For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Those words have shaped my whole idea of God. Those words have shaped and changed my life. I do not know what my life would have been like if I never heard those words and took them to heart. I don’t know what my life would be like if I never heard of Jesus.
John 3:16 contains 25 words (in the original Greek and in the King James Version) that have not only changed my world, they have changed the world.
I would like to take a few moments with you this morning to meditate on some of the key words in this marvelous verse.
I begin with God. What is your concept of God?
When I was a teenager, my mother gave me a slim little book to read entitled “Your God Is Too Small” by J. B. Phillips. In that book, Phillips talks about several inadequate, destructive, unreal concepts of God:
- Resident Policeman
- Parental Hangover
- Grand Old Man
- Meek and Mild
- Absolute Perfection
- Heavenly Bosom
- God-in-a-Box
- Managing Director
- Second-Hand God
- Perennial Grievance
- Pale Galilean
- Projected Image
I think many of us are fed with all sorts of inadequate ideas of God from the time we are very young. Then, when we are introduced to Jesus, if we are ever introduced to him, we try to fit Jesus into our inadequate idea of God. I would suggest performing the operation the other way around. Why not allow Jesus to completely shape your concept of God, rather than having your inadequate concept of God shape Jesus?
The second key word in John 3:16 is love. Elsewhere, the New Testament tells us that “God is love.” (1 John 4:8) Notice, the Bible does not say, “Love is God.” Rather, it says, “God is love.” There is a big difference. Again, I would recommend allowing God to shape your concept of love rather than letting your inadequate concept of love shape your concept of God.
I have spoken many times about one of my favorite C. S. Lewis books, “The Four Loves”. In that book, Lewis talks about four different Greek words for love. I did some more research recently and actually discovered there are at least 9 Greek words for love…
- Eros: romantic, passionate love
- Philia: intimate, authentic friendship
- Ludus: playful, flirtatious love
- Storge: familial love or affection
- Philautia: self-love
- Pragma: committed, companionate love
- Xenia: guest friendship or hospitality
- Mania: obsessive love
- Agápe: God’s kind of love for us
I recently had a parishioner from a former church contact me to let me know that she still remembered a conversation we had some twenty years ago. We were talking about Agápe and how some people call it “unconditional love”. I told her I thought a better definition of Agápe would be “contra-conditional love”. God’s love for us moves against the conditions. God loves us even when we are unlovable. There is nothing we can do to make God love us any more or any less than he loves us right now, because his love for us is perfect. And as 1 John says, “Perfect love casts out fear.” (1 John 4:18)
The next key word in John 3:16 emphasizes the contra-conditional nature of God’s love for us. It is the word translated as world. In Greek, it is the word cosmos. In John’s theology, cosmos has a very specific meaning. Cosmos refers to the world system that is set against God. So what John is telling us is that God even loves people who are against him.
The fourth key word in John 3:16 is gave. Jesus tells us that God loved people who were against him so much that he gave his only begotten Son.
How did God give his Son? Well, we just came through celebrating Christmas not too long ago. And at the beginning of this year we read these words from John 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”
So, first of all, God gave his Son to be born as a human being. Think of all that God gave up by becoming human in Jesus of Nazareth. Paul quotes an early Christian hymn in Philippians 2. He says,
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.And being found in human form,
he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross.
So, God the Son gave up all the riches of heaven, he gave up the prerogatives of divinity, when he took on human flesh in Jesus of Nazareth.
But God did not stop there. He not only gave his Son to be born as a human being. He also gave his Son to die on a cross for us.
Now at this point I know that some people have an objection. They say, “That sounds like divine child abuse to me.” But think of it this way. God the Father was not punishing his Son on the cross. God himself took on human flesh. He took on all of our pain, all of our sin, all of our evil, all of our darkness, and he quenched it in his light through his death on the cross.
