John 3:16-21
Staples
Have you ever gotten someone’s identity mistaken? A couple weeks ago I was in Staples and was picking up some office supplies. As I was standing in an aisle in the back of the store, a little older lady came over to me from one of the back rooms. She waived for my attention and looked around and then said, “The women’s room needs some more hand towels.” Realizing she has mistaken my identity, I said, “Couldn’t you leave any for anyone else?” ……. Actually I played along and told her I would get it taken care of right away.
Sometimes we can be mistaken about who someone is. But I do not want us to be the least bit confused about who Jesus is. The consequences are a matter of eternal life, or, eternal death.
And so we come this week to perhaps the most famous passage in the entire Bible. If someone were to ask, “What is the message of the Bible?” John 3:16 would sum it up nicely. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.”
Everlasting life…..How do we get it? How do we attain it? Our author, John, wrote so that we could know. In chapter 20 verse 31 John says, “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” He’s talking about eternal life.
We’ve been in chapter 3 and looking at Jesus’ conversation with a man named Nicodemus. Jesus taught him that he must be born again to enter the kingdom of God; He taught him that being born again was accomplished by the Holy Spirit – not human effort.
And we ended last week by looking at Jesus words in verses 14 and 15, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so too the Son of man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” Jesus was transitioning into the issue of believing to have eternal life. Believing in Him is what causes someone to be born again; born into eternal life.
This week we’re going to focus on verses 16-21. Here we’re going to see 3 things: The Commission of Christ, The Condition of Man, and The Contempt of Light.
(Read and pray)
The Commission of Christ
We’ll call verses 16 and 17 the Commission of Jesus Christ. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
God’s motivation is love. His motivation for sending His Son into the world was His love for the world. The world did not attract God’s love. You cannot make yourself attractive to God. God does not love me because of me. He loves me because of Him. 1 John 4 says, “God is love. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
Listen, God has a Son. He has a one and only Son (we saw this phrase in chapter 1 verse 14); an only begotten Son, a one and only Son, a unique; one of a kind Son and His Son is equally God. In other words, the Son of God is God the Son.
The Koran will tell you, “Never has allah begotten a son”. And that’s true, because allah doesn’t exist. But, the God of the Bible does exist, and He did have a Son and His name is Jesus Christ, and the Bible says that believing in Him is the only way to have eternal life.
What does it mean that God gave His Son? It means first of all that God sent Him into the world. But, the reason why God sent Him is what we’re getting at. In verses 14 and 15 Jesus says that He must be lifted up so that all who believe in Him will have eternal life. He was speaking about His crucifixion, and when verse 16 says God gave (or sent) His Son, it means God gave His son to be crucified.
Why did God send His Son into the world to be crucified? Why would he do that? The answer is love, (For God so loved the world), but it is also justice. God is a just God. (Turn to Romans 3:25-26). In sending His Son to die on a cross he demonstrated His perfect love and His perfect justice.
“God presented His Son as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished – he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”
I want you to see just 2 things in this passage. First, sins were left unpunished. God left all the sins of the world unpunished all the way up until the time of the cross. That was His plan….His design.
Secondly, I want you to see it was His plan not to punish us, but to punish His Son for our sins. Jesus Christ was going to receive our penalty. That was God’s design.
Why would He do that? Because he was demonstrating that He is a just God who punishes sin. If God did not punish sin He would not be just. But He always does what is right and does not fail to do justice because He is a just God. Deuteronomy 32:4 says, “God’s works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.”
But He was also demonstrating His love because instead of punishing us, and instead of allowing us to perish because of our sins, He gave His Son to die in our place and to receive our punishment. He is the One who is just and who justifies all those who have faith in Jesus. Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
At the cross of Jesus Christ we see God’s hatred of our sin. We see it in the broken, bloodied, and tortured body of His own Son. But we also see at the cross God’s love for us.
