There we go. With this cold weather,
Bonnie and I are the only ones here. And I don't think I started
the recording, so check that. All right. If you'll open your
Bibles to the book of John, chapter 3. John, chapter 3. Our Heavenly Father, bless our
gathering here, our gathering here at the building,
and Lord, most are tuning in via the live stream due to the
bitter cold, but you are able to bind us together. You are
able to make us one, even though we are spread apart. enable me
to preach, enable me to declare the unsearchable riches of Christ
so that those who are listening will be enlightened to the truth,
but more than this, Lord, that their hearts would be enlarged
with the truth and encouraged by the message of your grace.
And we pray this in the name of Christ. Amen. Now the first
21 verses of the book of John provide us with some rich doctrinal
truth. It's a unique situation in the
scriptures in as much as it is an account of some one-on-one
instruction that the Lord Jesus gave to a man who is of the ruling
council of the Jews, the Sanhedrin, and he was of the sect of the
Jews known as the Pharisees. Beginning with verse one, let's
read, now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus,
a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at
night and said, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has
come from God, for no one could perform the miraculous signs
you are doing if God were not with him. Now, Nicodemus gives
evidence here that while he came alone, He came because there
were others within the group that he was associated with who
had questions regarding the Lord Jesus Christ. And we know this
because he doesn't say, I know that you are a teacher who has
come from God. He says, we know, we know. Now, when you consider that the
Pharisees and the Sanhedrin, for the most part, rejected Christ,
did not receive him. What a horrible condemnation
this was on them because they said, we know that you are a
teacher sent from God. In reply, Jesus declared, I tell
you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he
is born again. Now, the Lord, as is common in
any time he has an interaction with individuals, people who
are confronting him with questions, he gives an answer that does
not seem to fit with the question that was asked. In fact, all
that Nicodemus had said was, he acknowledged that the Lord
Jesus was a teacher sent from God. However, the Lord introduces
something to Nicodemus that Nicodemus did not understand. In fact,
no one understands it. unless it is taught to them by
God. And it's the very simple truth
that it requires a spiritual work, a spiritual work inside
of a person before he is able to perceive the truth of the
kingdom of God. Until that happens, It doesn't
matter who his teacher is, even if it's a teacher sent from God,
like the Lord Jesus Christ. He will not be able to perceive
the kingdom of God. Now, in all translations, it simply uses
the word see, and in the Greek, it is the word see, but in all
languages, see is used in the sense to perceive. We know that the kingdom of God
cannot be seen. It cannot be seen in the natural
sense with these eyes. Our Lord says, the kingdom of
God does not come with your observation. It's a spiritual kingdom. It
certainly cannot be seen with the natural eye. It can only
be perceived spiritually. Well, Nicodemus proved the Lord's
point, for he says, how can a man be born when he is old? Nicodemus
asked. Surely he cannot enter a second
time into his mother's womb to be born. Now, this is evidence
of a person who's trying to perceive the things of the kingdom of
God with a natural understanding. Our Lord used language that those
who have been born again, they understand what He means. Nobody
else does. Jesus answered them and said,
I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God
unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth
to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to Spirit. So you cannot
perceive the kingdom of God unless you are born again, and you cannot
enter the kingdom of God unless you are born of water and the
Spirit. Now you can be turning over to
Titus chapter 3. Titus chapter 3. People have stumbled over what
is meant by this being born of water and the Spirit. Many commentators claim that
being born of water is a reference to water baptism. And then there
is the additional birth of the Spirit. But if you look at Titus
chapter 3 and then verse 5, we read this. He, that is God, 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 Lord. Now, baptism
and washing were often considered the same thing. After all, wash
your bodies by getting in a bathtub or something like that. Water
is the normal method of washing. So here in John chapter 3, it
speaks about being born of water and of spirit, and then over
here it speaks of being washed by the spirit. Now, this washing
of the spirit Titus chapter 3 verse 5. He said he washed us through
or he saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the
Holy Spirit. Now that's not two different
things. It's not there's the washing of rebirth and then renewal
by the Spirit. Rather there is the washing of
of the Spirit and this washing of the Spirit is revealed or
experienced in renewal and rebirth. That's the meaning here. We are
born again by this washing of the Spirit. We are renewed That
which is born again is new. We are renewed by the Holy Spirit
of God through this work of His, which is called washing. And
our Lord was referring to the same sort of thing when He said,
unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, of this washing
by the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. He goes on to say, flesh gives
birth to flesh, but spirit gives birth to spirit. Now this renewal,
this regeneration, this being born again, all accomplished
by the Spirit of God, it is not something that can be done by
any natural means whatsoever. I teach, I do what I can to convey
truth to those who listen. But I am not able to accomplish
this thing called the new birth. Only the Spirit of God can do
that. Flesh, my efforts here, those things that arise from
my own natural abilities, the only thing they can accomplish
is fleshly results. And you know, that happens. even
faithful ministers of the gospel, they go out and preach, and when
they're preaching, the Spirit of God may be upon them, but
their brain is thinking, that's part of the flesh, their mouth
is speaking, their lungs are working, all of this is involved
in the flesh, and anyone who's listening, and that's all they
hear is what the preacher himself is saying. then it will not bring
about a spiritual result. Now, what is spiritual? What is something spiritual that
can bring about a spiritual result? Our Lord said, the flesh profits
nothing, but the word that I speak to you, they are spirit. When the Lord is pleased to speak,
And this is normally through the agency of some man preaching,
but the Lord is pleased to speak. Then spiritual things happen. In verse 7, the Lord goes on
to say, You should not be surprised at my saying, You must be born
again. The wind blows where it pleases.
