Part One ~ The God of Love

This is one of the most quoted verses in the Bible, yet one of the most misunderstood. It
is a verse that many people use, but even more misuse. Some believe it teaches that God
will not condemn anyone, even though verse 18 says that many are condemned already
and verse 36 says that God’s wrath remains on them. Some believe it teaches that God
will save everyone, even though it says that only believers will have everlasting life.
Many Christians make the most common mistake of believing that this verse teaches that
it is God’s intention to do one thing, but what actually happens is something else.
Sometimes you discover that this is everything that many people know about Christianity.
They base their whole theology and worldview on a misunderstanding of one verse of the
Bible. Even worse, many go so far as to depend on this misunderstanding as their ticket
to heaven. They are willing to risk eternity based on some vague notion of God loving the
whole world.

There is no question that countless millions of people are familiar with this verse of
Scripture. It is even possible that a few are not even aware that it comes from the Bible.
People who are used to seeing it displayed on sweatshirts and bumper stickers may not
have much acquaintance with biblical Christianity at all. Familiarity does not necessarily
yield understanding of the truth. This text of Scripture presents one of the greatest
declarations of the love of God. The love of God is the heart and soul of the biblical
message. Without it there would be no gospel, no salvation, and no Christianity. In fact
without it there would be no God because God is love. All of this brings us to realize that
if we want to understand the love of God, we must first understand the God of love. God
is the subject of this amazing statement. Man is not the subject, neither is the world or
even the love of God. It is chiefly about God, so we begin then by considering who this
God is that so loved the world.

The God of love is the Creator of all things.

Many recite this verse as if they believe it has more to say about people, or God’s love for
people, than it says about God himself. They make the idolatrous mistake of worshipping
the creature rather than the Creator (Romans 1:25). But we must remember that John 3:16
and Genesis 1:1 both begin with “God.” It is not that the world created God, but that God
created the world. Likewise, it is not that the world loved God, but that God loved the
world. It is the same God in both instances, for there is only one God. We cannot
understand the world that God created unless we know the God who created it. Likewise,
we cannot understand the love of God unless we know the God who loves. Indeed, we
will never be able to fathom the love of God because we cannot fathom the God of love.
One reason for that is that God is the Creator of all things. It challenges the imagination
to realize that the God who loved the world is so great and powerful that he created the
heavens and the earth. This same creative power stands behind his love for the world and
his purpose in sending his only begotten Son.

First, this means that God is not a part of the creation but separate from it. The Creator
cannot be a part of the creation. God is in no way limited by the creation. He is not
dependent on it or controlled by it in any way. The creation is not simply an extension of
God, or something he has added on to himself. God is entirely separate from all that he
has made. This is the fundamental meaning of the holiness of God. He is separate from
everything else. Isaiah’s vision of God was a vision of his holiness (Isaiah 6:1-5). It is not
surprising that Isaiah would respond as he did to the holiness of God, because he saw
himself as “unclean.” But the angelic beings in Isaiah’s vision, who were themselves holy
and sinless, also found it necessary to cover themselves in the presence of God. Why?
Because they understand that God is not like them. He is the Creator, and they are only
creatures. He is on the throne, and they are his servants to do his bidding. They did not
create him and they do not control him. He created them and he controls them. God is
very much involved in the creation, but he is uncreated. In the beginning he was already
there. His existence does not depend on anything outside of himself. Paul the apostle
assured the philosophers that this God “is not served by human hands, as if he needed
anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else” (Acts
17:25). A god who “needs something” is a false god, and “all the gods of the nations are
idols, but the Lord made the heavens” (Psalm 95:6).

The testimony of the entire Bible is that God is the Creator of all things. In his great
prayer Nehemiah said,

“You alone are the Lord. You made the heavens, even the highest heavens, and all their
starry host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them. You give life to
everything, and the multitudes of heaven worship you” (Nehemiah 9:6).

Well did Isaiah say,

“Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the
starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and
mighty strength, not one of them is missing” (Isaiah 40:26).

David said, “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the
stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him?” (Psalm
8:3). That God is the Creator of all things is one of the great themes of the praise and
worship of the people of God. “He stretches out the heavens like a tent” and “set the earth
on its foundations” (Psalm 104:2,5). The Lord God of Israel is “the Maker of heaven and
earth” (Psalm 115:15; 121:2). The psalmist cried out to the Lord in his affliction, “In the
beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your
hands” (Psalm 102:25). The Epistle to the Hebrews interpreted this passage to apply to
the Lord Jesus Christ (Hebrews 1:10-12). These are the words of God to the Son of God.
They attest to the fact that it was through the Son that God made the universe and that
“the Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being”
(Hebrews 1:2,3). The apostle Paul wrote in another place,

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things
were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or
powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before
all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:15-17).

In the second place, we must remember that God created all things out of nothing by the
power of his creative word. We might say that he created out of nothing into nothing. It
would be a serious mistake to think of the creative activity of God as if it were the same
as the creativity of human beings. Men and women are capable of amazing creative
accomplishments. But no one has ever created something out of nothing. Man is
dependent on the existence and availability of “something” with which to begin his work.
Man cannot create in the sense that God can create. The creative activity of God was not
dependent on the pre-existence of raw materials. God created by the power of his word.

“By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his
mouth. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Psalm
33:6,9).

Such is the creative power of God that he spoke and it was done. The Genesis account
repeats the refrain, “And God said…” Whatever God said is exactly what was done. This
is the God of Christianity. When the apostle Paul healed a crippled man in Lystra, he did
so by his spoken word. The people then began to say, “The gods have come down to us in
human form.” In their frenzied zeal they wanted to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas.
The apostles pleaded with the crowd to understand that they were not gods, but only
messengers who were telling them about the one true God. They told the people to “turn
from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea and
everything in them” (Acts 14:15). The God whose power is in his word had invested their
words with power. Later, in the city of Athens, Paul informed the philosophers that the
“God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth” (Acts
17:24). When he explained God’s promise to Abraham to the church in Rome, he said
that God “calls things that are not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). In other words,
he calls into existence things that do not exist. When he wrote that God “created all
things” (Ephesians 3:9), he meant that nothing existed before God created. All things
means all things, not some things or most things. If God created all things, he had to have
created them out of nothing. This is what the apostle Peter intended when he wrote, “long
ago by God’s word the heavens existed” (II Peter 3:5). The heavens owe their existence
to the creative word of God. Therefore,

“By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is
seen was not made out of what was visible” (Hebrews 11:3).

So the God who loved the world is the God who created the world. He created everything
out of nothing by the power of his word. We should not think of the God of John 3:16 as
a different God. He is the God of absolute sovereignty and almighty power, who speaks
and it is done. But why did he create the heavens and the earth? The Bible assures us, in
the third place, that God created everything for his own glory. In fact the goal or purpose
in everything God does is to glorify himself. This helps us to understand that the message
of John 3:16 is the glory of God. It is not first and foremost about the salvation of those
who believe in Christ. It is about God and his glory, because it is about the same God
who created the heavens and the earth for his own glory. David proved that he understood
this when he wrote, “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You
have set your glory above the heavens” (Psalm 8:1). He was acknowledging that the
glory of God and the majesty of his name were more important than anything else. God
has created everything, including man himself, for the purpose of glorifying the Creator.
In another place David said, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim
the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). In Isaiah’s vision the angels were calling to one
another, “The whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3). The apostle Paul developed
this theme most fully in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. The whole earth is
full of God’s glory because God created it for his glory. The problem with man the sinner
is that he worships the creation instead of the Creator, thereby exchanging the glory of
God for idols (Romans 1:21-23). The essence of sin is to try to deny and deprive God of
his glory. In John’s vision of the throne of God in heaven he heard the four living
creatures and the twenty-four elders saying,

“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you
created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being” (Revelation
4:11).

The God of love is the self-revealed God of the Bible.

This means that it is possible to know God only because he has seen fit to make himself
known to us. He has told us about himself and we are required to believe only those
things that he has told us. God is not the sum total of man’s ideas about him. He is not the
product of human imagination. God is self-revealed. We have seen already that he has
revealed himself in everything he has created. But he has revealed himself in the Bible in
order that man the sinner may know that he is the God of creation. In the Bible he reveals
himself as a spiritual and personal God. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “God is
spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Of course this
means that God does not have a body like human beings. God’s existence is not a bodily
existence. The personality of human beings includes our bodies. The Bible says that “the
Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2:7). In other words, the body
is part of our humanity and what it means to be a “person.” The body is the most obvious
characteristic of our personality that reminds us of our limitations.

But God does not have a body and therefore is not subject to the limitations of a body. Yet
he is the “personal” God. He possesses the characteristics of a personal God. This means
that God is self-conscious, self-existent, and self-determining. His self-consciousness
means that he knows who and what he is without anyone having to tell him. The Bible
invariably speaks of God as a personal being. God reveals himself with personal names,
personal pronouns, and personal characteristics. No one could ever come to the
conclusion from reading the Bible that God is anything but personal, or that he knows
himself in any other way. His self-existence means that he does not depend on anything
outside of himself for his existence. Jesus said, “For as the Father has life in himself, so
he has granted the Son to have life in himself” (John 5:26). And in Acts 17:25 Paul the
apostle repeated the same thing to the philosophers: “And he is not served by human
hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and
everything else.” God’s self-determination means that everything he does is determined
only by his own will, and not by anything else. “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever
pleases him” (Psalm 115:3). He is the God who declares, “I say: My purpose will stand,
and I will do all I please” (Isaiah 46:10).

Furthermore, God has revealed himself as an infinite person. The infinity of God means
that he is without any limitations. The Bible teaches, for example, that he is not limited
by space or within space. In this sense the infinity of God tells us that he is omnipresent.
God’s omnipresence means that he is present in every part of his creation at the same
time. This does not mean that God somehow spreads himself around so that part of him is
present in one place and another part of him is present in another place at the same time.
God fills all space in the totality of his being. God in his completeness is everywhere.
King Solomon reflected this understanding when he prayed, “But will God really dwell
on the earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you” (I Kings 8:27).
His father David was responsible for the classic statement on the omnipresence of God:

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the
heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the
wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide
me, and your right hand will hold me fast” (Psalm 139:7-10).

Through Jeremiah God gave a similar witness to his omnipresence: “Am I only a God
nearby…, and not a God far away? Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see
him…? Do not I fill heaven and earth?” (Jeremiah 23:23,24). And Paul’s testimony to the
pagan philosophers was that “God …is not far from each one of us. For in him we live
and move and have our being” (Acts 17:27,28).

The infinity of God also applies to his knowledge. When God reveals himself as infinite
in knowledge, he is telling us that he is omniscient. This means that God knows all
things. He knows all things simultaneously. He knows all things in all their relationships,
details, and circumstances. There is nothing that can be known that God does not know.
Elihu said that God “is perfect in knowledge” (Job 37:16). The psalmist praised the Lord
because “his understanding has no limit” (Psalm 147:5). Furthermore, according to the
New Testament, “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is
uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account”
(Hebrews 4:13).

“Who has understood the mind of the Lord, or instructed him as his counselor? Whom
did the Lord consult to enlighten him, and who taught him the right way? Who was it that
taught him knowledge or showed him the path of understanding?” (Isaiah 40:13,14).

We must also add that the infinity of God applies to his power. If the power of God is
unlimited, God is omnipotent. God’s infinite power means that nothing outside of himself
can restrict the exercise of his power. He revealed himself to Abraham as God Almighty
(Genesis 17:1,2). Job was persuaded to confess, “I know that you can do all things; no
plan of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). Jeremiah began his prayer with these words:
“Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and
outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you” (Jeremiah 32:17). Jesus said, “with God
all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26). This was the theme of the angel’s
announcement to Mary that she would conceive a holy child by the power of God: “For
nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:35-37). The God who loved the world is the
infinite God. He is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. He is not a different God
than is revealed elsewhere in the Bible. In his amazing purpose to send his only begotten
Son so that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life, God stands
at the beginning of it as the God of infinity.

