SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/26/2016
1:32 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Results of Unbelief
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 3:18-21
Message of
the verses: “18 “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. 19 “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. 20 “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the
Light for fear that his
deeds will be exposed. 21 “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so
that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.’”
In this
section Jesus tells Nicodemus and everyone who was listening to Him at this
time and to all who have read this passage in the gospel of John, the results
of those who do not believe in the gift that God is offering them through Jesus
Christ. Those who respond to the gospel
with penitent faith will be saved, but those who do not will not be saved as we
read that they have been judge already, and this is the first point that I want
to make here. While listening to the sermon by John MacArthur the other day,
the one that I quoted extensively on Sunday’s SD there was something in it that
I knew about, but did not really understand it from reading this passage and it
as to do with the word “already,” Jesus says that those who do not believe are judged
already. Here is the situation that many
of us who have not believed in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, or I should say
before we believed in Him as Savior and Lord that we were hoping for and that
is we probably believed that when we stood before God that He would weigh our
good deeds against our bad deeds and if we had more good deeds we would enter
into heaven. This is absolutely not true
and you can see it from the word “already.”
When we were born we were judged already is what Jesus is saying
here. I had a friend that I use to work
with and although I have told this story before it fits in well here. My friend who we called “Bear” because he
looked like a bear would talk to me many times and if he did something wrong I
would ask him why he did that and his response was “I was born wrong.” I know that he was just kidding with me, but
in fact even though he did not know it was just like all of us, that is we are
all born wrong. We are all born in sin
as David writes in Psalm 51:5 “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived
me.” David is not saying that his
father and mother were not married as he was the youngest of many children that
his mother and father had, he is saying that when he was born “he was brought
forth in iniquity.” God told Adam and
Eve that the day that they would eat of the tree of good and knowledge that
they would die, and they died spiritually and all of their offspring, which is
everyone who has ever been born on planet earth with the exception of Jesus
Christ was born spiritually dead, unable to do any good thing to cause them to
become right with God. So Jesus is
telling Nicodemus that “you were born wrong.”
Now I know that this is a loose translation but in the spirit of my
friend Bear that is how I see what Jesus was saying to Nicodemus. John MacArthur writes “While the final
sentencing of those who reject Christ is still future (cf. 5:28-29), their judgment
will merely consummate what has already begun.
The lost are condemned because they have not believed in (lit., ‘believed
into’) the name of the only begotten Son of God. Saving faith goes beyond mere intellectual
assent to the facts of the gospel and includes self-denying trust in and
submission to the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 10:9; cf. Luke 9:23-25). Only such genuine faith produces the new
birth (John 3:7) and its resulting transformed heart and obedient life.”
Faith always has to have an object and the object of
saving faith is the “only begotten” (unique) Son of God. Jesus tells us this in John 14:6 where he
says “"I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the
Father but through Me.” Another verse we
need to look at is Acts 4:12 “"And there is salvation in no one else; for
there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we
must be saved.’”
Now we want to look at judgment as seen in verse 19
and Jesus describes it using the contrast between light and darkness which has
been already been brought up by John in the Prologue (1:4-5). Jesus says that Light which is Him came into
the world but men loved living in the darkness and that is why they put Him on
trial and killed Him. The reason they
killed Him as stated is because they loved the darkness and did not want the
Light to shine on them so that it would expose their evil deeds.
Jesus goes on to say that the one who practices good
will run to the Light in order that “his deeds may be manifested as having been
wrought in God.” MacArthur writes “Believers
hate their sin and love righteousness (1 John 2:3-6, 9; 3:6-10). They have nothing to hide, and thus no reason
to fear what the light will reveal.
Jesus defined the genuine believer as one ‘who practices the truth,
because true saving faith invariably manifests itself in ‘deeds…wrought in God.’ ‘For we are His workmanship,’ Paul reminded
the Ephesians, ‘created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared
beforehand so that we would walk in them’ (Eph. 2:10; cf. Mark 4:20). The redeemed will always ‘bear fruit in
keeping with repentance’ (Matt. 3:8); indeed, it is by bearing the fruit of
good works that they prove themselves to be Jesus’ disciples (John 15:8). On the other hand, ‘Every tree that does not
bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire’ (Matt. 7:19).”
This concludes the conversation that John records
that Jesus had with Nicodemus and although we do not see any results of his
salvation here in later chapters of John we do see fruit from him that
indicated he did indeed, become a true believer in Jesus Christ. In our next SD will begin another section
which will take us to the end of this third chapter of John’s Gospel as John
MacArthur entitles it “From John to Jesus.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is my desire to walk in the light and when
I sin to confess my sin to the Lord so that I can again begin to continually
walk in the light.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To walk in the Light.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Zaccheaus” (Luke 19:8).
Today’s Bible
question: “It was said of what city that
they ‘Searched the Scriptures daily?’”
Answer in our next SD.
1/26/2016 2:37 PM
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