conceive
of the formula that says, let me believe so that I may be reborn? It’s not possible. It’s not possible. And that was Jesus’ whole point
in telling Nicodemus, you must be born again. The wind blows
where it wishes. There’s absolute sovereignty
in those things. Jesus never tells Nicodemus to
do a single thing. What then does he mean here?
whoever believes in Him, what He’s identifying is those who
will not perish. Those who will not perish are
those who believe, but they are the same as God has identified
elsewhere. They are the believers, they
are the saints, the set-apart ones, whether you want to call
them the elect or those who have been born again, brought to life.
They are believers. It is the greatest provision
of all. that salvation comes by faith, and if you can look
up and place your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you should,
you better, because it’s life itself. But in the end, that’s
an indicator that God awoken you from the sleep of death. What we have here is the greatest
explanation that the greatest being expressed the greatest
emotion to the greatest degree by the greatest condescension with the greatest sacrifice involving
the greatest relationship and the greatest measure to the greatest
provision with the greatest rescue that whosoever believes in him shall
not perish.” You see, we’re already, we’re already perishing. We’re
already bound for eternity without Christ. That perishing indicates divine
condemnation. There is no annihilationism in
this passage at all. It speaks of that case where
one is absolutely banished from the presence of God and God’s
love forever. What you have in John 3.16 is
the greatest explanation that the greatest being express the
greatest emotion to the greatest degree by the greatest condescension
with the greatest sacrifice involving the greatest relationship and
the greatest measure with the greatest provision with the greatest
rescue together with the greatest blessing. Look at John 3.16 again. For
God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal
life. We tend to think of eternal life
as just this. unending duration. But it’s a different, it’s a
qualitatively different kind of life. It’s life as it was
meant to be lived. It’s life in Christ. It’s life
in the realm of glory, not only in the future, but now. It’s saved life. It’s life in
Christ. It’s life in peace. It’s life
with God. It’s a life of joy everlasting. For God so loved the world, that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him
shall not perish, but have eternal life. Let’s pray. Our merciful King, we come before
You humbled at Your feet, that You would not only pause
to give Nicodemus such a gracious and clear explanation of your
words, which until that moment were completely obtuse, glazed
over to the Israelites regarding the serpent. But your explanation
that the Son of God must be lifted up, that you must be crucified,
is indeed the greatest explanation that man has ever received, that
God loves the sinner. Jesus loves me, this I know,
for the Bible tells me so. Amen. Take your hymnals and turn
to 455. And can it be that I should gain,
let’s stand as we close. Oh.