But God has also revealed himself as an eternal person. With him one day is as a
thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (II Peter 3:8). God’s eternity means that
he is not limited by time. He has no beginning or end. God is not subject to or influenced
by the moment by moment ticking of the clock or the turning of the pages of the calendar.
He has always existed as he is and he will always exist as he is. God does not mature and
develop in any way, nor does he decline and become old. Human language struggles to
explain eternity, just as it does infinity. Human language is the language of time and
space, and God is not limited by either. But Abraham “called upon the name of the Lord,
the Eternal God” (Genesis 21:33). The Bible says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever
and ever” (Psalm 45:6) and “this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide
even to the end” (Psalm 48:14). It says, “from everlasting to everlasting you are God”
(Psalm 90:2) and “you remain the same, and your years will never end” (Psalm 102:27).
In Isaiah 40:28 we read, “The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the
earth.” The great apostolic doxology in I Timothy 1:17 says it all: “Now to the King
eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

As with the infinity of God, we cannot consider the eternity of God without applying it to
his presence, his knowledge, and his power. The eternity of God helps us to understand
his omnipresence. It means that his omnipresence had no beginning and will have no end.
The Bible does not reveal a God who has evolved into an eternal presence. It reveals a
God who is eternally omnipresent in the completeness of his being. Eternity also applies
to the omniscience of God. This means that he has always known all things, and that he
always will know all things. He cannot learn anything and he cannot forget or unlearn
anything. God’s knowledge of all things is not the result of study, research, or
experimentation. What he knows in any moment is no more and no less than he has ever
known. His knowledge is complete and perfect. He never has to be informed about
anything. There is never any information he has overlooked. Throughout the ages of time,
God never has to be brought up to date about anything. Finally, God’s eternity applies to
his omnipotence. He is the Almighty God in John 3:16 just as much as he is in Genesis
1:1. His omnipotence is the same. He is just as capable of executing his plan in John 3:16
as he was capable of executing his plan in Genesis 1:1. He is the God whose power is
never diminished or increased, but always the reflection of his eternal existence.
Finally, God has revealed himself as an unchangeable person. The Bible teaches that God
does not and cannot change. Whatever is true of God is always true of God. This is why
he revealed himself to Moses as “I Am Who I Am” (Exodus 3:14). In other words, he is
the same God who revealed himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We have already made
note of Psalm 102:27: “But you remain the same, and your years will never end.” The
author of Hebrews applied this text to the Lord Jesus Christ, asserting both his eternality
and his unchangeability (Hebrews 1:10-12). In Hebrews 13:8 he proclaimed, “Jesus
Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” The classic Old Testament statement
about this was given through Malachi when God said, “I the Lord do not change. So you,
O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed” (Malachi 3:6). And in the New Testament it is
James 1:17: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of
the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” The God of the Bible is
the God who does not and cannot change.

Once again it is important to apply this to the presence of God, the knowledge of God,
and the power of God. If God is omnipresent, he is unchangeable in his omnipresence. He
never leaves one place to go to another place. He is the same God everywhere and at all
times. If God is omniscient, he is unchangeable in his omniscience. His knowledge does
not increase or decrease. His knowledge is not more complete in some things than it is in
others. If God is omnipotent, he is unchangeable in his omnipotence. His power to do one
thing is no different than his power to do another thing. His power is never limited. He
never determines to do something that he cannot do. All of this is to say that God is
unchangeable in his presence, his knowledge, and his power. For God to change in any
way would mean that he is not perfect. If he is perfect in every way, he cannot change. If
he is imperfect in any way, he cannot be God. He would either have to change from
perfection or to perfection.

The God of love is the God who has a sovereign purpose.

Let us consider the importance of this fact. Why is it important to know that the God of
love is the God who has a sovereign purpose? It is because John 3:16 tells us that God
has a purpose, and we must understand that his purpose is absolutely certain to come to
pass. The Lord Jesus stated the purpose of God this way: “that whoever believes in him
shall not perish but have eternal life.” This is the purpose for which God sent his only
begotten Son into the world. The purpose of God as stated in this verse is no less certain
to be accomplished than the purpose of God as stated in the first chapter of Genesis. This
God is the Creator of all things. He has revealed himself as infinite, eternal, and
unchangeable both in his character and in his purpose. Therefore in the purpose of God
nothing is left to uncertainty. In the purpose of God nothing happens by random chance.
In the purpose of God nothing is determined by the will of man. The purpose of God is
not simply something he wants to do, but something he will do. Many people read this
verse as if it describes a purpose that is greater than God himself, a purpose that not even
he can accomplish. But God has not overreached himself by setting an unachievable goal.
The God of the Bible is greater than his purpose, and he has infinite, eternal, and
unchangeable power to bring it to pass. He will fulfill it, finish it, and finalize it in every
point and detail. The God of love is the God who has a sovereign purpose.
But how does the word of God describe God’s purpose as his sovereign purpose? The
Bible gives us to understand that God is a sovereign God, and his plan is a sovereign
plan. A sovereign God can have no other kind of plan. A sovereign has supreme authority
and power to rule as he sees fit. He is governed by nothing outside of himself. To say that
God is sovereign is the same thing as saying that God is God. A God who is not sovereign
cannot be God at all. But the God of the Bible is sovereign, and what he does is a
demonstration of what he is. His purpose is consistent with his character. If he is infinite,
eternal, and unchangeable in his nature, he is the same in his purpose. Whatever he
intends to do is what he does. And whatever he does is what he intends to do. This is the
testimony of the Bible.

“The Lord foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the
plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations”
(Psalm 33:10,11).

“The Lord Almighty has sworn, ‘Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have
purposed, so it will stand…This is the plan determined for the whole world; this is the
hand stretched out over all nations. For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can
thwart him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?’” (Isaiah 14:24,26,27).

“Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels. Remember the former things,
those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I
make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say:
My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please…What I have said, that will I bring
about; what I have planned, that will I do” (Isaiah 46:8-11).

“I foretold the former things long ago, my mouth announced them and I made them
known; then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass” (Isaiah 48:3).

“His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to

generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases
with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or
say to him: ‘What have you done?’” (Daniel 4:34,35).

These verses describe a purpose that includes all things. The Bible does not present to us
a purpose of God that includes some things, while other things are somehow outside of it.
The purpose of God is such that nothing is left outside of it. This means that God has all
things at his disposal to accomplish what he intends to do. The apostle Paul could assure
the believers in Rome that God works all things together for good for those “who have
been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28). He saved us and called us to
himself, “not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and
grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time” (II Timothy
1:9). The Bible could not guarantee such a promise if God’s purpose did not include all
things. To the Ephesians Paul wrote, “In him we were also chosen, having been
predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with
the purpose of his will” (Ephesians 1:11).
“His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be
made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to the eternal
purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Ephesians 3:10,11).

What we must understand is that the apostle Paul was referring to the same purpose of
God about which the Lord Jesus Christ spoke to Nicodemus in John 3:16. They are one
and the same because God is one God and he has one purpose. The outcome is never in
doubt. God’s purpose in sending his Son is his sovereign purpose. It is his “eternal
purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It is the purpose of God by which
he chose us and predestined us before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4,5). It is
the purpose of God “that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
These are not separate purposes, conflicting purposes, or purposes that cancel each other
out. The purpose of God is not such that he wants to accomplish something and he hopes
man will cooperate and support God in his efforts. The purpose of God is one and it is
always and only dependent upon God himself for its complete fulfillment.

The God of love is the only true and living God.

That this God is the only true and living God is as fundamental as anything can be. It is
the most fundamental issue as far as Christianity is concerned. Christianity itself is rooted
and grounded in God. He is the God of Christianity. The message and truth of
Christianity presuppose this God as the only true and living God. This is really the sum
and substance of everything we have seen so far. No Bible believing Christian would
deny that the Creator of all things, the God who has made himself known in Scripture,
and the God of sovereign purpose is the only true and living God. Yet many seem to lose
their memory when they come to John 3:16. They feel compelled to think of God in
different terms. They see him in a different light. They speak of him as if he were a
different God. Suddenly the God who created the heavens and the earth out of nothing by
the power of his word becomes a God of grandiose ideas and wishful thinking. He is a
God who waits upon the decisions of men to see how his plans will ultimately work out.
But this is entirely wrong. He is the same God, the only true and living God. Everything
the Bible affirms about God is true of the God who confronts us in John 3:16. He is the
only true and living God, as Moses testified to the children of Israel when he said, “Hear,
O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). He wanted them to
understand that the Lord God of Israel was not one of many manifestations of God. He is
the one and only God.

“You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him
there is no other…Acknowledge and take to heart this day that the Lord is God in heaven
above and on the earth below. There is no other” (Deuteronomy 4:35,39).

When David confronted Goliath he did so in the name of the living God (I Samuel
17:36). The psalms speak of the soul thirsting and the heart and flesh crying out for the
living God (Psalm 42:2; 84:2). Paul thanked God for the believers in Thessalonica
because they “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God” (I Thessalonians
1:9). In other words, the God to whom they turned and the living and true God are one
and the same. The apostle wrote that the church is the “church of the living God” in I
Timothy 3:15. And in Hebrews 10:31 we read, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands
of the living God.”

What then could be more important than knowing God? What is more important than
knowing that we are at peace with him? Jesus said, “Now this is eternal life: that they
may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Like Paul the apostle, all Christians ought to be concerned that there are people who do
not have the knowledge of God (I Corinthians 15:34). He said that the heathen do not
know God (I Thessalonians 4:5). Those who do not know God are the same as those who
“do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ” (II Thessalonians 1:8). In fact this is
the condition of all people before they come to faith in Jesus Christ (Galatians 4:8). In
John 3:16 Jesus declared God’s terms of peace and reconciliation. We must believe in
Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, in order to be saved. It is this God, the true and
living God, who saves. It is this God with whom we have to do if we would be saved.

Part Two ~ The Love of God

Having seriously considered the God of love, we are now in a position to seriously
consider the love of God. Note well the word “seriously.” Superficial study will always
yield superficial results. A superficial view of God will always yield a superficial view of
love. But we have taken the trouble to learn that there is nothing superficial about the
God who is the subject and author of this love. He is the Creator of all things, the self-
revealed God, who has a sovereign purpose and who is the only true and living God.
Knowing these things, we have already advanced our understanding of the love of God.
In one sense we could end our study of this important verse of Scripture right here. If we
know God, what more is there to say? In any case, it is a foolish attempt to try to
comprehend the love of God without regard to the character of God as he has revealed
himself. Our views of the love of God must prove worthy of the God of love. Only the
Bible can give us such views of the love with which God loved the world.

It is of vital importance to notice that our verse says that God SO loved the world. It is a
mistake to assume that this little word describes the quantity of God’s love, or that it
indicates the measure of God’s love, or that it points to how much he loved the world.
The word “so” does not indicate quantity, but quality. It is not telling us “how much,” but
“what kind.” The love of God is not simply greater than human love. God’s love is love
of a different kind. God loves in a way that stands apart from any other love. The word
“so” is found in Matthew 1:18, where the gospel explains that the birth of Jesus Christ
came about in a unique way, a way that was different than all other births. Likewise, the
love of God is different than all other loves. Sometimes the words of Paul to the
Ephesians are appealed to as a proof that we should think of God’s love in terms of “how
much.”