In his book, Miracles, C. S. Lewis puts it this way…
In the Christian story God descends to reascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time, and space, down into humanity; down further still, if embryologists are right, to recapitulate in the womb ancient and pre-human phases of life; down to the very roots and seabed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him. One has the picture of a strong man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some great complicated burden. He must stoop in order to lift, he must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying on his shoulders…Next we come to a very important phrase in John 3:16: only begotten Son. What does this mean?
Well, think of it this way. My fifth great grandfather was the colonial portrait painter, Charles Willson Peale. Among other things, Peale had fourteen sittings with George Washington. He created marvelous paintings, some more than life-size, of Washington. In doing that, Peale was of course exercising his powers as a great artist/creator.
Peale also begot, through two wives in succession, multiple children. He named all of his children after artists. And he trained each of his children to paint. Thus, some of his children became famous artists as well.
We can see the difference here between Peale’s artwork and the children he begot.
God is also a great artist. The Bible teaches us that God created the universe, and as part of that universe, he created human beings. We are his artwork.
But what Jesus is telling us, through John, is that God not only created human beings, God the Father also begot a Son. Theologians talk about God the Son being eternally begotten of the Father. There never was a time when God the Son did not exist. The same is true of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.
So, God created human beings in his image, human beings who are like him. But he also begot a Son who is uniquely divine. And at one point in time, two thousand years ago, that Son became a human being in Jesus of Nazareth. That is what John and Jesus are telling us.
The next key word in John 3:16 is: whosoever. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
The story is told of a blind man who was dying. When a friend came to visit him, the blind man asked his friend to get a Bible and open it to John 3:16. The friend did so. Then the blind man said, “Take my finger and place it on the word ‘whosoever’.” The friend did so and then the blind man said, “That word is big enough to include me.”
That is true. That word “whosoever” includes each one of us. If we believe in the Son, we don’t have to perish. But rather, we can have everlasting life.
What does it mean to believe in the Son?
Theologians through the ages have identified at least three important parts of belief. First there must be knowledge. One has to know who Jesus is before one can believe in him.
Second, there is assent, intellectual agreement, with the knowledge communicated.
But that kind of faith is not enough. The Bible says that even the demons have that kind of faith and tremble. Even the demons believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
There is a third essential element of belief, and that is trust. Jesus calls us to trust in him as a person.
There is an interesting little Greek preposition that is used after the word believes in John 3:16. It is the little word “eis” which means “into”. We are not merely called to believe “in” Jesus. We are called to believe “into” him.
Over the years I have often illustrated this principle by inviting someone in the audience I am addressing to come forward and do something we have all probably seen or maybe even done: a trust fall. That is where I ask the person to turn around, close their eyes, and fall into my outstretched arms. I have only ever had one person do that who completely trusted me to catch him and he fell into my arms with total abandon. Most of us can’t do it, at least not at first. We have a little reflex that causes us to catch ourselves when we try to do a trust fall.
Jesus wants us to believe into him. He wants us to do the trust fall and trust him to catch us. Scripture says that underneath us are the everlasting arms. Jesus wants us to put our lives into his hands.
But what does Jesus mean when he says that those who believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life? Everyone dies, don’t they?
Yes, it is the way of the world. Everyone dies. Even Jesus died.
But John talks about two kinds of death: physical and spiritual. What Jesus is telling us is that when we trust into him, we will never have to experience spiritual death, what John elsewhere calls the second death. (Revelation 20:14)
And what is everlasting life? Well, there are two Greek words for life. One is “Bios” and that word refers to physical, biological life. The other Greek word for life is “Zoe” and that refers to spiritual life. The word for life that Jesus uses in John 3:16 is “Zoe”. And the word translated “everlasting” or “eternal” is “aionion” in Greek. It refers to the life of the ages. So, what I believe Jesus is telling us is that he wants to give us a whole new quality of life that can begin now, and never end. Later on, in John 10:10, Jesus says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” That is the life that Jesus promises to us. And all we have to do to receive it, is to trust into him.
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