John 3:16

John 3:16 is a text that many people know by heart, even if they do not go to church regularly. They either heard it in Sunday School, or just picked it up as they traveled through life.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

There are words in this verse that merit ourattention, because people think about them even if they are not religious. Let's consider them for a few moments.

God.

We’re talking about God. But a lot of people do. In every country they talk about God. The problem is that in most cases they are talking about different Gods. So which God are we talking about? There are as many concepts of God as there are religions in the earth. One may conclude, then, that there is no one accurate definition of God. Maybe it doesn’t really matter what I think of Him.

That, of course, is not true. If there is a God, and if He has requirements for mankind, obviously it does matter what we think about Him. Jesus Christ, who claimed to be the Son of God, when He prayed to His Father, said, “This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” Jesus thought that His Father was the only true God.

He is the God of the Bible.

According to the Bible, He created all things, and He did it for a reason. The Bible says He created the Earth to be inhabited, and it is the only planet upon which, to date, we have evidence that there are inhabitants.

He created man to be the image of God: to manifest His character, His personality, His purity, His power, and His holiness. Man was to bear the image of God. If you want to see the example of what man was meant to be, look at the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the man. He should be the hero of every boy, of every girl, of every man woman and child. But that is not the case. Why? Because sin came in and defiled God’s creation––defiled the man God created. So now we have different kinds of heroes. By nature, we admire and love different things, things that cause divorce, despair, disease and death. We love sin.

God gave us the Law.

Can you imagine the world without law? How do we know it’s wrong to steal; to kill; to lie; to commit adultery? Because God gave us the commandments so that we would know what sin is. It was God––the only true God––who created all things for His own pleasure, that gave us those commandments. In our society we have become careless about these standards––we may even think it’s kind of cool to get away with doing some of those things. But the fact is, if you think about it, all those things that the Bible calls sin bring grief in one form or another. Every time there is a broken marriage, a divided home, a separation, a prison sentence, an illegitimate birth, it’s because someone violated the Word of God.

God loved the world.

That’s the message of John 3:16, Godso loved the world! He had something in mind when He created it. He still does. Here’s where those different views of God come in. Except for the Bible, there are no religious scriptures that tell us what God had in mind for humanity, or what sin is, or clear prophetic statements about the outworking of God’s plan in the world and among the nations. Some view God as a humanoid of some sort, who thinks like we do and excuses foibles and imperfections as long as we try to do our best. Others see Him as a stern taskmaster ready to punish every infraction, and eager to cast the errant ones into hell. Others think God is merely the extension of our own intelligence, and that there is really no one to whom we must give account. But the Bible describes Him as one who is perfect and requires perfection; one who has decreed that the wages of sin is death. This is reasonable, since we are to be the visible image of the invisible God. But He loves the world. His purpose is to perfect all that will call upon Him. He not only requires perfection, He also provides perfection.

When sin came into the creation through the disobedienceof Adam, God told Eve she would bring forth children in sorrow. She did that; and it has been the case ever since. Mothers have faced the prospect of rearing their children in a world of war, famine, disease, slavery and crime. All over the world children of mothers, both young and old, are suffering the ravages that result from these products of sin. Behind every death there is a grieving mother; also behind every illness and every imprisonment. All these are the result of sin. But no one grieves alone. God is also grieved––not surprised––but grieved, because God loves the world.

He so loved the world that He gave.

Now think about this; He gave. Some people think of God as a demanding God. He takes––He takes your money; He takes your time; He takes your pleasure. To hear some preachers tell it, that’s the way it is. Well, it isn’t. God gives. He gives life and breath and all things. The apostle Peter said, “He gives us all things that pertain to life and godliness. His name is Jehovah Jireh, God who provides. Look in the Bible; see Jesus giving, giving, and never taking. He gives food; He gives health; He gives life; He gives peace. He gives forgiveness of sins. He gave Himself.

Most religions in the world demand sacrifices. Somedemand the sacrifice of money, some demand animal sacrifice, some religions even require the sacrifice of children. Whatever it is, they demand your sacrifice. God, on the other hand, so loved the world that He did the sacrificing. Not many religions understand that. Islam doesn’t! Hinduism doesn’t; Buddhism doesn’t; Shintoism doesn’t. Even many calling themselves Christian don’t understand that God has made all the sacrifice that is necessary to redeem us from our sins and from the power that sin has over us.

About a month before the 25 th of December every year, the western world begins to acknowledge the birth of Jesus Christ. A verse of Scripture that seems to them appropriate at that season is Isaiah 9:6. “Unto us a child is born; unto us a Son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder. And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end.”

That Scripture is a prophecy about the Lord Jesus Christ. But it is not just about His birth. It is also about His death and His resurrection, and His coming again with full authority to rule over everything, and to institute peace.