“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together
with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge” (Ephesians 3:17-19).
But the translation of the NIV is misleading in this text, presuming that the words wide,
long, high, and deep apply specifically to the love of Christ. It is debatable whether this is
the case. Indeed, the fact is that we are admonished “to know the love of Christ, which
passeth knowledge” (KJV). The point is not that the love of Christ is something that, once
we take its measurements, can be fully understood. The point rather is that the love of
Christ is incomprehensible precisely because it is of a different character. But even if
these “dimension” words do point to the love of Christ, they would have us try to grasp
the true nature or character of his love. Therefore our approach will be to discover the
biblical characteristics of the love of God.

We must stress one additional point by way of introduction to our study of the love of
God. Our text tells us that God so loved the world. Jesus used the tense of the verb that
indicates the totality of God’s love. It speaks of God’s one great act of love eternally
accomplished. It does not mean that God is constantly searching for someone to love. The
love of God is what prompted him to give his only begotten Son. It was love that had a
plan. It was love that would not be denied. Our text contemplates the love of God in the
past as the love out of which sprang the great gospel plan of salvation. God loved the
world even before he created it. God loved the world before it rebelled against him. God
loved the world because it was his purpose to do so. If God so loved the world, let us
discover the character of that love.

The love of God is an electing love.

The Bible teaches us that the love of God in salvation is an electing love. But what does
this mean? Why should we think that the love of God is an electing love? It is because
God has a purpose in election, and that purpose is characterized by love. Let us consider
first that God does have an elect people. These are the people he has chosen for salvation
from before the foundation of the world. With regard to the elect Jesus said that “he will
send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four
winds, from one end of the heavens to the other” (Matthew 24:31). He promised that God
will avenge his elect people (Luke 18:7). At the Passover meal he said to his disciples, “I
know those I have chosen” (John 13:18). Later he said, “You did not choose me, but I
chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit” (John 15:16). When Paul and Barnabas
preached the gospel to the Gentiles, “all who were appointed for eternal life believed”
(Acts 13:48). The apostle Paul asked, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s
elect?” (Romans 8:33, KJV). He assured Timothy, “I endure everything for the sake of
the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal
glory”(II Timothy 2:10). In Titus 1:1 he spoke of the faith of God’s elect. Peter wrote his
epistle to God’s elect people and told them that they were the chosen people of God (I
Peter 1:1; 2:9). So the word of God clearly teaches that God has an elect people, and a
purpose “according to election” (Romans 9:11, KJV). And when we say that God’s love
is an electing love, we mean that his purpose in election is not impersonal or arbitrary.
Those whom he has chosen are those whom he loves. Those whom he loves are those
whom he has chosen. The love of God is not merely a feeling of good will toward
mankind in general. It is a special love in which God has selected those who are the
objects and beneficiaries of it.
Consider God’s choice of ancient Israel as an illustration of God’s electing love. Moses
spoke of this when he connected God’s choice of them with his love for them. He said to
the people, “Because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he
brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength” (Deuteronomy 4:37).

“The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more
numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because
the Lord loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out
with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of
Pharaoh king of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 7:7,8).

God spoke through the later prophets in the same way. “I have loved you with an
everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving kindness” (Jeremiah 31:3). “When Israel
was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son” (Hosea 11:1). The word of the
Lord to Israel through Malachi was even more to the point. He affirmed his love for
Israel, not on the basis of their depleted condition in the time of Malachi, but on the basis
of his choice of Jacob and rejection of Esau (Malachi 1:2,3). “Yet I have loved Jacob, but
Esau I have hated.” The apostle Paul employed this text when he explained that “they are
not all Israel, which are of Israel” (KJV). Just as God chose Abraham, he chose Isaac and
not Ishmael, and he chose Jacob and not Esau. Abraham had both a physical seed and a
spiritual seed. The spiritual children of Abraham were and are those to whom the promise
pertained. God’s purpose is based on his sovereign choice, not on national privilege
(Romans 9:6-13). Thus “at this present time there is a remnant according to the election
of grace” (Romans 11:5, KJV). The elect obtain the promise while the rest are hardened
(Romans 11:7). And then the apostle made the connection with the words of Moses:

“As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account, but as far as
election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs” (Romans 11:28).

So God’s love is an electing love. The God of the Bible is the sovereign God. He has
chosen those he will save, and those he has chosen he loves. God is not capricious,
pointless, or arbitrary in his electing purpose. The Bible explains his purpose of election
in terms of his love, and his love in terms of his electing purpose. The two belong
together. The apostle wrote to the Colossians “as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly
loved…” (Colossians 3:12). He wrote to the church in Thessalonica, “For we know,
brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you…” (I Thessalonians 1:4). The Bible does
not present the love of God in merely sentimental or emotional language. God’s love is
not mushy and gushy. It is not sappy and syrupy. God’s love is consistent with his
character. We have taken the time to consider the God of love in order that we might be
prepared to understand the love of God. God’s love is an electing love. His love is
purposeful and selective. His love will never be disappointed or defeated. There is no
such thing as unrequited love with God. Those whom he loves he chooses, and those he
chooses will love him.
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his
sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in
accordance with his pleasure and will” (Ephesians 1:4,5).

“But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the
beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and
through belief in the truth” (II Thessalonians 2:13).

The love of God is a covenant love.

The God of the Bible is a covenant making, covenant keeping God. He made a covenant
with Noah and all living things after the flood. He made a covenant with Abraham, and
renewed that covenant with Isaac and Jacob. He made a covenant with the children of
Israel at Mount Sinai. He made a covenant with David. God’s dealings with men are
defined by covenants. Covenants are the means by which he has chosen to administer his
kingdom. The Bible reveals a new covenant. The new covenant fulfills all previous
covenants and it takes the place of all previous covenants. God revealed it prophetically
to Jeremiah (31:31-34) and less specifically to Ezekiel (36:25-27) and other prophets.
Jeremiah’s prophecy was incorporated into the Epistle to the Hebrews to demonstrate that
it has been fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Jesus is the guarantee of the new covenant (Hebrews
7:22) and the mediator of the new covenant (Hebrews 8:6; 9:15). This is because he has
served as both priest and sacrifice in order to “do away with sin by the sacrifice of
himself” (Hebrews 9:26). He has acted as the representative of his people. He was
“sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people” and he now appears “for us in
God’s presence” (Hebrews 9:24,28). Christ has accomplished a perfect obedience and has
made a complete and final atonement for his people. This is why the new covenant
includes the promise of the forgiveness of sins (Hebrews 8:12). It is because Christ has
achieved that forgiveness for all those for whom he died. But just as amazing is the fact
that God declares, “I will be their God, and they will be my people” (Hebrews 8:10). This
is the language of covenant love. God embraces all who trust in Jesus Christ as his
people. He regards them as being in a covenant relationship with himself.

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to
God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his
wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once
you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (I Peter 2:9,10).

Jesus spoke of those the Father had given him. He came to glorify the Father by his
incarnation, atonement, and resurrection so that he could give them eternal life and so
that they could share in his glory (John 17:2,6,9,24). Jesus said,

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never
drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of
him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that
he has given me, but raise them up at the last day” (John 6:37-39).
What Jesus said in that passage does not contradict the message and meaning of John
3:16. In fact they are one and the same message. God’s love is a covenant love. He brings
his people into a relationship with himself in which we love him because he first loved us
(I John 4:19). When Jesus prayed for those who would believe in him he asked the
Father, “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me
and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John17:23). The people God loves are
the people he has given to Jesus. The people God loves are those to whom Jesus gives
eternal life. The apostle John wrote,

“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” (I John 4:9,10).

Paul the apostle knew Christ as the one who loved him and gave himself for him
(Galatians 2:20). He proclaimed that Christ loved the children of God and gave himself
for them (Ephesians 5: 2, 25). He is the good shepherd who laid down his life for the
sheep (John 10:11,15,17,18). This is why Jesus was entitled to speak to his disciples as he
did at their last Passover meal. “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of
me…This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you” (Luke
22:19,20). The apostle Paul said that “whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you
proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (I Corinthians 11:26). The proclamation of the
death of Jesus is the proclamation of the fact that God loved us and gave his only
begotten Son to die for our sins. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this:
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). This is God’s covenant
love. It is a love that does everything for sinners who can do nothing. It is love that gives
everything to sinners who deserve nothing.

The love of God is a saving love.

We immediately discover that this is what the context is intended to teach. Whether these
were the words of Jesus or of the apostle John, they were designed to explain verses 14
and 15. Jesus was teaching Nicodemus that he would perish in his sins unless he was
saved. He was a learned man, a respected man, and an influential man, but he was lost.
No doubt he was a good and moral man, a leader and a teacher of men, a religious and
law-abiding man. He was convinced he was well on his way to the kingdom of God. But
Jesus treated him as a lost man, a man who needed to understand his true condition. He
did not need more impressive credentials. He needed a new birth. Jesus said, “I tell you
the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (verse 3). He said
this to a man who thought his place in the kingdom of God was already assured, a man
who thought he knew how to show others the way into the kingdom. But Jesus told him
he had to start all over from the beginning, a new beginning. He had to be born again.

Nicodemus, like all men who are spiritually blind and dead, could not understand this. So
Jesus reminded him of the incident of “the snake in the desert.” Nicodemus had to realize
that he was just as dead spiritually as the people were physically when they died from the
poisonous snakes. The power of sin corrupts and condemns people. But God provided a
remedy. He ordered Moses to put a bronze snake on a pole and lift it up for all to see. The
snake was the embodiment of their sin, and God wanted the people to know that he can
kill the thing that was killing them. They could not extract the venom from their blood,
but they could look. And if they looked they would be saved. Jesus was made sin for us
and he was lifted up on the cross. “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in desert, so the Son
of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” What
is the point? The point is that Jesus is a Savior for sinners. But sinners must look! Sinners
must look to him believing that he is the only remedy for their sin. Sinners must trust in
him as the only one appointed by God to save them from their sins (Acts 4:12). And the
very fact that there is a Savior for sinners is the result of one thing – the love of God!

The love of God is a saving love. It is not a love that wishes to save, tries to save, or
hopes to save. It is not a love that partly saves. It is a love that saves sinners. The apostle
Paul reminded the Ephesians that they, like everyone else, had been spiritually dead.
They were following the ways of the world and living under the influence of the devil.

“Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of his great love for us,
God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in
transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2:4,5).

We have already made note of his comment to the Thessalonians, how that they were
loved by the Lord and that God had chosen them to be saved (II Thessalonians 2:13).
Paul greeted the Galatians with these words:

“Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave
himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our
God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen” (Galatians 1:3-5).

He assured the Ephesians that Christ loved the church and gave himself for her

“to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to
present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish,
but holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:25-27).

And let us not forget Paul’s grand finale of praise to God for the gospel plan of salvation
he expounded in the Epistle to the Romans. “Who shall separate us from the love of
Christ?” Indeed he was convinced that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love
of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:35,39). Why? Because the love of
God is a saving love. It is the love that permeates the saving purpose of God. It will never
be defeated or disappointed. This is why John could exclaim, “How great is the love the
Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we
are!” (I John 3:1). “For God so loved the world that he gave…” The love of God is such
that it must act. The love of God has a plan, and it will not accept anything less than
complete success.

“O the love that drew salvation’s plan!

 O the grace that brought it down to man!
O the mighty gulf that God did span
At Calvary!”
(William Newell)

The love of God will not take “no” for an answer. It is a saving love, and it will save
those it wants to save. The love of God is not a mood or a feeling. It is the very
fountainhead of salvation itself. The love of God sent his Son into the world. The love of
God caused his incarnation and atonement.