Believing is believing into. John uses this word 100 times. Those who believe will have eternal life. The possibility of having eternal life is based on God giving His Son. The response to this act of love is to either reject or accept Jesus. By accepting Him, that is, believing in Him, a person will receive eternal life. By rejecting Him, a person will perish. (Perish = wasting away, ultimate and final doom).
The Condition of Man
Secondly we see in verse 18 our condition. “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s One and Only Son.”
The condition he’s talking about is condemnation. Being condemned means declared guilty. No one is innocent before God. The Bible says that “All have sinned and all fall short of God’s glory. There is no one who is righteous, not even one. All have sinned.”
Jesus is comparing two kinds of people here – those who believe in him and those who do not. Anyone who believes in him is not condemned. They are justified. They have been declared innocent of all charges. Romans 8:1 makes the great promise, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” How does someone get “in” Christ? --By believing in Him.
The other person Jesus is talking about is the person who rejects Him, who does not believe in Him. Listen: this person stands condemned already. That is their condition right now. Verse 36 says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on Him.” God’s wrath remains on this person. It is already decided that wrath is coming upon them at the appointed time.
The only way to escape this condition of condemnation is to believe in the name of God’s one and only Son. To believe in His name means you receive Him for everything He truly is. It’s His character, His person, His reputation. Everything that He is as represented by His name; in other words, you accept everything He says is true about Him and believe it to be true. That’s believing in His name.
What is true about Him? That He is God’s One and Only Son. John used this phrase in 1:14, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father” Who came from the Father? The Fathers’s One and only Son. One and Only is the greek word monogenes and it means: unique, one of a kind, no other is the same in quality, only begotten.
What about this one and only Son? That God gave Him over to death so that you could have eternal life. Not only is Jesus God’s one and only Son, but, that means Jesus is the one and only way of salvation. Eternal life comes only through God’s one and only, Jesus Christ. No other way will do.
The Contempt of Light
Thirdly, we see the Contempt of the Light in verses 19-21, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”
How many times have you said to yourself, or, heard someone say, “How can people reject Jesus? Why? Why would they refuse to believe in Him?” The answer is right here: Men love darkness because their deeds are evil.
The Bible clearly presents man as evil. Jesus said to His brothers said in John 7, “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.” “I know that nothing good lives in me” the apostle Paul said in Romans 7. “No one is good except God alone” Jesus said in Mark 10. In Genesis 6 it says, “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”
People do not want to come to Jesus because they will be exposed as evil. Men hide in darkness thinking they are undetected. After Adam and Eve sinned, they hid in the trees when God was coming to them….so too men try to hide in darkness.
When I was little, my brother and I would want to play hide and seek from my Mom. She would say okay, go hide, and we’d go sit down against the wall and cover our eyes. We thought because we couldn’t see her she couldn’t see us. Brilliant, right? That’s what people think. If they can’t see God, He can’t see them. Or, if other people can’t see them, then God can’t see them either.
But, God sees. Turn to Psalm 139 verses 11 and 12. Darkness is as light to Him. There is nothing he does not see….All things are visible to God….the thoughts and intentions of the heart are as plain to him as the words that come out of your mouth.
There is nothing in the dark that will not be brought into the light. There is nothing secret that will not be made public. There is nothing whispered that will not be shouted from the roof tops. God will expose all things at His appointed time and He will judge men for all things, both open and secret.
That’s why now is the time to come to the Light, Jesus Christ. Now is the time to turn away from sin and darkness, and turn to Jesus in faith. Believe in Him. Light has come into the world….. John 1:5 says, “the Light shines in the darkness… …. 2 Corinthians 4:6 says, “For God, who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
But when you live by the truth there is no shame. Hatred of the Light becomes love for the the Light. Hatred of Jesus becomes love for Him.
How does someone enter the Light and live by the truth? It starts with believing in the name of God’s One and Only Son. It begins right there. Believe that God has commissioned His Son for you – sent His Son into the world for you. Believe that your condition is one of condemnation before God. Do not have contempt for the Light that is shining in your dark heart. Believe in the name of God’s one and only Son so that you may have eternal life.
