Grace Thoughts
GraceLife Thoughts: Love and Wrath (Part 5)
I’ve been a Christian long enough to have seen many changes in the ‘preaching’ of the Gospel of Christ. Even though that sounds like a long time to me – in the light of a two-thousand year-old Message of Good News from God it isn’t long at all. Unfortunately, 54 years has been long enough to see the preaching of the Gospel go downhill fast. Why?
I think it’s because the Church has ‘lost its focus and its way in the world.’ Many people who are in churches today are not ‘in’ the Church. By that I mean they are not part of the Body of Christ. Why is that? One reason, I think, is that preachers and teachers in churches have lost their focus and way. They’ve either forgotten or never learned what it means to ‘preach the Gospel’ of Jesus Christ.
My hope and prayer is that this brief series from the world’s most popular Bible verse (John 3:16) will help us ‘re-focus’ our message to match that of our Blessed Savior.
The Church (big ‘C’) has gone through many challenges and changes since Jesus died, rose, and ascended back to Heaven. Jesus told His disciples that the world would ‘hate’ them because the world ‘hated’ Him first (John 15:18). Then, the Lord said something very insightful to the context of our current study –
If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. John 15:19
As I mentioned, we based this study, Love and Wrath, on the world’s most popular Bible verse, John 3:16 –
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Think about those three verses for a moment – John 3:16 and John 15:18-19. Let’s compare what we see –
- God ‘so loved the world that He gave His only Begotten Son’
- The world ‘hates’ Jesus and His followers
- Christ’s followers ‘are not of the world’
- Jesus chose His followers ‘out of the world’
- That’s why the ‘world hates’ disciples of Jesus
Why would the ‘world’ hate Jesus and His followers? Why would God ‘love the world’ and send His Son to the world when the ‘world’ hates the Son? How are Christians ‘not of the world?’ How did Jesus choose His followers ‘out of the world?’ Why would Jesus choosing His followers out of the world cause the ‘world’ to hate them?
Let’s return to our primary text to see if we can find some answers to these and other important questions.
Nicodemus and Condemnation
John 3:1-21 is what the Apostle John revealed to us about a conversation Jesus had with a ‘ruler and teacher of the Jews’ named Nicodemus. John 3:16 is followed by John 3:17 –
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
That sounds nice. God loved the ‘world’ so much that He sent His only begotten Son into the ‘world’ so that ‘the world through Him might be saved.’ Not only that – ‘God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world.’ Very nice!
But wait a minute – doesn’t John chapter 3 come before John chapter 15? Yes, it does. Why would John 3 say that Jesus came to save the world rather than condemn it, but John 15 says the world hates Jesus and His followers and plans to kill them? Something’s not right here.
What do we do when we face a ‘conundrum’ in Scripture? Keep reading. We find answers to our questions in the next verses in John 3 –
He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. John 3:18-21
Ahhh, and there is the rub, as they say. People who do not ‘believe’ in Christ are ‘condemned already.’ What does it mean to be ‘condemned already?’ The Greek is ἤδη κέκριται (ēdē kekritai). The word kekritai means ‘judgment, to pick out and separate by choosing.’ The context determines whether the judgment (choice to separate) is positive or negative. The context Jesus used with Nicodemus was ‘negative.’ That’s why the word ‘perish’ in John 3:16 is a key to help us unlock a vital understanding of this popular verse – ‘that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’
Too many people who like to quote John 3:16 seem to gloss over the word ‘perish’ and just focus on God’s love for the world. To ‘perish’ (ἀπόλλυμι) means to be ‘destroyed utterly.’ How does God’s loving the world fit with people in the world being ‘destroyed utterly?’
As John told us at the beginning of His Gospel account, in Christ was ‘life’ and the life was the ‘light’ of men. The ‘light’ (Jesus) ‘shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.’ That’s what Jesus was telling Nicodemus on the night that the ‘ruler of the Jews’ came to see the Lord. God loved the world so much that He gave His most precious gift, His only begotten Son, so that ‘whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’
Those who have ‘believed’ in Jesus for the last two-thousand years are ‘not condemned.’ They are forgiven and have ‘everlasting life.’ They will not ‘perish.’ Those who have ‘not believed’ in Jesus for the last two-thousand years are ‘condemned already’ and will not have ‘everlasting life.’ They will ‘perish.’ Their experience after death will be quite different than a true believer.
Why? What’s the difference between them? Why do some receive ‘everlasting life’ while others don’t?
And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.
Imagine that. Light came into the world and people in the world loved darkness rather than light. Why? Because their deeds were evil. As a former atheist I can tell you that my deeds were evil. So, why would God forgive me and not others? Salvation is not based on whether our deeds are good or evil. As God said in Genesis 8:21 – “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” The key is that God loved the world so much that He sent His only begotten Son, and that people who ‘believed’ in His Son would be forgiven of their evil deeds. Not only would they be forgiven, but God would change their lives – ‘But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.’
All glory to God! All people are all evil at heart – ‘from their youth.’ None of us are worthy to enter into God’s Kingdom, but God has a way to make us ‘worthy’ – through faith (belief) in his Son.
We don’t know how Nicodemus responded to Jesus at that point because the Apostle John doesn’t record it for us. However, we do know that Nicodemus became a ‘secret’ follower of Jesus and helped bury Him after the Crucifixion (John 19:38-42). I can imagine that Nicodemus, being the legal scholar that he was, thought a great deal about what he learned from the Master Teacher that night. As he had told Jesus – ‘Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.’
The Holy Spirit
What part does the Holy Spirit play in ‘everlasting life’ for some and ‘utter destruction’ for others? Jesus told Nicodemus –
Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit. John 3:5-8
We’ll learn more about the part the Holy Spirit plays in John 3:16 in Part Six of our study.
[Listen to a Podcast of this study by clicking this link.]
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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Published by gracelifethoughts
Founder & Director of GraceLife Ministries View all posts by gracelifethoughts