“Love caused thine incarnation,

Love brought thee down to me;
Thy thirst for my salvation
Procured my liberty.
O love beyond all telling,
That led thee to embrace,
In love all love excelling,
Our lost and fallen race!”
(Paul Gerhardt)

“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be
a kingdom and priest to serve his God and Father – to him be glory and power for ever
and ever! Amen” (Revelation 1:5,6).

Part Three ~ The Object of God’s Love

In our study of this most important verse of Scripture we have considered some of the
greatest themes of biblical revelation. We have spent a considerable amount of time and
effort in pondering the identity, characteristics, and works of this God who so loved the
world. Then we studied the Scriptures to find out the character of this love with which he
loved the world. So having considered the God of love and the love of God, we are now
prepared to move ahead to the next component in our text – the world that God loved.
Someone might wonder if it is necessary to do this. We have been plodding along at too
slow a pace already. What is the point of stopping to consider the word “world” except to
state the obvious? Everyone knows that the world means every human being without
exception. The fact that God so loved the world means simply that God loves every
person now living, every person who lived in the past, and every person who will yet live
in the future. He loves them all in exactly the same way and for exactly the same reason.
He intends to do for them exactly the same things. After all, it is John 3:16 that entitles us
to say to every person with unqualified assurance, “God loves you.”

This is the first and most common mistake in the reading of this verse, and there are
enormous problems arising from such an opinion. For one thing, as we have already
pointed out, our text says that God loved the world, not that God loves the world. This
verse is not about God’s love in search of a response from the world. It is about God’s
love that produced a plan before the world was created. In fact he created the world as the
cosmic stage on which his plan would be accomplished. We have seen that the Bible
describes the love of God in terms of his plan and purpose. It is electing love, covenant
love, and saving love. If God so loved the world, he loved it with this kind of love and
not with some other kind of love. Furthermore, the word “world” is not typically used as
a synonym for “every human being.” For the purpose of illustration, think about how we
use the word in ordinary conversation. We normally use “world” as a rough equivalent
for the earth and the people who live on it, the universe, or the part of the world in which
we live. We use expressions like:

What in the world are you doing?

Where in the world have you been?
He is in his own world.
I wonder what it is like to live in the world of the rich and famous.
I would not do that for all the world.
He looks for all the world just like his father.
She is on top of the world.
Our vacation was out of this world.
How are things in the world of high finance?
There is no way in the world they will be on time.

When we speak of the world we usually do not mean “every human being that ever lived,
is now living, or ever will live.” “World” is not intended to be so specific or inclusive as
to equal every member of the human race without exception. It should be self-evident
that the Bible does not use the word this way. John the Baptist said, “Look, the Lamb of
God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Does Jesus take away the sin of
every human being? If Jesus takes away the sin of the world but he does not take away
the sin of every human being, then the world cannot mean every human being. John 3:17
says that God sent his Son “to save the world through him.” Does Jesus save every
human being? If Jesus saves the world but he does not save every human being, then the
world cannot mean every human being. Jesus said, “the bread of God is he who comes
down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:33). Does Jesus give life to every
human being? If Jesus gives life to the world but he does not give life to every human
being, then the world cannot mean every human being. When the Pharisees saw the
people following Jesus they complained, “Look how the whole world has gone after
him!” (John 12:19). Did every human being go after Jesus? If the whole world went after
Jesus but not every human being went after Jesus, then the world cannot mean every
human being. In his prayer to the Father Jesus said, “I am not praying for the world, but
for those you have given me, for they are yours” (John 17:9). If the world means every
human being, would Jesus refuse to pray for those who are loved by God? And why
would God give only some of those he loves to Jesus?

This brings us to a second mistaken reading of this verse. On the one hand there are those
who say that the world means every person. But on the other hand there are those who
say that the world means only those whom God has chosen to be saved – the elect. In
response to this it only needs to be pointed out that if the Holy Spirit wanted to say that
God so loved the elect, he could just as well have said it. In fact he did say it many times
and in many places. We have already discussed the biblical doctrine of election in relation
to the love of God. We have seen that the love of God is an electing love. The Bible gives
abundant testimony to the fact that God has a purpose according to election. We have
been reminded of how Jesus promised that he will send his angels to “gather his elect…
from one end of the heavens to the other” (Matthew 24:31). We have seen that when the
gospel was preached “all who were appointed for eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48). We
know that it was in love that God chose us in Christ before he created the world and
“predestined us to be adopted as his sons” (Ephesians 1:4,5). We remember that Paul
assured the Colossians that they were “God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved”
(Colossians 3:12). He reminded the Thessalonians that God had loved them and chosen
them to salvation (I Thessalonians 1:4; II Thessalonians 2:13). And we remember how
the apostle Peter wrote, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a
people belonging to God” (I Peter 2:9). No one can believe the Bible and not believe the
doctrine of election. The doctrine of election is not an obscure or hidden thing as many
try to make it. It is not a thing of minor or secondary importance. It is not something so
indefinitely explained that no one should dare to say the Bible teaches it. It is taught all
through the Bible, and thank God that it is! But for God’s purpose in election no totally
depraved sinner would ever be saved. But the point is that when our text tells us that God
so loved the world we must leave it at that and not substitute the word “elect” for the
word “world.”

So, in the third place, the world is the object of God’s love. Whatever the world is, the
testimony of this verse of Scripture is that God so loved it that he gave his only begotten
Son. If “world” is not a code word for “every person without exception,” what is it?
Given what we know about the love of God, not to mention the God of love, we cannot
find in this text any idea that God loves all men in the same way or that Jesus died to save
every member of Adam’s race. Did God love Pharaoh and Moses alike, or the Egyptians
the same as the Israelites? Did he love Pilate as well as Paul the apostle? Did he love the
inhabitants of the cities of Canaan that he ordered slain with the sword the same as he
loved Joshua and Caleb? Did God love the multitude of souls already perishing in their
sins when John wrote his Gospel in the same way he loved the apostle John? We must
remember that Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus, a leader and teacher of Israel (John
3:1,10). Nicodemus and generations of Jews before him had been taught that God’s
electing, covenant, saving love was for them alone. If anyone else wanted to get in on it
he had to become one of them. But the Lord Jesus Christ, himself a Jew, came with a
mission to the world. He takes away the sin of the world. He is the Savior of the world.
He gives life to the world. The scope of his saving work is not confined to Israel. It
extends to the world in contrast to Israel. Nicodemus would have understood this and he
would not have assumed that Jesus was referring to every man, woman, and child without
exception. The world does not designate all people without exception. It encompasses all
people without distinction. No one is either included or excluded on the basis of race or
nationality.

“But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God. Even
to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the
flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12,13, KJV).
 The world God loved is the world God created.

The first thing we need to know about the world is where it came from. The most basic
characteristic of the world is that it owes its existence to God. Earlier we spoke of God as
the Creator of all things. The world is that which he created. In fact John said not only
that the world was created through Jesus Christ, but that all things were created through
him and “without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:3, 10). In other
words, the world and the creation are the same thing. As the apostle Paul preached to the
philosophers in Athens, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of
heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands” (Acts 17:24). He spoke of
“the world” and “heaven and earth” as parallel things. God created them and he is Lord
over them. Earlier Luke recorded Paul’s ministry in Lystra where he urged the pagans to
“turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made heaven and earth and sea
and everything in them” (Acts 14:15). Jesus made many references to the creation of the
world (Matthew 13:35; 24:21; Luke 11:50). He spoke of how the Father had loved him
before the creation of the world (John 17:24). He described how he will bestow the
inheritance upon his people in the last day, “the kingdom prepared for you since the
creation of the world” (Matthew 25:34). It is important to notice the distinction Jesus
made between the kingdom and the world. The inheritance he promised is not the world
but the kingdom. This will help us when we consider how it is that Christ is the Savior of
the world. We look forward to a new heavens and earth, a new creation, the age to come,
and the kingdom of heaven. But there is no new world. The apostle Paul wrote to the
church in Rome, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities…have
been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without
excuse” (Romans 1:20). In another place he said that God chose us in Christ “before the
creation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews also
mentioned “the creation of the world” (Hebrews 4:3; 9:26). Peter said that Christ “was
chosen before the creation of the world” to be the Redeemer (I Peter 1:20). He spoke of
that which God destroyed with the flood in the days of Noah as “the ancient world” (II
Peter 2:5). So the world that God loved is the world that God created.

But the Bible also reveals that God created human beings to live in the world. So, in the
second place, the world was created for human habitation. The world that God loved is
not merely the world of nature. It is not the world of plants and animals or oceans and
mountains. The world that God loved is the world where people live. God created man
and put him into the world, and the world is the stage upon which all human life,
experience, and history takes place. Thus Satan could offer Jesus “all the kingdoms of the
world” (Matthew 4:8). In the parable of the man who sowed the seed in the different
soils, Jesus explained that “the field is the world,” the world where people live (Matthew
13:38). As such the world is the object of God’s love. Jesus spoke of “the pagan world”
or “the nations of the world” (KJV) (Luke 12:30), obviously referring to people who
lived in the world. His brothers told him that he should go to Judea and show himself to
the world (John 7:3,4). Surely they had in mind the people of Judea. He said to the people
on another occasion, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in
darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). It would make no sense to try to
separate the world from the people who walk in it. When Paul thanked God for the
believers in Rome, it was “because,” he told them, “ your faith is being reported all over
the world” (Romans 1:8). He meant the known world of that time, the world of people.
He discussed the wisdom of the world as he wrote to the church of God in Corinth, a
subject that would make no sense unless he was talking about the wisdom of the people
who live in the world (I Corinthians 1:20). John wrote with the understanding that the
world and man who lives in the world are integrally related.

“Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of
the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust
of the eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but
from the world” (I John 2:15,16).

The world God loved is the world God created for human habitation. Another aspect of
this truth is that the Bible speaks of people coming into, being in, and going out of the
world. When a child is born he is born into the world (John 16:21). Paul said that in order
to avoid fornicators “you would have to leave (go out of, KJV) this world” (I Corinthians
5:10). Paul spoke of his conversation, conduct, or manner of life in the world (II
Corinthians 1:12). He reminded Timothy that “we brought nothing into the world, and we
can take nothing out of it” (I Timothy 6:7). According to John the apostle, “many false
prophets have gone out into the world” (I John 4:1). Many deceivers have done the same
(II John 7). In his incarnation the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world. God sent him
into the world (John 3:17). Jesus said, “While I am in the world, I am the light of the
world” (John 9:5). Martha’s confession was, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of
God, who was to come into the world” (John 11:27). When people were afraid to confess
their faith because of the Pharisees he said, “I have come into the world as a light, so that
no one who believes in me should stay in darkness” (John 12:46). Just before the
Passover, “Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the
Father” (John 13:1). In John 16:28 he stated plainly, “I came from the Father and entered
the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.”

Between the creation and the consummation of all things, the world is where everything
happens. God created the world and then he created man to live in it. The world is where
human life, history, and experience take place. The world is where God meets man and
has dealings with him. The world God loved is the world God created.

The world God loved is the world sin ruined.