Staples
Have you ever gotten someone’s identity mistaken? A couple weeks ago I was in Staples and was picking up some office supplies. As I was standing in an aisle in the back of the store, a little older lady came over to me from one of the back rooms. She waived for my attention and looked around and then said, “The women’s room needs some more hand towels.” Realizing she has mistaken my identity, I said, “Couldn’t you leave any for anyone else?” ……. Actually I played along and told her I would get it taken care of right away.
Sometimes we can be mistaken about who someone is. But I do not want us to be the least bit confused about who Jesus is. The consequences are a matter of eternal life, or, eternal death.
And so we come this week to perhaps the most famous passage in the entire Bible. If someone were to ask, “What is the message of the Bible?” John 3:16 would sum it up nicely. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life.”
Everlasting life…..How do we get it? How do we attain it? Our author, John, wrote so that we could know. In chapter 20 verse 31 John says, “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name.” He’s talking about eternal life.
We’ve been in chapter 3 and looking at Jesus’ conversation with a man named Nicodemus. Jesus taught him that he must be born again to enter the kingdom of God; He taught him that being born again was accomplished by the Holy Spirit – not human effort.
And we ended last week by looking at Jesus words in verses 14 and 15, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so too the Son of man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” Jesus was transitioning into the issue of believing to have eternal life. Believing in Him is what causes someone to be born again; born into eternal life.
This week we’re going to focus on verses 16-21. Here we’re going to see 3 things: The Commission of Christ, The Condition of Man, and The Contempt of Light.
(Read and pray)
The Commission of Christ
We’ll call verses 16 and 17 the Commission of Jesus Christ. “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
God’s motivation is love. His motivation for sending His Son into the world was His love for the world. The world did not attract God’s love. You cannot make yourself attractive to God. God does not love me because of me. He loves me because of Him. 1 John 4 says, “God is love. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
Listen, God has a Son. He has a one and only Son (we saw this phrase in chapter 1 verse 14); an only begotten Son, a one and only Son, a unique; one of a kind Son and His Son is equally God. In other words, the Son of God is God the Son.
The Koran will tell you, “Never has allah begotten a son”. And that’s true, because allah doesn’t exist. But, the God of the Bible does exist, and He did have a Son and His name is Jesus Christ, and the Bible says that believing in Him is the only way to have eternal life.
What does it mean that God gave His Son? It means first of all that God sent Him into the world. But, the reason why God sent Him is what we’re getting at. In verses 14 and 15 Jesus says that He must be lifted up so that all who believe in Him will have eternal life. He was speaking about His crucifixion, and when verse 16 says God gave (or sent) His Son, it means God gave His son to be crucified.
Why did God send His Son into the world to be crucified? Why would he do that? The answer is love, (For God so loved the world), but it is also justice. God is a just God. (Turn to Romans 3:25-26). In sending His Son to die on a cross he demonstrated His perfect love and His perfect justice.
“God presented His Son as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished – he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”
I want you to see just 2 things in this passage. First, sins were left unpunished. God left all the sins of the world unpunished all the way up until the time of the cross. That was His plan….His design.
Secondly, I want you to see it was His plan not to punish us, but to punish His Son for our sins. Jesus Christ was going to receive our penalty. That was God’s design.
Why would He do that? Because he was demonstrating that He is a just God who punishes sin. If God did not punish sin He would not be just. But He always does what is right and does not fail to do justice because He is a just God. Deuteronomy 32:4 says, “God’s works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.”
But He was also demonstrating His love because instead of punishing us, and instead of allowing us to perish because of our sins, He gave His Son to die in our place and to receive our punishment. He is the One who is just and who justifies all those who have faith in Jesus. Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
At the cross of Jesus Christ we see God’s hatred of our sin. We see it in the broken, bloodied, and tortured body of His own Son. But we also see at the cross God’s love for us.