Unto us a child is born;

That speaks of His birth. Noordinary birth, this. Jesus was the Word of God, by whom all things were created. To become a man––the perfect man––He had to be born of a human mother, but not of a human father, because it is through the father that sin is passed down from generation to generation. God was Jesus’ father, and His mother was a virgin. He was, therefore, a perfect and sinless human being, and the Son of God.

Unto us a Son is given.

Is that simply redundant? No! It is not redundant at all. This is not about a baby. The word “son” means a mature son. And given means “given up”––sacrificed. Jesus grew through every stage of human development. His mother, Mary, became the wife of Joseph, a carpenter, and after the birth of Jesus, bore to him at least six other children. Being the oldest of seven siblings, Jesus understood every trial of man from infancy to adulthood, every trial of family life, every temptation of growing up. Yet He maintained perfection. He never sinned.

He worked in Joseph’s carpentry business, no doubt firstas an apprentice, then as a carpenter. He had experience as a small businessman when Joseph left the scene. The Bible says He was tempted in every way that we are tempted. There is nothing that you can suggest, that Jesus doesn’t understand. He was tested in every way as you are––as I am; yet He was without sin.

Then came the day for which He came into the earth. Hehad, as a man fulfilled the whole law of God perfectly, the only man to ever do it. Now He was about to fulfill it in another way. He would take upon Himself the sins of all mankind and suffer the torment of the full penalty of sin. The Bible says “He that knew no sin was made sin for us.” For us is the key word here. God’s only begotten Son was given––what a gift; what a sacrifice––for us.

Listen to our text again. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Whosoever believeth on Him.

There are more historic factsconcerning the life and career of the Lord Jesus Christ. According to that verse in Isaiah 9:6, Unto us a child is born; unto us a Son is given. And the government shall be upon His shoulder. Jesus is not just a figure of the past. He is the focus of the future.

As many of you know, Jesus died the death of a criminal by crucifixion on a cruel Roman cross. He is called the last Adam. In God’s economy, He died the death of every man woman and child born of Adam’s descendancy. Christ died for all. The wages of sin, the Bible says, is death. God’s law demands the death penalty for sin. Jesus fulfilled that requirement of the law by His own death. In doing so, He fulfilled the law in two ways. First, He kept the law. He never once broke the law of God. Then, after keeping it perfectly, He went to the cross and paid the full penalty as though He had broken it all. In the life of the Lord Jesus, every requirement of the law was fulfilled, and in his death every demand was satisfied.

Jesus was buried. For three days and three nights His body lay in the tomb. His detractors thought their controversy with Jesus was over. But it wasn’t. After three days, He physically raised from the dead. He met with His disciples for forty days after His resurrection. He sat with them, walked with them, ate with them. Not only His immediate disciples, but also over five hundred people witnessed and testified of that resurrection.

That was the beginning of the Gospel. That is theGospel. It is not just ‘quit sinning’, ‘do better’, ‘go to church’, and give money! It is believe Jesus. The Gospel is not what we should do, It is what Christ has done. I said earlier that God not only requires perfection, He provides perfection. But the question is do you want perfection? Do you want forgiveness of your sin? That’s what He wants for you. He wanted it enough to die the agonizing death of the cross. He wants it for you more than you do.

Jesus death on the cross was, in fact, your death. The Bible says, “If one died for all, then were all dead.” That’s how God sees it. God sees the whole human race, and all the sin that attached to it as dead. Jesus death, in God’s view, wiped out the whole human race; you, me, and everybody else. It left us without hope. In God’s books, Adam's entire race is dead, perishing. Therefore you can’t change your destiny by trying to do better. It’s too late for that.

The Good News

The good news is that Jesus, three days after His crucifixion, rose from the dead and is alive physically in heaven, and alive right here in the Spirit. Your past is dead. Your future is in Christ Jesus. Whosoever believes on Him should not perish. The apostle Paul wrote these words, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.”

Saved means many things.

The first thing it means is thatyou will not perish. People joke about hell. I used to, before I was saved. But hell is not a joking matter. When Jesus spoke of it, He described it as a place of torment––of eternal suffering. He spoke of it as a lake of fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. It was not prepared for man; but man made that choice when he rejected God and chose to follow the Devil. Because of that, Satan is known in the Bible, as the god of this world.

Because God is eternal, and man was made in His image, the soul of man can not cease to exist. What God created eternal cannot be terminated. Since mankind is now condemned by sin, unless he receives God’s solution––which He provided at a terrible cost––he cannot spend eternity in God’s perfect heaven. He has two choices. 1) Receive the eternal life of the risen Lord Jesus, which God offers freely to all who will trust Him, or 2) exist eternally in the only other eternal place there is.

God’s desire for man––for you and me––is everlasting life.It was for that reason He created man in the image of God. Here is God’s forecast for the future:

“But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for, and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness…"

"I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God, And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And He that sat upon the throne said, behold, I make all things new.”