In our quest to understand what it means that God so loved the world we have discovered
that it is the same world God created. But the Bible teaches something else about the
world, and that is that it was ruined by sin. The entire premise of our text rests upon this
fact and it would make no sense apart from the problem of sin. Popular notions about the
love of God and the reason why Jesus came into the world often fail to reckon with the
reality of sin. But we cannot understand God’s love for the world unless we understand
the biblical doctrine of sin. The first thing we must consider is that sin entered the world.
This is the plain teaching of Romans 5:12 – “Therefore, just as sin entered the world
through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because
all sinned.” This tells us a number of things. It tells us, for example, that sin was not a
part of God’s original creation. The apostle Paul was simply referring to the Genesis
record. There we are told that “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good”
(Genesis 1:31). Paul wrote to Timothy that “everything God created is good” (I Timothy
4:4). The world was “good” because it was a clear reflection of its Creator. It was “good”
because everything in it and about it was functioning in exactly the way God intended
when he created it. But sin changed all that. God did not create sin because sin is not
good. But at some point sin entered the world that God created. The story is on record in
Genesis 3:1-7. Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. They did what God
specifically told them not to do. Through their disobedience sin entered the world, the
world that had been untarnished by sin up to that point.

We learn also that all it took was the sin of one man. The world did not have to wait until
mankind multiplied in it so that when a certain number was reached sin could enter the
world. Sin is so powerful and so insidious that it entered the world through one man. The
apostle Paul made it a point to emphasize, not just that sin entered the world, but that “sin
entered the world through one man.” He did not even mention the woman, who actually
sinned first. It was the sin of Adam that was to blame for sin entering the world. Adam
was created first. Adam was the head of the whole human race. As such he was the king
of the world under God. His one act of disobedience brought with it staggering
consequences for the world. Imagine it: “sin entered the world through one man!” But it
is even worse than that. The Bible tells us that death came by sin. When sin entered the
world, death came into the world with it. The apostle’s words were to the effect that “in
this way death came to all men.” As a matter of fact, “sin reigned in death” (Romans
5:21) because “the many died by the trespass of the one man” (Romans 5:15). So not
only did sin enter the world, it reigned in the world and still does. God warned Adam and
Eve about eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and said, “for
when you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17). They did not immediately die, but
the seed of death immediately began the process of dying. Every human being begins to
die the moment he begins to live. The evidence for it is the plain fact that everyone dies,
since “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

In the second place, sin corrupted the world. Corruption includes moral, spiritual, and
physical decay. When anything is changed from its original condition it is corrupted. It is
changed from good to bad, from perfection to imperfection, from pure to impure. A
corrupted thing is a contaminated thing. It is tainted or infected with something that does
not belong. Nothing is ever improved when it is corrupted. We remember how the apostle
Paul quoted the pagan poet who said, “Bad company corrupts good character” (I
Corinthians 15:33). Corruption is what happens to our bodies when we die, but we will
be “raised in incorruption” (I Corinthians 15:42,50, KJV). So it is with the world God
loved. It is the world God created but sin has corrupted it. Paul spoke of the “hope that
the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the
glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). Most people are willing to
acknowledge that life in the world is not as good as it could be. They sense that there is
something wrong, something that tends to spoil everything in one way or another. There
is this general awareness even by those who refuse to recognize that the problem is sin.
But the Bible points specifically to sin as the source of this universally corrupting
influence. This is why the world in its wisdom does not know God (I Corinthians 1:21).
Paul spoke of “the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit
who is now at work in those who are disobedient” (Ephesians 2:2). Thus James warned
his readers to keep themselves “from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27). The
apostle Peter wrote,

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our
knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has
given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate
in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (II
Peter 1:3,4).

Sin has corrupted the world. It is the world of the ungodly (II Peter 2:5). The world itself
is not evil, but the corruption that is in the world is evil. The way to escape the corruption
while we are still in the world is to become partakers in the divine nature. Peter was not
suggesting that human beings become divine beings, but that when we believe the
promises of God we begin to exhibit holiness in our lives. We reflect the nature or
character of God. Peter said furthermore that the way to escape “the corruption of the
world [is] by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Peter 2:20). Participating in
the divine nature and knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ produce the same result.
We escape the corruption that is in the world. If sin has corrupted the world, the gospel
offers the only way of escape.

A third consideration is that sin alienated the world. Certainly the world is alienated from
itself. Alienation means that those who ought to be friends are enemies. Something has
happened to create enmity and hostility between them. Nations are alienated from other
nations. Races are alienated. People within the same social group are alienated for all
kinds of reasons. But more importantly, the world is alienated from God, and sin is the
culprit. Let us remember that sin has ruined the world God created. When sin entered the
world its relationship with God could not remain the same. What Isaiah declared to Israel
applies to the whole world: “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your
sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). The world God
loved is a world alienated from him because of sin. That God sent his only begotten Son
into the world would make no sense apart from this stark reality. “God was reconciling
the world to himself in Christ,” said the apostle Paul (II Corinthians 5:19). Why reconcile
the world if it is not alienated from God? But alienated it is, which is why Paul wrote to
the Colossians, “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds
because of your evil behavior” (Colossians 1:21). He said that the Gentiles were living
“in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the
life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart”
(Ephesians 17,18, KJV). Paul spoke of the same thing when he wrote to the church in
Rome, “when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of
his Son” (Romans 5:10). Just two verses earlier he put it a slightly different way: “While
we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” There can be no doubt about the correlation
between sin and alienation from God. Thus James could write, “You adulterous people,
don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who
chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God (James 4:4).

And then, finally, sin condemned the world. The Bible makes much of the fact that all
men are under condemnation because of sin. This is very much a part of the context of
John 3:16, again reminding us that the message of this text assumes the reality of sin.
“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”
(John 3:18). “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son
will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (John 3:36). The apostle Paul
developed this doctrine in his famous expose beginning in Romans 1:18 – “The wrath of
God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men.”
He went on to say, “We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all
under sin” (Romans 3:9) and it drove him to the conclusion “that every mouth may be
stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19, KJV). He
further argued that the original sin of Adam brought “condemnation for all men”
(Romans 5:18). The apostle alluded to this in his teaching about the proper observance of
the Lord’s Supper, noting that God disciplines us “so that we will not be condemned with
the world” (I Corinthians 11:32). Those who are in the world are “children of wrath”
(Ephesians 2:3, KJV) upon whom “the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:6). The
condemnation of a holy God hangs over this world because of sin. The world that God
loved is the world that sin entered, corrupted, alienated, and condemned. This was the
condition of the world when God sent his only begotten Son into it. People have the
opportunity to escape condemnation if they will believe in the name of the only begotten
Son of God. If they do not, their condemnation remains on them.

The world God loved is the world Christ saves.

What does it mean that God sent his Son into the world “to save the world through him”
(John 3:17)? What does it mean that “the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the
world” (I John 4:14; cf. John 4:42)?

First we may state the obvious and say that Christ saves the world by coming into the
world. He came into this world and into no other world. Everything he came to do, he did
in the world. Besides the many times Jesus claimed to have been sent by the Father, verse
17 states plainly that God sent his Son into the world. He said the same thing in John
10:36 and 17:18. We have already seen this in I John 4:9 – “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.” Similar statements are scattered throughout the Gospel of John. “He was in the
world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him”
(John1:10). “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness
instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). When the people saw Jesus
feed a crowd of more than five thousand with five small barley loaves and two small fish
they said, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world” (John 6:14). Jesus
said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who
see will become blind” (John 9:39). Martha confessed to Jesus, “I believe that you are the
Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world” (John 11:27). When Pilate
demanded to know if he was a king, Jesus said, “You are right in saying I am a king. In
fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth”
(John 18:37). To state that Jesus came into the world may seem unnecessary, but what if
he had not come into the world? If he had not come into the world he could not have been
the Savior of the world. The atonement necessitated the incarnation. The faith of God’s
people rests upon the fact that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
The baby born to Mary was the Son of God (Luke 1:35). The miracle of the incarnation
took place in the world, this world, our world (Philippians 2:5-11). Otherwise the world
would have no Savior.

A second observation is that Christ saves the world by coming as the only Savior the
world has. In other words, there is no other Savior. The world does not know it or believe
it, but it has no options in this matter of a Savior. The multitude of world religions is a
testimony to the fact that man is determined to have his own way in this matter. Man
wants choices and alternatives, and he wants to make up his own mind. But the
staggering fact of the matter is that the world has only one Savior. If anyone in the world
will be saved, he must be saved by this one Savior. The message of Christianity is this:
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men
by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The apostles Peter and John were completely
justified in preaching this message because Jesus himself had said the same thing. “I am
the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John
14:6). The apostle Paul wanted believers to pray for all kinds of people, including “kings
and those in authority,” because he knew that there is only one God and one Savior for
everyone.

“For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who will have all men to
be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave himself a ransom for all,
to be testified in due time” (I Timothy 2:3-6, KJV).

He went on the say that God “is the Savior of all men, specially of those that believe” (I
Timothy 4:10, KJV). It should not escape our notice that the apostle Paul specified that
God is the Savior of all men. This reminds us of our text and its message that God so
loved the world. God is the Savior of the world. He is the only God and without him the
world would have no Savior. The method by which he determined to reveal himself as the
Savior was to send his only begotten Son into the world. The writer to the Hebrews raised
a sobering question when he asked, “how shall we escape if we ignore such a great
salvation?” (Hebrews 2:3).

In the third place, Christ saves the world by saving his people from their sins. We have
already seen that Jesus does not save every human being. Nor was it ever the sovereign
purpose of God to save every human being. We have seen that the love of God is an
electing love, a love that has chosen certain people to salvation from before the
foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4,5; I Thessalonians 1:4; II Thessalonians 2:13).
The angel said to Joseph, “you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his
people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Jesus spoke of them as those the Father had
given him. He came to glorify the Father by his incarnation, atonement, and resurrection
so that he could give them eternal life and so that they could share in his glory (John
17:2,6,9,24). Jesus said,

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never
drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of
him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that
he has given me, but raise them up at the last day” (John 6:37-39).

Jesus is the Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep. He said, “I know my sheep
and my sheep know me…and I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:14,15). He
spoke of having other sheep who would listen to his voice. He told the unbelieving Jews,
“you do not believe because you are not my sheep” (John 10:16,26). It is important to
understand the point Jesus was making. People did not become his people by believing in
him. They believed because they were already his people before they believed. He came
into the world to save those whom the Father had given him. He made himself a
substitutionary atonement for the sins of his people. In other words, he did not merely
make their salvation possible. He actually accomplished their salvation. This is why Paul
wrote as he did to the Romans:

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also,
along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those
whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus,
who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also
interceding for us” (Romans 8:32-34).

But there is another dimension to this. Christ saves his people from their sins in a way
that is similar to the way Adam brought sin into the world in the first place. Just as Adam
acted as the representative head of all people, Jesus acted as the representative head of
his people. The apostle Paul called Jesus “the last Adam” and said, “For as in Adam all
die, so in Christ all will be made alive” (I Corinthians 15:22, 45). He was explaining the
doctrine of the resurrection primarily, but Paul developed the same principle in his Epistle
to the Romans. Just as Adam brought sin, condemnation, and death to everyone he
represented, so Christ brings righteousness, justification, and life to all those he
represented (Romans 5:12-19). This means that as Adam was the head of the old
humanity, Jesus is the head of a new humanity. These are the people Jesus saves out of
the world (John 17:6). These are the people who will never be lost and will never perish,
but will have eternal life with God. These are the people who, having been born from
above and reconciled to God through the death of Christ, will constitute the new
humanity that will live in everlasting fellowship with God. This is why Paul could speak
of Christ as “the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29) and Christians as those
who are now qualified “to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light”
(Colossians 1:12). Furthermore, “our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ…gave himself
for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his
very own” (Titus 2:13,14). The very purpose for our Savior’s incarnation was to bring
“many sons into glory” so that one day he can declare, “Here am I, and the children God
has given me” (Hebrews 2:10,13). Those whom Jesus saves are “a people belonging to
God” (I Peter 2:9) and “children of God” and “we know that when he appears, we shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (I John 3:2).

