SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/24/2016
7:53 AM
My Worship Time Focus: John 3:16
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 3:15-16
Message of
the verses: 15 so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. 16
“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 are going to camp out on John 3:16 for a couple
of days because after yesterday’s Spiritual Diary I listened to the most recent
sermon that John MacArthur did on this verse, actually verses 15-21 and I
wanted to quote from what he has to say about verse sixteen in this Spiritual
Diary. Understand that we will get into
the middle of a discussion that he has on verse fifteen and then move to verse
sixteen.
“Nicodemus then is given the shocking thing from
the lips of our Lord, that salvation is by faith alone. A faith that commits
itself to the Son of Man, and the Son of Man lifted up and crucified, makes
that full commitment, and anybody, whoever he is, who makes that commitment
will have eternal life—Jew or Gentile.
“This is just devastating. Nicodemus was a racist,
very much so, as the Jews were. Their hatred of the idolatrous blasphemous
nations was settled long before he came long. And now the shock is “whoever.”
And it’s while Nicodemus is trying to process that that Jesus gives us the most
familiar verse in the Bible, John 3:16. And this is an explanation of verse 15,
’cause Nicodemus is going to be saying to himself, “Why in the world would God
do this? Why would God give eternal life to anybody who just believed in Him?
Why would God not reserve eternal life for the people who kept the rules,
right? For the people who followed the Law, for the people who kept the
Sabbath, for the people who were traditionalists, for the people who were
zealous for holy things, did the ceremonies, offered the sacrifices?”
“Wait a minute. Why does eternal life get to be
given to whoever believes,
and not just Jews that believe but whoever believes? How can this possibly be?
“And the answer is this, here’s why, verse 16,
“For God so”...What?...“loved the world.” What’s behind this whole thing?
What’s behind it all? God’s...What?...God’s love, God’s love. Now this is a
heavenly thing; this is a heavenly thing. Whoever believes in Him shall not
perish but have eternal life, because God who so loves the world gave His only
begotten Son to make that possible. I think our very familiarity with this
verse sometimes locks its truths in and we don’t understand. I mean, we all say
that, we knew it from, you know, elementary school or Sunday school. Do you
know Reformed theologians have just worked this verse to death through the
centuries? Here would be a classic Reformed theological explanation of John
3:16.
“First of all we have the remote efficient cause.
Then we have the approximate efficient cause. Then we have the instrumental
cause. And then we would add the material cause. Does that move your heart? Is
that gripping you? That’s the theological way to explain John 3:16. The remote
efficient cause—God’s love. The approximate efficient cause—God’s grace. The
instrumental cause—belief. And then they would add the material cause—the
cross. And the result, eternal life.
“But let’s not get technical. So let me give you a
simpler outline. How about the motive for salvation? The motive? God so loved;
God so loved. This is way beyond their confined racism. This is way beyond
their hatred of Gentiles and the nations around them and the Romans living
among them. God loves the world; God loves the world. How long had they
justified their hatred for the world and defended it on the basis that this is
how God felt? Right? They were the people of God. They were the representatives
of God. This is the teacher. He hated the world ’cause God hated the world.
“Not true. The reason that God makes salvation
available to anyone who believes and the reason that anybody can believe is
because God actually loves the world. Shocking, absolutely shocking. That’s the
motive.
“The object is the world and anybody in the world
whoever, whoever. The world here is a term simply for humanity, humanity,
that’s all—just God loves humanity. Titus 3:4 uses a similar expression,
mankind. God loves mankind. It doesn’t mean that He’s going to save everyone
who ever lives. That’s pretty clear because verse 18 talks about the ones that
are going to be judged ’cause of their unbelief.
“There’s only one world, one realm of humanity,
and God has determined to set His love on that world. He didn’t do that with
angels. The angels that sinned were cast into hell and have never known God’s
love since their rebellion. But God chose to love the world. So the motive for
salvation is love, and the object of salvation is the world. God’s love shows
up across the world in common grace and gospel invitation. That’s the broadest
sweep of God’s love. The rain falls on the just and the unjust. The sun rises
on the just and the unjust. People fall in love, have children, enjoy the
beauties of life and the world, the satisfactions, the successes, the wonderful
things that God has placed in man’s care in this world are all evidences that
God has a general love for humanity. He gives them gospel opportunity. The
gospel reaches to them. He demonstrates Himself and who He is inside of them.
He writes His Law in their hearts and He makes Himself accessible to human
reason so that you can look at the world that is and determine there’s a God
behind it and know something of His power and eternal Godhead, Romans 1.
