Chapter # 3 Paragraph # 1 Study # 8
September 17, 2023
Broadlands, Louisiana
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Thesis: God's motivation for providing a solution to man's "sin-unto-death" dilemma is His "Love", a complex reality.
Introduction: In our study last week we focused our attention upon the difference between the Israelites' "look" at the brass serpent on a pole in the midst of the camp, and the "look" unto Jesus that brings the ultimate solution to man's "death because of sin". The Israelites had only to turn their physical eyes to the serpent to receive physical healing from the bite of the venomous serpents; but the provision by God of Jesus as One "lifted up" in a similitude to the serpent being "lifted up" has a critical requirement not imposed upon the Israelites: this requirement, according to
Romans 10:9-10, is that of a "heart-faith" (as opposed to any lesser kind of "belief"). John calls this "heart-faith" "believing
into Jesus" or "believing
into His name".
Now, this morning I want to move on into John 3:16. This verse begins with "For", which means that it is going to be some kind of explanation of something that is involved in God's grant of "eternal life" through Jesus, His Lamb, Who takes up the sin of the world. As we look at the verse, we see that the explanation is of the motivation of God for providing a solution to the Death that Sin brings upon men.
Before we move into the verse itself, though, I want to make note of the "problem" of the "theological constructs of men" that are often used like a six ton elephant that is guided into stepping on some disagreeable varmint. Picture, if you will, a "theologian" bringing his six ton theological construct with him everywhere he goes in the Bible and using it to stamp out any and all bible verses that do not agree with his construct. I read one such, so-called, theologian who flatly denied that God "loved the world" because the Bible says "God hates the wicked". So, instead of allowing the verse to have its place in the infinite wisdom of God, this "theologian" misinterpreted the word "world" as "the world of God's elect" -- with no more justification than the imposition of his "philosophical theories" about God's "Love" and how it does not apply to unsaved people.
The net result of this kind of six ton theology being used to pervert the words of God is that people are led into such a twisting of the Truth that they develop a false concept of God Himself and, consequently, suffer from the perverted concept that such twisting creates. It is easy enough to resist this kind of twisting: Matthew 5:43-48 totally denies the perverse denial of men who value their theology more than the words of God. He cannot require of us more than He does of Himself.
Now, having gotten that off my chest, let's look into Jesus' declaration that God's motivation for providing a solution to man's "Death" because of "Sin".
- I. The Love Of God For The World.
- A. The complexity of "Love".
- 1. Is partly because of the "objects" of "Love".
- a. When "Love" is only considering the relationship between the one doing the "loving" and the one being loved, the one doing the loving will sacrifice whatever is needful for the one being loved.
- 1) This is not "willy nilly"; it does not mean that the "beloved" will always get his/her way.
- 2) It is deliberate to the extreme; it takes the real needs (those that affect the future as it is to be forever) and does whatever it takes to pursue everlasting benefit.
- 3) Some of those real needs are going to require very painful experiences and some will be pleasant almost beyond expressing.
- b. But, when "Love is considering the relationships between the one doing the loving and multiple objects of the love, things get complicated.
- 1. The "loving" gets complicated because the "setting" requires the one doing the loving to decide which of the multiple objects is to be "loved" the most.
- 2. As soon as the one doing the "loving" settles which of the objects is going to be the recipient of the "love", the other objects become "hated" -- i.e., moved to the condition of being denied the benefits of the "love".
- 2. Is partly because what would be the object of "love" in one setting becomes the object of "rejection" in another.
- 3. Is only partly recognized by men though they participate in this reality all day every day; the ignorance of man is very great.
- 4. This is the setting of John 3:16 -- God having to choose which of the objects of "Love" He will love.
- B. The objects of God's "Love" in this context.
- 1. The "problem" is when "objects" are mutually exclusive: the only begotten Son or the "world".
- a. One of these "objects" is going to be subject to the wrath of God in respect to "Sin".
- b. The other of these "objects" is going to have a provision made for them to escape the experience of the "wrath of God".
- 2. The "problem" is exacerbated by man's distortion of the meaning of the words, "the world".
- a. What was Jesus'/John's meaning for "the world"?
- 1) There are 57 texts in this Gospel which contain this word, and 17 more in 1 John.
- 2) By way of contrast, Matthew has 9 such texts, Mark has 3, and Luke has 3, Acts has 1; 1 Corinthians is 16 chapters long and has 17 such texts, but 1 John is 5 chapters long and also has 17.
- 3) There is no dispute that John was far more concerned with his readers' understanding of "the world" than any of the rest.
- 4) So, what does John use the word "world" to say?
- a) He says, in 1:9, that every man that makes up "the world" is enlightened by the True Light.
- i. This is John's first use and he clearly made "the world" to mean "every man".
- ii. There is no distinction between men in this text; every man is enlightened.
- b) He says, in 1:10, that "The Word" was "in the world" and "the world" was made by Him, and "the world" did not know Him.
- i. This is a statement that does have a distinction between "the enlightened" in it for 1:11-12 declares that, though the great majority did not "know" Him, some "received Him" -- indicating that the "enlightenment" that all are given produced "some" who "received Him".
- ii. There is nothing in these early texts that tell us anything about why, or how, the enlightenment did some good to some men; they simply tell us that it did.
- c) He says, in 1:29, that Jesus is "the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world" (and 4:42 says that Jesus is "The Savior Of The World", as does 1 John 4:14).
- i. The word translated "takes away" means "to pick up" so that the burden is upon the One Who "picked it up".
- ii. John used this word in 23 texts and the majority of them contain the idea of "picking up an item that was to be carried by the one picking it up".
- iii. This identification of Jesus as The Lamb that took up the burden of the sins of the world does not automatically mean that the burden of those sins was effectively borne unto the benefit of those upon whom they originally rested.
- i) That Jesus "picked up this burden" means an enormously significant action took place.
- ii) But it does not mean that the burden had no further effect upon those upon whom they rested because the effectiveness is not realized without the requirement that rests upon those who committed them: "faith" in the One Who took them up; the Scriptures teach two required elements for salvation to result: an "objective" action by God and a "subjective" response by men so that what God did does not bring its benefit to any who reject the required "faith into Him".
- iii) Salvation is not granted to those whose burden was taken up by Jesus; it is granted to those who respond to His action with "faith into that action".
- iv) John already laid the foundation for this distinction to be made when he said that "His own received Him not" but that "those who did receive Him" were granted the privilege to become the children of God.
- d) The very next use of the word "world" is found in 3:16 where we are pointedly told that only those who "believe into Him" (i.e., into His work as The Lamb) are granted the gift of eternal life.
- b. When men try to make "the world", only a part of the "world", they confuse the issue altogether because the distinction between the "established parts" is not whether all are of "the world", but whether those who are of this world "believe into Him" (in fact, once one "believes into Him", he/she ceases to be "of the world").
- c. If, however, "the world" is "the world of humanity" (but that world does have two parts), there immediately becomes the necessity of "receiving one part of 'the world'" and "rejecting the other part of 'the world'".
- C. Thus, the "complexity" of God's "Love" is revealed to be an issue of God's "love" for those who believe into Him, and His consequent "hate" for those who do damage to those who believe because they do not also "believe".
- D. Therefore, we see that Jesus was telling Nicodemus that God's "motivation" for providing for men in a manner like He acted when He gave the Israelites a "serpent of brass" as a provision for their need: it was His "love" wherein He sacrificed His Son, but refuses to sacrifice His children to the same degree (He often does "sacrifice" His children's physical issues for the sake of the wicked, but He will never sacrifice their "Life").