In the fourth place, Christ saves the world by reconciling the world to God. The apostle
John saw a vision of a reconciled world, but it is never called the “world” in any sense.
What he saw was “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe,
people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb” (Revelation
7:9). John “saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had
passed away” (Revelation 21:27). God’s elect people from all ages of human history will
comprise the new human race in the new heaven and earth. The apostle Peter put it like
this: “But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new
earth, the home of righteousness” (II Peter 3:13). Those whom Christ saves are reconciled
to God and they will live in a world that is reconciled to God. The apostle Paul looked
forward to this when he wrote:

“Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from
God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to
him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be
saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord
Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation” (Romans 5:1,11).

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has
come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the
ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not
counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of
reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his
appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made
him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of
God” (II Corinthians 5:17-21).

Paul explained to the Ephesians that Christ has reconciled Jews and Gentiles to each
other. “His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making
peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which
he put to death their hostility” (Ephesians 2:15,16).

He took it a step further when he explained to the Colossians that it was God’s purpose
for Christ to have the supremacy over all things. “For God was pleased to have all his
fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things
on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once
you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil
behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to
present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians
1:19-21).
The Bible teaches that “this world in its present form is passing away” (I Corinthians
7:31). “The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives
forever” (I John 2:17). But John saw in the Revelation that the kingdom of this world will
become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ (Revelation 11:15). This is the world
Christ saves by reconciling it to God. The apostle Paul saw it this way:

“Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has
destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his
enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (I Corinthians 15:24-26).

Part Four ~ The Gift of God’s Love

We come now to consider the fourth part of our studies in this priceless portion of the
word of God. We have reminded ourselves that the God who so loved the world is the
God who created all things, the God who has revealed himself, the God who has a
sovereign purpose that includes all things, and the one true and living God. We have
studied the character of God’s love and discovered that it is of a particular character. The
love of God is an electing love, a covenant love, and a saving love. Then we went on to
examine the object of this love of God. We found that the world that God loved is the
same world that he created. It is also the world that sin ruined, and we saw the various
ways in which sin has ruined the world. The world that God loved is the world that Christ
saves, and we considered what the Bible means when it tells us that Jesus Christ is the
Savior of the world. Now we are ready to examine another facet of the teaching of this
verse, and that is the gift of God that was the result of his love for the world. God so
loved the world that he gave his only Son. We may also think of this in terms of the
proof, the demonstration, the product, or the manifestation of God’s love. So we turn our
attention to the gift of God’s love. This gift is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of God.

Christ is a real Sacrifice.

In the first place, God gave his only Son to die as a real sacrifice for sinners. This means
that he died in the place of sinners as their substitute. The doctrine of the substitutionary
atonement of Christ lies at the heart of Christianity. God gave him in this capacity and for
this purpose. It would be in vain to try to understand why God gave his only Son apart
from this. It defines the nature and purpose of his coming into the world and of the death
he died. The apostle Paul taught the Ephesians that they were loved by God and that they
should “live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant
offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). When the gospel proclaims that “Christ
died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (I Corinthians 15:3), it means that he died in
the place of the sinner. As the sin bearer he received the full treatment that the sinner
justly deserved. The testimony of the Bible is not that Christ undertook this work in order
to entice God into loving the sinner, but just the reverse. God sent his Son into the world
to do this work in order to demonstrate his love. “But God demonstrates his own love for
us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). What the gospel
announces is good news because it is describing a real sacrifice that makes a real
substitution. It is the substitution of “the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to
God” (I Peter 3:18).

It is important to understand that the language of sacrifice as it applies to Jesus Christ

would be unintelligible but for the fact that it has the Old Testament sacrificial system as
its background. Likewise the reverse is true. The sacrifices put in place under the law of
Moses pointed forward to and found their fulfillment in the sacrifice of Christ. But the
legal sacrifices themselves could never take away sins. They were of a temporary nature
and had to be repeated again and again. The Epistle to the Hebrews explains that Christ is
a better priest who offered himself as a better sacrifice.

“Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he
offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had
offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that
time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has
made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Hebrews 10:11-14).

The gospel proclaims Christ as a real substitute and a complete sacrifice. He was not a
partial, potential, possible, or theoretical one. A word that better explains the biblical
position is the word “vicarious.” Many people think of Christ’s atonement as available,
but not actual. They believe he died potentially for everyone, but actually for no one. He
is like a substitute teacher, who is available, but only substitutes when called upon. But a
vicarious death is one that really accomplished something for those for whom it was
intended. Jesus actually took the place of certain sinners, made himself a sacrifice for
their sins, and rendered perfect satisfaction to God’s law on their behalf. “He himself bore
our sins in his body on the tree” (I Peter 2:24). Christ does not have to suffer many times,
because “he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the
sacrifice of himself” and “Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many
people” (Hebrews 9:26, 28). “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” and “he
bore the sin of many” (Isaiah 53:6,12). When he died on the cross Christ was a real
substitute, who offered to God a real sacrifice, accomplished a real satisfaction of God’s
charges against the sinner, and made a full and complete atonement.

Christ is the Propitiation.

In the second place, God gave his only Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
“Propitiation” is another of the great doctrinal terms that has fallen out of favor with
God’s people, many of whom have no memory of what it means. A propitiation is a
sacrifice that turns away the wrath of God, and Christ is that propitiation. “God presented
him as a propitiation through faith in his blood” (Romans 3:25). The doctrine of
propitiation is an indispensable aspect of the atoning death of Jesus Christ, and without it
we cannot understand what happened on the cross of Calvary. In Christ’s death God was
not announcing to the world that all is forgiven and forgotten. Nor was God saying that
he loves us anyway despite the fact that we put his Son to death. The gospel is not
preached simply by repeating the untruth that “God loves you and the cross proves it.”
What happened on the cross was something that an offended God did about man’s sin. It
was God demonstrating his love toward us, not Christ doing something to make it
possible for God to become loving, gracious, and merciful toward us. He set forth Christ
as the propitiation to turn his wrath away from the sinner to demonstrate his love, mercy,
and grace.

Thus we find this expression in Hebrews 2:17 – “Therefore he had to be made like his
brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in
the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (ESV). This means
that Christ became so completely identified with his people that their sin became his own
and his death became their satisfaction for sin. The writer of Hebrews used the same
word that is found in Romans 3:25 to refer to the “mercy seat,” or the cover on top of the
ark of the covenant. This was an amazing Old Testament picture of the “propitiatory”
work of Christ (Hebrews 9:5). The ark of the covenant contained the manna, Aaron’s rod,
and the tables of the covenant, all reminders of Israel’s sin. But the mercy seat, or
atonement cover, covered it all from the holy presence of God. The blood of the sacrifice
was sprinkled there as a token of propitiation and the wrath of God was turned away. It
reminds us that the great issues with which the gospel is concerned have to do with an
offended God. “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the
godlessness and wickedness of men” (Romans 1:18). God’s wrath hovers over the
disobedient (Ephesians 5:6). Christ, and Christ alone, saves sinners from the wrath of
God (Romans 5:9). When God publicly set forth Christ as the propitiation for our sins, he
was declaring his one and only method for dealing with sin. In other words, it was God’s
action, not man’s, and a full and final atonement for sin was the result. Jesus is the
propitiation for our sins (I John 2:2; 4:10).

Christ is the only Redeemer.

Third, God gave his Son to be the only redeemer of God’s elect. We “are justified freely
by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).
Redemption means that what came freely to the sinner cost Jesus everything. In
redemption, God regards sinners as slaves to sin (Romans 6:6,16,17). It is the business of
redemption to set the captive free. Christ Jesus finds us in the slave market of sin. When
he redeems us, we belong to him. He is the redeemer who actually redeems.

“Christ our Redeemer died on the cross,

died for the sinner, paid all his due”
(John Foote).

Christ’s redemptive work is not announced in the gospel as a potential or theoretical

redemption, much less a partial one. When God preached the gospel through Isaiah he
promised that he would be a Redeemer for his people (Isaiah 41:14; 43:1,14; 44:6,22-24;
47:4; 48:17,20; 49:7,26; 52:9,10; 54:5,8; 59:20). The Book of Ruth tells us the story of a
redeemer in action and thus provides a dramatic preview of the redemptive work of Jesus
Christ. The redemption we have in Christ is a present and accomplished reality. “In him
we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins” (Ephesians 1:7; cf.
Colossians 1:14).
Why would we say, or in what sense do we mean, that our redemption cost Jesus
everything? The release from sin, death, and the condemnation of the law that Christ’s
redemption accomplished required the payment of a ransom. Jesus is that ransom price
that was paid. He came “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:28). “Our
great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, gave himself for us to redeem us” (Titus 2:14).
“Christ is the mediator of a new covenant…now that he has died as a ransom to set them
free” (Hebrews 9:15).

“For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were
redeemed…but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (I
Peter 1:18,19).

The Bible insists that sinners can only be “justified freely by his grace through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” The gospel dispels the popular fiction that God has
already forgiven everybody just by saying so, and we must say so, too. In this view,
people must learn to forgive themselves and realize that if God has gotten over the sin
problem, we should get over it. But if sinners can be justified only through the
redemption that is in Christ Jesus, it is accomplished at a staggering price.

Christ is the only Mediator.

A fourth reason why Christ is the supreme manifestation of the love of God is that God
gave his Son to be the only mediator between God and men. He is the mediator of the
new covenant (Hebrews 8:6; 9:15; 12:24). God has never authorized or qualified anyone
else for this position. “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the
man Christ Jesus” (I Timothy 2:5). In another place the apostle said that a mediator “does
not represent just one party” (Galatians 3:20). Christ as the mediator intervenes between
the offending sinner and the offended God in order to accomplish reconciliation.

He stands in our place, as our representative before God (Romans 5:15-21). By his death
and sinless life he merits a perfect righteousness, so that all who trust in him are forever
reconciled to God. This work of reconciliation is the work of Christ alone. Through him
sinners are as reconciled to God as they can ever be and nothing remains to be done about
it except to proclaim it to sinners far and wide. We who have trusted in the finished work
of Christ have been entrusted with the ministry and message of reconciliation. In Christ’s
name we preach, “Be reconciled to God” (II Corinthians 5:18-21).
“For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his
Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life”
(Romans 5:10).

As the only mediator, Jesus “bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the
transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). Not only that, “ he forever lives to make intercession” for
us (Hebrews 7:25). “Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that,
who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us”
(Romans 8:34).
But Jesus is the Mediator between God and man. Not only does he establish the sinner in
a right relationship with God, he also establishes God’s interests and requirements in the
sinner. As the Mediator, Christ alone is our prophet, priest, and king. As our prophet, he
reveals to us the truth about God and our relationship to him (Hebrews 1:1,2). As our
priest, he continually applies to us the benefits of his sacrifice and maintains and
advances our sanctification (Hebrews 7:25). As our king, he executes the saving purpose
of God in us, establishes God’s kingdom in us, and defeats the world, the flesh, and the
devil in us (I Corinthians 15:25).

Christ is the only Righteousness.