Believing is believing into. John uses this word 100 times. Those who believe will have eternal life. The possibility of having eternal life is based on God giving His Son. The response to this act of love is to either reject or accept Jesus. By accepting Him, that is, believing in Him, a person will receive eternal life. By rejecting Him, a person will perish. (Perish = wasting away, ultimate and final doom).
The Condition of Man
Secondly we see in verse 18 our condition. “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s One and Only Son.”
The condition he’s talking about is condemnation. Being condemned means declared guilty. No one is innocent before God. The Bible says that “All have sinned and all fall short of God’s glory. There is no one who is righteous, not even one. All have sinned.”
Jesus is comparing two kinds of people here – those who believe in him and those who do not. Anyone who believes in him is not condemned. They are justified. They have been declared innocent of all charges. Romans 8:1 makes the great promise, “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” How does someone get “in” Christ? --By believing in Him.
The other person Jesus is talking about is the person who rejects Him, who does not believe in Him. Listen: this person stands condemned already. That is their condition right now. Verse 36 says, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on Him.” God’s wrath remains on this person. It is already decided that wrath is coming upon them at the appointed time.
The only way to escape this condition of condemnation is to believe in the name of God’s one and only Son. To believe in His name means you receive Him for everything He truly is. It’s His character, His person, His reputation. Everything that He is as represented by His name; in other words, you accept everything He says is true about Him and believe it to be true. That’s believing in His name.
What is true about Him? That He is God’s One and Only Son. John used this phrase in 1:14, “We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father” Who came from the Father? The Fathers’s One and only Son. One and Only is the greek word monogenes and it means: unique, one of a kind, no other is the same in quality, only begotten.
What about this one and only Son? That God gave Him over to death so that you could have eternal life. Not only is Jesus God’s one and only Son, but, that means Jesus is the one and only way of salvation. Eternal life comes only through God’s one and only, Jesus Christ. No other way will do.
The Contempt of Light
Thirdly, we see the Contempt of the Light in verses 19-21, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.”
How many times have you said to yourself, or, heard someone say, “How can people reject Jesus? Why? Why would they refuse to believe in Him?” The answer is right here: Men love darkness because their deeds are evil.
The Bible clearly presents man as evil. Jesus said to His brothers said in John 7, “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.” “I know that nothing good lives in me” the apostle Paul said in Romans 7. “No one is good except God alone” Jesus said in Mark 10. In Genesis 6 it says, “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.”
People do not want to come to Jesus because they will be exposed as evil. Men hide in darkness thinking they are undetected. After Adam and Eve sinned, they hid in the trees when God was coming to them….so too men try to hide in darkness.
When I was little, my brother and I would want to play hide and seek from my Mom. She would say okay, go hide, and we’d go sit down against the wall and cover our eyes. We thought because we couldn’t see her she couldn’t see us. Brilliant, right? That’s what people think. If they can’t see God, He can’t see them. Or, if other people can’t see them, then God can’t see them either.
But, God sees. Turn to Psalm 139 verses 11 and 12. Darkness is as light to Him. There is nothing he does not see….All things are visible to God….the thoughts and intentions of the heart are as plain to him as the words that come out of your mouth.
There is nothing in the dark that will not be brought into the light. There is nothing secret that will not be made public. There is nothing whispered that will not be shouted from the roof tops. God will expose all things at His appointed time and He will judge men for all things, both open and secret.
That’s why now is the time to come to the Light, Jesus Christ. Now is the time to turn away from sin and darkness, and turn to Jesus in faith. Believe in Him. Light has come into the world….. John 1:5 says, “the Light shines in the darkness… …. 2 Corinthians 4:6 says, “For God, who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”
But when you live by the truth there is no shame. Hatred of the Light becomes love for the the Light. Hatred of Jesus becomes love for Him.
How does someone enter the Light and live by the truth? It starts with believing in the name of God’s One and Only Son. It begins right there. Believe that God has commissioned His Son for you – sent His Son into the world for you. Believe that your condition is one of condemnation before God. Do not have contempt for the Light that is shining in your dark heart. Believe in the name of God’s one and only Son so that you may have eternal life.
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