“But there’s a special love that He has for His
own in the world and they’re all over the world. In fact, when you get a scene
in heaven in Revelation 4 and 5 and 6 and 7, all the way through there, you see
all the saints gather around the throne, eventually you find out they’re from
every tongue and tribe and people and nation, not just Israel.
“So this confined racism that was true of
Nicodemus and others, not a reflection of the heart of God. Nicodemus is messed
up in his theology very severely. He can’t earn His salvation. It has to come
from heaven and it’s a sovereign work of God, not a work of man. And God loves
a world that he hates, and God makes salvation accessible by faith when he
always thought it would be by works. And so the action for salvation comes
next.
“The motive is love. The object is the world. The
action is He gave His only begotten Son. That’s a little misleading, “only
begotten Son.” It’s monogenes, monogenes. Genes is a Greek word
from which you get genetics. Mono is one. And what the word
actually means, when you put monogenes together, it means unique, it
means one of a kind, the only one. That’s easier for you to understand. God
gave His unique Son, His one of a kind Son, His beloved Son. “This is My
beloved Son,” He says, the Son of His love; His own Son Romans 8:3 puts it.
“And there’s something to be said here, very
important. See the word “so”; “God so loved the world.” What does “so” mean?
“To the degree that,” “to the end that,” “in this way.” That is God so loved
the world. To what degree did He love the world? To the degree that He gave His
only Son. In other words, the extent of His love is measured by the extent of
His gift. The most magnanimous thing that God could possibly do would be to
give the thing He loved the most, the One He loved the most, the Son of His
love. He gives the person that He loves the most, the Son of His love, and that
shows you the extent of His love. He loves the world so that He gives His one
of a kind, unique, beloved Son.
“The means for salvation? Whoever
believes—believe, believe, believe; that’s the means. Believe, believe what?
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe that God raised Him from the dead.
Believe in the significance of the cross and the resurrection. Believe the
gospel. Whoever, whoever.
“Listen carefully. The free offer of the gospel is
broad enough to include the worst sinner who believes. Did you get that?
The free offer of the gospel is broad enough to include the worst sinner who
believes. Even the chief of sinners; Paul said he was. Listen, the gospel is
narrow enough to exclude the most moral religious unbeliever. I thought about
that this week. Who is the most moral, religious man on the planet? The pope.
But he hopes in his works, in his merit to get to heaven, and the gospel
excludes him. The most profligate, wretched, corrupt person on the planet who
trusts only in Christ—the gospel is wide enough to embrace him or her. It’s by
faith alone.
“And what is the result? “Shall not perish but
have eternal life.” Negative—“shall not perish.” “Perish” is the Greek word apollumi,
which is much used in the New Testament for eternal ruin; it refers to
hell. Positive—eternal life, eternal life.
“So maybe there’s a fresh look at John 3:16. Now follow very
carefully in these last few moments. So the message of our Lord is this, you
need to be born from above and that’s a work of God. And you don’t participate
in it. But anybody can be saved who believes and no other way. Anyone who
believes. Why would God do
that? Because then He gets all the glory, as Paul said in Ephesians; we don’t
boast, but because He loves the world.
“You know, it would be easy to think of holy God
as viewing humanity in the condition it’s in—in sin, rebellion, disobedience,
hating God. It would be easy, you know, if Scripture said, “God looked at the
world and He said, ‘I’ll break them, I’ll punish them. I’ll put the pressure on
them of divine judgment until they come to me.’” But it wasn’t His anger that
sent Christ. Christ didn’t come to judge the world. He came into the world to
save the world because what motivated the Father was not His anger, but
His...What?...His love and so you come then to verse 17, “God did not send the
Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved
through Him,” “through Him.” God wanted to save the world. God sent Jesus to
save the world. Jesus came to save the world. That is sinners from all over the
world. He sent His Son because of His infinite love of sinners. He sent His Son
to display His grace and mercy, to save them from His wrath. His love motivated
Him to save them from His wrath. That’s another heavenly thing.
“The purpose of the Messiah’s coming is not
condemnation; it’s not judgment. The Jews expected the Messiah will come and
judge all these nations. Messiah comes and they rejected Him. He wound up
judging them, but opened the gospel to the ends of the earth.”
Now in our next SD I want to continue to look at John
3:16 and perhaps there will be some things in that SD that have been covered in
this one, but since this is one of, if not the most important verse in the Word
of God I do not think that this will be a problem.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “The dead in Christ” (1 Thessalonians 4:16).
Today’s Bible question: “Which book contains the scripture ‘But was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin?’”
Answer in our next SD.
1/24/2016 8:16 AM
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