Finally, God gave his Son to provide the only righteousness that saves. The great
controversy that God has with sinners is over the matter of righteousness. God is perfect
in righteousness and holiness. Man has neither and is incapable of producing either. No
supposed righteousness of the sinner contributes anything to salvation (Titus 3:5-7). In
fact, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like
filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). But the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, because in it
a righteousness from God is revealed. Long ago God had promised that the coming
Messiah King would be called, “The Lord our Righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6). The
apostle Paul announced that righteousness from God came in the person of Christ. “This
righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe” (Romans
3:22). In other words, without a righteousness that God approves, there is no salvation.
The gospel is about a righteousness that God not only approves, but that he even
provides. The apostle Paul preached the righteousness of Christ as the sinner’s only hope,
and he did so as one who knew the experience of finding no hope in any righteousness of
his own (Philippians 3:9). He wanted to “be found in him (Christ).” He knew that Christ
is our righteousness (I Corinthians 1:30) and that “in him we become the righteousness of
God” (II Corinthians 5:21). In fact, all who are joined to Christ by faith “are made
righteous” by his obedience (Romans 5:19). This means that, just as the disobedience of
Adam placed all men who are in him into the category of sinners, so the obedience of
Christ places all who are in him into the category of “righteous.” It is Christ’s
righteousness, not ours, that saves. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son to
provide the only righteousness that saves. No sinner can ever be saved unless he is
willing to be saved on God’s terms. God’s terms amount to nothing less than
unconditional surrender and complete trust in Christ.

Part Five ~ The Purpose/Design of God’s Love

We have made our way through the message of this verse by following the logical
relationship of each part to the whole. We referred early in our studies to the fact that
there is a purpose or design embedded in this verse. This came to our attention because
the God of love is the God who has a sovereign purpose that includes all things. We have
also seen this as an element in the character of God’s love, that it is a purposeful love.
God has a purpose for those he loves. His purpose is not arbitrary and his love is not
aimless. God so loved the world that he designed a plan to do something about it. His
purpose is that whoever believes in his only Son will not perish but have eternal life.
The purpose or design of God’s love, therefore, is stated in the word “that.” But we
immediately notice that the word “that” appears not once but twice in this verse. Though
they appear to mean the same thing, in reality they do not. The first “that” belongs with
the previous heading dealing with the gift of God’s love. There we said that the words
result, proof, demonstration, manifestation, or product could be used. In other words,
when God gave his only Son he did so as the result of the fact that he so loved the world.
If we want proof that God so loved the world, we need only know that he gave his only
Son as the result. This means that the giving of his Son was not the purpose, but the
result. Purpose and result are not the same. If we want to know the purpose, we have to
look at the rest of the verse, the part that begins with the second “that.” The purpose of
God was not to send his Son into the world and then wait and see what happened after
that. The sending of his Son was the result of his love for the world. His purpose was to
save those who believe in his Son.

This may at first seem to be a minor distinction or an unimportant detail. But it involves a
very major difference in understanding the nature of Christ’s saving mission. Those who
think that the purpose of the love of God is explained beginning with the first “that” see it
one way, and those who think that the purpose of the love of God is explained beginning
with the second “that” see it another way. The first view is that God gave his Son to make
salvation available to anyone who might take an interest in it, but his purpose was no
more definite or specific than that. In the second view, the sending of his Son was the
result of God’s love, and his purpose was to actually save those who believe. In order to
save those who believe he had to accomplish a complete and final atonement for all their
sins. His purpose was not to give eternal life to everyone indiscriminately, whether they
believed or not. His design in sending his Son was to save those who believe.

The purpose of God’s love is that some will believe.

In the purpose of God, the question whether anyone would believe was not left
unresolved. In other words, the believing of some people was included in his plan. If the
believing were left entirely to the decision of sinners, no one would believe and the entire
plan of God would collapse and fail. So when God designed to give eternal life to those
who believe, he also designed that they would believe. The purpose of God does not
depend on the purposes of men for its success. The purpose of God’s love is that some
will believe. What does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God? The Lord
Jesus spoke clearly in this very passage of Scripture about the absolute necessity of
believing in him for salvation (John 3:15-18). He is the only one sent by the Father and
authorized by him to save sinners. Believing in him results in eternal life. Disbelieving
him leaves you under the condemnation of God. In John 6:29 he said, “The work of God
is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” He said this to people who seemed to be
interested in him only for the physical benefits they could derive from him. If they
wanted “food that endures to eternal life” there was only one thing to do: believe in the
one who could give it to them as a gift. In fact, we discover that the apostle John’s whole
point and purpose in preparing his gospel was that people would do just that, nothing
more, nothing less, and nothing besides. “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”
(John 20:31).

Those who believed in Jesus told others that they must do the same. We find early in the
Book of Acts that believing in Jesus involved repentance for sin and receiving the
message about him. Those who did so were known as “believers” (Acts 2:36-44). Later,
when many more believed in Christ, the number of the Jerusalem church swelled to five
thousand men, besides women and children. Over the objections of the Jewish authorities
the apostles declared, “Salvation is found in no one else” (Acts 4:12). The result was that
“more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number”
(Acts 5:14). It seemed that wherever the gospel was preached people believed in Jesus
Christ. We can only wonder how many times the refrain was heard, “Believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).

It is no surprise that the epistles took up and amplified the same theme. Paul wrote to the
church in Rome for the purpose of explaining the gospel to them. The gospel announces
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and “it is the power of God for the salvation of
everyone who believes.” The gospel is powerful to save because it reveals a
righteousness from God that “comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe”
(Romans 1:1-4, 16,17; 3:22). “God presented him as a propitiation through faith in his
blood” so that God can “be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus”
(Romans 3:25,26).

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in
which we now stand” (Romans 5:1,2).

The apostle Paul said that the proclamation of the gospel is “the word of faith” because it
demands a response of belief in Christ as he is declared in the gospel.

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God
raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and
are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Romans 10:8-
10).

So everywhere and to everyone the message of Christianity is the same. People must
believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul declared the gospel to the church in
Corinth as consisting in the facts of Christ’s atoning death, burial, and resurrection. His
conclusion was, “this is what we preached, and this is what you believed” (I Corinthians
15:11). He assured the churches of Galatia, “even we have believed in Christ Jesus”
(Galatians 2:16, KJV). Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ is what makes a person a
Christian. This was assumed to be the hallmark of the churches of the New Testament
(Ephesians 1:13; Philippians 1:29; Colossians 1:4; I Thessalonians 1:7). Every Christian
should be able to affirm with Paul, “I know whom I have believed” (II Timothy 1:12).
What is the nature of this believing in Christ? What is the faith that secures eternal life?
For one thing, we know that faith includes knowledge and understanding, because the
message about Christ is directed to our mind. It is something we must know and
understand. But knowledge and understanding in themselves do not amount to saving
faith. It is possible to know and understand a great deal in an intellectual sense, yet
remain under the condemnation of God. Those who know God’s righteous decree still do
those things that are deserving of death (Romans 1:32). Even the devils have some kind
of faith (James 2:19). At the same time, faith is not a substitute for knowledge and
understanding. Faith is believing the claims and trusting the merits of Jesus Christ, which
can be known and understood.

Saving faith also includes agreement with or approval of the facts announced in the
gospel. Faith sees the facts and agrees that they are true. But agreement, assent, and
approval alone do not count for biblical faith. Nicodemus could not deny the facts, but he
was not saved (John 3:2). From what the apostle observed, it appears that King Agrippa
was of a similar mind, but he was not a Christian (Acts 26:27,28). There are many who
have no argument with the facts about Jesus Christ, and who think they are saved because
of this alone. They imagine that they are not opposed to the gospel, that they have no
significant quarrel with it, and that God should accept their supposed indifference as a
kind of belief. They forget that Jesus said, “He who is not with me is against me”
(Matthew 12:30).

Saving faith is personal trust in Jesus Christ for salvation – trust in him exclusively, and
trust in him entirely. Sinners are not saved because they believe in Christ like they believe
the facts about geography or mathematics. Such “belief” requires no personal
commitment, no renunciation of self-trust, and no complete dependence on someone else.
The believing that saves is a complete resignation of ourselves to Jesus Christ. It is
trusting his person and work to do for us what is impossible for us to do for ourselves.
Saving faith is the soul’s coming to Christ (John 6:35), receiving Christ (Colossians 2:6),
laying hold on Christ (Hebrews 6:18), committing itself to Christ (II Timothy 1:12).

But there is still more to be said about the nature of this saving faith. The Bible reveals
that this faith is the gift of God and the result of regeneration or the new birth. We only
need to follow our Lord’s discussion with Nicodemus to learn that this is true. It is no
mistake that Jesus spoke of being born again before he spoke of believing in him.
Nicodemus did not understand why Jesus would tell him he had to do something that he
could not do. But the point was that God had to do something in Nicodemus first. For his
part, he was required to believe in Christ. The same principle was laid out earlier in the
Gospel of John. Without a doubt, those who received Christ were those who had been
“born of God” (John 1:12,13). John said as much in I John 5:1: “Everyone who believes
that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.” Believing in Jesus is therefore not within the
natural ability of people who are spiritually dead. God must exert his power to make us
spiritually alive so that we can believe in his Son. There is no other way to make sense of
Paul’s great study of the relationship between faith and regeneration in Ephesians 2:1-10.
There is one additional point the Bible makes about this faith. The apostle Paul called it
“the faith of God’s elect” (Titus 1:1). He believed God had called him to bring to faith
those whom God had chosen to salvation. So he saw that believing was the result of
election. This is how we must understand these words of Jesus: “All that the Father gives
me will come to me” and “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws
him” (John 6:37,44). For exactly the same reason we read that “all who were appointed
for eternal life believed” (Acts 13:48). We find the same arrangement embedded in Paul’s
outline of the gospel plan in the Epistle to the Romans. “And those he predestined, he
also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified”
(Romans 8:30). Since justification is by faith alone (Romans 3:28; 5:1), faith is
necessarily the result of predestination. When the apostle wrote to the church of the
Thessalonians he made it clear that he assumed the same things about the believers there.
He expressed his assurance of their having been chosen by God because they “welcomed
the message,” another way of saying that they believed (I Thessalonians 1:4-10). He was
thankful to God for them because, he said, “from the beginning God chose you to be
saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth” (II
Thessalonians 2:13). Paul wrote to Timothy about how he proclaimed Jesus Christ in the
gospel, how he was bound in chains but the word of God is not bound. “Therefore I
endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they too may obtain the salvation that is
in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory” (II Timothy 2:10).

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son. His design or purpose was that people
would believe in his Son, Jesus Christ. We have been examining the nature of this
believing, this faith that saves people. This is the believing that saves people from
perishing in their sins. This is the believing that gives them eternal life. It is this believing
and no other believing. Have you believed in Jesus Christ? Should you believe in him?
Will you believe in him? I want to be perfectly clear in telling you that this verse speaks
to each and every one. It tells us that whoever believes in Jesus Christ will have eternal
life. It is not speaking to you as someone who has been born again. You do not have the
power to be born again. It is not speaking to you as someone who has been chosen by
God for salvation. You do not have the ability to know about that. The appeal of the
gospel is to you as a sinner, nothing more, nothing less, nothing else. You are even now
perishing in your sins. Christ is offered to you in the gospel. God’s promise is that
whoever will believe in him will be saved.

The purpose of God’s love is that none who believe will perish.

One of the most significant features of this beloved verse is that it includes one of the
most foreboding words found in all of Scripture. It uses the word “perish,” a word that at
the very least ought to cause everyone who hears it to stop and consider. Sadly, many
who read or recite this text give little or no serious thought to the sobering fact that all
who do not believe in God’s unique Son will perish. If eternal life is the most desirable
condition into which human beings may enter, then perishing must be the most
undesirable. Even if we knew nothing about what it means to “perish,” we know that it is
the precise opposite of eternal life. Everything that is gained by those who have eternal
life is completely lost to those who perish. What is the one thing that makes the
difference between perishing and having eternal life? It is believing in Jesus Christ.

