Chapter # 3 Paragraph # 1 Study # 9
September 24, 2023
Broadlands, Louisiana
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Thesis: The gift of God's love was "His Only Begotten Son".
Introduction: As we began to consider
John 3:16 last week, we noted that the
first thing we need to understand about "Love" is its
complexity. According to
John 3:35, The Father loves The Son. In
John 3:16 the Father "loved" the world and gave up His Son to be The Lamb of The God (
John 1:29) Whose death as that "Lamb" was to be sufficiently horrific as to be able to satisfy the Justice of God so that, consequently, God could give eternal life to sinners who deserved eternal death. It is this complexity that has caused many to bring their theology into
John 3:16 and corrupt its meaning by forcing the definition of "the world" to mean "the world of God's elect", a concept not found in this context and not even near this context. This is called "eisegesis" by the theologians and means that God's Word is being twisted to fit man's "philosophical theology" so that God is not allowed to express His own meaning to enter into the minds of men. This is a great problem -- when God is not allowed to express His own meaning -- and it is rooted in the problem of the complexity of "Love".
But, last week we saw that God's demand that His people "love their enemies" as an expression of His own love for His enemies is fully satisfied by the claim of Jesus that God "loved the world". If Jesus did not die for "the world of humanity", God's "love for His enemies" is a sham, and we are off the hook to "love our enemies". But to go there is to twist the reality of God's attributes so that we pursue a delusion as we seek to worship "God".
This morning we are going to look into the nature of God's "love for the world of His enemies", which world we once inhabited as eager participants.
- I. The Love Of God For The World.
- A. The complexity of "Love".
- B. The objects of God's "Love" in this context.
- 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 did 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").
- E. The measure of God's Love: He gave the only begotten Son.
- 1. The "Son" that was given.
- a. John's first reference to Jesus as "The Son of The God" is 1:34 where he wrote that John, the Witness, told of his experience when he saw "the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him" and was told "This is the One Who baptizes with the Holy Spirit" and Witness-John's conclusion was "This is The Son of The God".
- b. John's next reference to Jesus is 1:49 where he wrote that Nathanael's response to Jesus as One seeing him under his fig tree was "Rabbi, You are The Son of The God, You are The King of The Israel".
- c. In 1:51 Jesus' response to Nathanael was, "...you will see the heavens opened and The Angels of The God ascending and descending upon The Son of The Man". This link between The Son of The God and The Son of The Man is declared here at the earliest point in the ministry of The Word of The God (1:1).
- d. In Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus in 3:13-18, this Son of The Man (He Who has descended from heaven and ascended) is identified as God's Son with the conclusion that He will save all who "believe into the name of the only begotten Son of The God".
- e. Thus we have been told from 1:34 to 3:36 that Jesus of Nazareth is both The Son of The Man and The Son of The God, and He, as the Sons of both man and God, is the object of the faith that saves.
- f. John 10:33 and 19:7 both tell us that this was the sticking point of His words for which the Jews sought to kill Him (though that was just the excuse for the rage in their souls toward Him in their jealousy regarding His massive popularity (11:47-48)).
- 2. The problem of the recent translations that read, "...the one and only Son...", is that they only focus upon "only" and totally ignore the "begotten" aspect of 'monogenes' ('mono' being "the one and only").
- 3. The issue of "monogenes".
- a. Everywhere in the New Testament that "monogenes" is used there is a powerful sense of loss because of the extremely high value that was placed upon him/her.
- 1) This extreme value is rooted, first, in the fact that he/she is the only child the person who loves this child has/had (this is the meaning of "mono").
- 2) This extreme value is rooted, second, in the fact that this only child is highly valued because he/she was conceived by the actions of the person who so deeply loves him/her (this is the meaning of "genes".
- b. "Genes", according to Strong's number G3439, is derived from G1085, which, in turn, is derived from G1096 (ginomai), a verb used extensively by John (in 41 texts) that means "to come into being".
- c. The precise use that John had in mind when he used "monogenes" is, apparently, the concept of 1:14: "...and the Word became (came into being as) flesh...".
- 1) This is the precise link because it addresses how The Word came to dwell among us; He became flesh.
- 2) This "becoming flesh" is a direct reference to the birth narrative of Luke 1:35 ("The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called Son of God).
- 3) Additionally, in a contrast to the birth of flesh, Acts 13:33, quoting Psalm 2:7, declares that the resurrection of Jesus was the point of reference for "...You are My Son, this day have I begotten You...".
- 4) In reference to Jesus, the physical begetting in Mary and the resurrection from the dead are events of "monogenes": He is the Only man born of woman who was physically "Son of God" and, to this date, He is the Only physical man resurrected from the dead as "My Son, today begotten".
- c. John's uses.
- 1) In 1:14 it was The Word's "becoming flesh" that made the glory of "the only begotten from the Father" manifest for our "seeing", with a special focus upon "Grace".
- 2) In 1:18 it is "Only Begotten God" Who is "in the bosom of the Father" Who has "explained" God because no other man has seen God at any time. The textual difference in regard to the Textus Receptus is that some scribe wrote "begotten Son" (the editors of the Textual Commentary of the Greek New Testament give "Begotten God" a "B" rating, indicating a significant level of confidence in the reading).
- 3) In 3:16 it is "The Son, The Only Begotten" Whom the Father "gave" as the outworking of His "Love".
- 4) In 3:18 (the last of John's references in this Gospel record) we are told that "the one believing into Him is not being judged" but "the one not believing has been judged already because he has not believed into the name of the only begotten Son of The God".
- 5) And, finally, there is one use in 1 John 4:9 which is almost an exact summary of John 1:14 and 3:16.
- d. Uses in the rest of the New Testament all focus upon an "only [legitimate; Ishmael was illegitimate which Genesis 22:2 acknowledges] child" (Hebrews 11:17). Ishmael was banned from the household in Genesis 21 and God identified Isaac as Abraham's "only son whom you love" in Genesis 22:2.
- 4. Thus, the measure of God's "Love for the world of His enemies" was that He gave "His twice-begotten Son" as the Lamb Who lifts the sins of that world so that those who believe into Him might have eternal life.