What happens to people who perish? The Bible speaks clearly about this in some ways,
but in other ways it is not so clear. We have seen that perishing is the extreme opposite of
having eternal life. Our text gives us at least one additional hint when it indicates that
perishing is in some way related to the condemnation of God. The Bible makes much of
the fact that all men are under condemnation because of sin. This is very much a part of
the context of John 3:16, again reminding us that the message of this text assumes the
reality of sin. “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” (John 3:18). To be condemned means to be deserving of the wrath of God, his holy
indignation against sin. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects
the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (John 3:36). The apostle Paul
developed this doctrine in his famous expose beginning in Romans 1:18 – “The wrath of
God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men.”
He went on to say, “We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all
under sin” (Romans 3:9) and it drove him to the conclusion “that every mouth may be
stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God” (Romans 3:19, KJV). He
further argued that the original sin of Adam brought “condemnation for all men”
(Romans 5:18). The apostle alluded to this in his teaching about the proper observance of
the Lord’s Supper, noting that God disciplines us “so that we will not be condemned with
the world” (I Corinthians 11:32). Those who are in the world are “children of wrath”
(Ephesians 2:3, KJV) upon whom “the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:6). The
condemnation of a holy God hangs over this world because of sin. Those who do not
believe in Jesus Christ are condemned already and will remain under the condemnation
of God. People have the opportunity to escape condemnation if they will believe in the
name of the only begotten Son of God. If they do not, their condemnation remains on
them and they will perish.

We also find that to perish means to be lost. We should not think of being lost in the sense
of missing or misplaced. It is rather the idea of something being cut off or separated from
its rightful owner. Jesus used this word when he declared in the house of Zacchaeus, “For
the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). Lost sinners are
perishing because they are separated from God. It is not that God does not know where
we are. We are in a state of rebellion against him. We are alienated from him because we
have become his enemies. What Isaiah declared to Israel applies to every sinner: “But
your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from
you, so that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2). Paul wrote to the Colossians, “Once you were
alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior”
(Colossians 1:21). He said that the Gentiles were living “in the vanity of their mind,
having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the
ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” (Ephesians 4:17,18,
KJV). Paul spoke of the same thing when he wrote to the church in Rome, “when we
were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son” (Romans
5:10). Just two verses earlier he put it a slightly different way: “While we were still
sinners, Christ died for us.” There can be no doubt about the correlation between sin and
alienation from God. Such is the condition in which people are lost and perishing.

Let us consider some illustrations of this lost condition. In his memorable teaching in the
Sermon on the Mount Jesus pointed out that “anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has
already committed adultery with her in his heart.” He went on to urge the gouging out of
a right eye and the severing of a right hand if either or both cause a man to sin in the
matter of adultery. “It is better to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to
be thrown into hell” (Matthew 5:29,30). The KJV used the word “perish,” but it means to
perish in the sense of being lost. The principle is that it is necessary to take radical steps
to avoid temptation, because if we are not willing to accept a lesser loss we may suffer a
total loss. On another occasion the Lord Jesus instructed his disciples to announce the
coming of the kingdom of heaven “to the lost sheep of Israel” (Matthew 10:6). This was
not because he had no interest in Gentiles and Samaritans, but because he was
summoning Israel to repent and submit to him as their rightful King. The gospel was
“first for the Jew, then for the Gentile” (Romans 1:16). He explained his response to the
Canaanite woman in precisely the same terms (Matthew 15:24). But our primary interest
is that “the lost sheep of Israel” were perishing sheep. The God of Israel had not
misplaced them or forgotten where he had put them. They were lost in the sense that they
were separated from their shepherd.

Furthermore, Jesus used this same word when he spoke of finding a life and losing a life.
“Whoever finds his life will lose it,” he said, “and whoever loses his life for my sake will
find it” (Matthew 10:39; 16:25). In the parallel accounts in Mark and Luke “saving” the
life is put for “finding” it (Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24), but John’s Gospel provides another
variation: “The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in
this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:25). The point is that if we make the
preservation and selfish interests of the present life (or soul) our primary goal, we will
lose our life or soul in the end. But if we make everything subservient to the goal of
following Jesus, we will enter into life in its fullness. It is worth noting that in the
synoptic parallels this statement of Jesus was followed by the sobering questions, “What
good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a
man give in exchange for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Everyone who lives as if his goal
is to gain the world will end up losing his soul. A lost soul is a perishing soul. Yet another
example of “perish” meaning to lose or be lost is Matthew 10:42. Anyone who gives a
cup of cold water to one of Jesus’ disciples “will certainly not lose his reward.” The
reasoning behind this assurance is that whoever receives a disciple of Jesus receives Jesus
himself, and whoever receives Jesus receives the God who sent him. So the people in
question are people who have a right relationship with God. They are entitled to a reward
that can never perish or be lost.

One of the most pungent examples of how to perish means to be lost is provided in the
parable of the lost things in Luke 15. In the parable Jesus spoke of three things that were
lost, and he used the word “perish” no less than eight times to make his point. He directed
this parable to the Jewish authorities whose complaint was, “This man welcomes sinners
and eats with them” (verse 2). So he described the circumstances of the lost sheep, the
lost coin, and the lost son (verses 4,6,8,9,17,24,32). In the parable, the lost things were
perishing. They were in every case separated from their rightful owner. Of course in the
parable the sheep, the coin, and the son were lost in that the owners did not know where
they were. When the lost things were finally found and restored to their owners, there was
great rejoicing by all concerned. But the point was to show that people are lost and
perishing as far as God is concerned. We are separated and alienated from God because of
sin and rebellion. And there is rejoicing in the presence of God in heaven when anyone
who is lost and perishing returns to him.

There is another dimension to this foreboding word. To perish also means to be

destroyed. The word was often used to refer to the prospect of physical death. It could
mean to be destroyed in the sense that Herod wanted to destroy Jesus. Herod wanted to
“kill him” (Matthew 2:13). When Jesus and his disciples were crossing the Sea of Galilee,
a sudden violent storm put them in fear of their lives. They were certain they were going
to drown (Matthew 8:25). Their unforgettable exclamation was, “Lord, save us: We
perish” (KJV). Likewise when the Pharisees “plotted how they might kill Jesus,” they
wanted him to perish or be destroyed in this sense (Matthew 12:14). But other things
could perish in the sense of being destroyed. Jesus spoke of the wineskins that are
destroyed or “ruined” when someone puts new wine in old wineskins (Matthew 9:17). He
spoke of bread that perishes or “spoils” (John 6:27). When a woman poured a very
expensive perfume on Jesus the disciples criticized her action as “waste.” As far as they
were concerned, the perfume was perishing (Matthew 26:8). Even gold will perish,
according to I Peter 1:7, as did the world before the flood (II Peter 3:6). In the light of all
of this, we do well to consider the fact that Jesus said that all people are either traveling
the broad road that leads to “destruction” or the narrow road that leads to “life” (Matthew
7:13,14). And let us not forget the gravity of our Lord’s warning that God is “the One
who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). Paul said of those who are
“enemies of the cross of Christ” that “their destiny is destruction” (Philippians 3:19). We
cannot but be reminded of the awful prospect of perishing presented to us in John 3:16, a
prospect that is certain for all who refuse to believe in God’s one and only Son. Those
who perish are forever lost and separated from God. “They will be punished with
everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty
of his power” (II Thessalonians 1:9). Those who perish are eternally destroyed just as
those who believe have eternal life.

The purpose of God’s love is that all who believe will have eternal life.

It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that this verse, along with the rest of the Bible,
divides all human beings into two categories. There are those who believe and those who
do not believe. There are those who perish and those who have eternal life. There are
those who are saved and those who are lost. There are those who enter into eternal life
and those who enter into eternal punishment. There are those who belong to the kingdom
of darkness and those who belong to the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. The apostle Paul
outlined this same great division in terms of how people respond to the message of the
cross. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us
who are being saved it is the power of God.” He went on to say, “God was pleased
through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe” (I Corinthians
1:18, 21). Salvation and eternal life for those who believe are virtually equated in our text
(verses 16,17), just as we have already seen that perishing and condemnation are similar
descriptions of what happens to those who do not believe.

One astonishing feature of God’s purpose for those who believe is that they have eternal
life as a present possession. It is a life into which people enter upon the condition of
believing in God’s one and only Son. This principle was asserted by our Lord in verse 15,
it is repeated in verse 16, and even more emphatically in verse 36 – “Whoever believes in
the Son has eternal life.” The theme of “eternal life” is prominent in John’s Gospel
(4:14,36; 5:24,39; 6:27,40,47,54,68; 10:28; 12:25,50; 17:2,3). There can be no doubt that
eternal life is a life into which people enter when they believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. “I
tell you the truth,” said Jesus, “ whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me
has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life” (John
5:24). “I will tell you the truth, he who believes has everlasting life” (John 6:47).
Coupled with this is the fact that people do believe precisely because they have been
“appointed for eternal life” (Acts 13:48). Clearly the act of believing in Christ for
salvation is that by which a person enters eternal life. The apostle admonished Timothy to
“take hold of the eternal life to which you were called” (I Timothy 6:12).

We also learn that eternal life is not just an endless life, but a different kind of life. Eternal
life is capable of living with God. It is a life that is entirely devoted to serving, loving,
worshipping, glorifying, and fellowshipping with God without interruption. It is a life
that is suited to the age to come, to the new heavens and the new earth in which
righteousness will dwell. Because of these considerations, it must be eternal life. Life as
we know it would be a burden to us in eternity. But eternal life is new life, a life that
begins with a new birth (John 3:3). It is a life that is defined by a new and unique
relationship with God. Jesus said that the essence of this life is to know God and to know
Jesus himself as sent by God (John 17:3). John the apostle virtually equated eternal life
with the person and work of Jesus Christ. “The life appeared; we have seen it and testify
to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared
to us” (I John 1:2). Remaining in the Son and in the Father, that is, continuing to believe
the gospel, leads to the promise of eternal life (I John 2:25). “God has given us eternal
life, and this life is in his Son…He is the true God and eternal life” (I John 5:11,20).

Finally, eternal life is a gift from God based on the finished work of Christ. God gave his
only begotten Son so that whoever believes in him will have eternal life. Paul spoke of
the grace of God and “the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ,” “the
gift of God,” and “the gift of righteousness” (Romans 5:15-17). Eternal life comes from
the grace of God “through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 5:21). It is the result of being
set free from bondage to sin, becoming slaves to God, progressing in holiness, and is in
every sense “the gift of God” (Romans 6:22,23). Consider also Paul’s personal testimony:

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown
mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited
patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life” (I
Timothy 1:15,16).

Or this:

“At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of
passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.
But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of
righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing
of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through
Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become
heirs having the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:3-7).

Long ago Moses said to the people of Israel,

“See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction…This day I call
heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death,
blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that
you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is
your life…” (Deuteronomy 30:15,19,20).

The message of John 3:16 sets before you eternal life and eternal death, the only two
alternatives available to any man. This verse confronts us with the prospect of a much
more terrible death, and a much more blessed life, than Moses was talking about. The
choice is between eternal destruction and being shut out from the presence of the Lord on
the one hand, and on the other the very life of God himself. Who will refuse to believe in
God’s only begotten Son and choose instead to perish in his sins? Why should anyone
who has heard the message of this text perish, when by believing in Christ he may have
eternal life? The fact of the matter is that if you will not be saved by this God, who so
loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, and be saved on his terms, you will
not be saved at all. If you do not believe in Jesus it is because you will not believe. If you
perish in your sins it will be by your own choice. But the greatest promise ever given was
spoken by none other than the Savior of the world, that whoever believes in him will
never perish but will have eternal life.