You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from. or
where it is going. So it is with everyone born of
the Spirit. So now the Lord goes on to tell
us that a spiritual work is required and that this spiritual work
is a sovereign work of the Spirit. Just as the wind goes where it
wants to, you don't know where it's coming from. I realize in
our day, with the satellites up there and outer space and
various measuring tools, they can you know, detect wind coming
from a certain direction. But at the time our Lord wrote
this, all that people knew about the wind was they were standing
there and suddenly there's the wind. And they wouldn't be able
to predict where it came from. And they didn't know where it
would be going. All they knew is that the wind
was there. Now, So it is with those who are born of the Spirit
of God. We do not know when the Spirit
will work at any given time, when He will perform this work
of the new birth. We go out and we preach, and
yet the result of it is entirely in the hand of God. Well, Nicodemus goes on to say
in verse 9, how can this be? And the Lord says, you are Israel's
teacher, said Jesus, and you do not understand these things.
I tell you the truth. We speak of what we know and
we testify to what we have seen. But still you people do not accept
our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly
things and you do not believe. He said, I spoke to you in terms
of being born again. People knew what it was to be
born. And so he was using a human earthly likeness. He spoke to
them of the wind blowing. Using that as an illustration
of the working of the spirit. And yet they did not believe. So he says, how then will you
believe if I speak of heavenly things? If I tell you directly
of what is required for the salvation of sinners, how are you going
to understand it when you cannot even understand it when I illustrate
it to you in earthly things? Now the Lord Jesus goes on to
say, no one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came
from heaven, and of course that was himself, the Son of Man.
Now our Lord steps away from this teaching on the mysteries
of the kingdom of God, and he begins to declare the gospel. The gospel concerning himself. He says, just as Moses, this
is verse 14, just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so
the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes
in him may have eternal life. Now, Nicodemus would have been
entirely familiar with the story how that the people grumbled
against God, so he sent fiery serpents among them. And when
the serpents, when the snakes bit them, people were dying.
So the people cried out to Moses, and Moses went to God, and God
said, make the likeness of a serpent in brass, put it on a pole, and
put it up there where the people can see. And whoever is able
to see, whoever looks, I shouldn't even say whoever is able to see,
whoever looks will live. So our Lord took that story from
the history of Israel and he applied it to himself. He says,
even so, the son of man must be lifted up. Now, our Lord is
not saying that the son of man must be lifted up in praise. Rather, he is implying what is
going to happen to him. Later in the book of John, he
makes the same sort of comment about being lifted up, and John
says, he said this to show what sort of death he would die. So
just as that snake was put on that pole and lifted up, so must
our Lord be lifted up on the cross of Calvary, be crucified,
and there suffer within himself the judgment, the curse of God. And to what end does he do this? Does he do this because he's
a martyr, because he didn't know when to keep his mouth shut,
and he got the religious people, the religious leaders of the
day, got them all upset, and they responded? Well, that may
be what motivated them to do it, but that's not what was to
be accomplished By our Lord's being lifted up, it's very simply
this, verse 15, that everyone who believes in Him may have
eternal life. And then we come to what is likely
the most well-known but least understood verse of Scripture
in the Bible. Verse 16, John 3, 16. For God
so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, or only
begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but
have eternal life. Now, most people read this text
of Scripture, and this is how they see it. For God loved everyone
in the world so much that he gave his only begotten son, so
that if anybody believes in him, he will not perish, but have
eternal life. But that's not what the scripture
teaches. You see, the way men take this
scripture, nothing is certain. It speaks
of possibilities. The way most people understand
this scripture, it talks about the possibility of people being
saved. But this scripture is not talking
about what could happen. It's not talking about what God's
love tried to accomplish, or what God's love made possible,
or what Christ's death tried to do or hoped to accomplish. This verse is full of the certainties
that accompany any work of God. There is nothing in this verse
that hints at mere possibilities. Nothing in here, in this verse,
hints that anyone whom God loves shall in the end be lost. There is nothing in this verse
to hint that any for whom Christ was given shall
indeed fail to obtain the eternal life that was to come by our
Lord's death. Part of the reason for this,
part of the reason that people believe as they do about this
verse and act as though the love of God and the work of Christ
are somehow dependent upon the free will faith of a person in
order to make that love and that work to be effective unto salvation,
the reason they believe that is because they do not understand
the meaning of the words involved, and also because the translations
have kind of opened it up to that. For example, it says, We're
using the New International of 1984, for God so loved the world
that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes. But that's really not the way
it's worded in the Greek language. Rather, it simply says that for
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that
the ones believing, would not perish, but have everlasting
life. In other words, it's not like
a mathematical equation where there are variables in which
they just insert a letter like X or Y or something, because
we don't know who it is is going to believe. Now we do know this, and other
scriptures would teach it. We do know, and we can say, that
whoever believes the gospel will not perish, but will have eternal
life. But that is not the sense in
which it's being declared here. There are several other words
in this verse of scripture that are misunderstood and misapplied. The first one we come to is the
word so. Now, in the religion in which
I was raised, in the Bible school I went to, Most often you'd hear
a preacher say, oh, God loved the world so much, he gave his
only son. But that's not what the word
means. In fact, in the Greek language,
the word translated so is the very first word in the verse. And it means in this way, in
this way, We could put it like this, here is how God loved the
world. This is the way God loved the
world. You see, the love of God is not
just some sentimental, emotional feeling towards people. Love as expressed by God, love
as it is used in the preaching of the gospel, is less about
feelings, less about emotions, it's about what someone does. When it says we must love our
neighbor, it doesn't mean that we're supposed to have a great
deal of affection as though we like them. To love your neighbor
means to treat them in a certain way. And when it speaks of God
loving people, it's talking about what He does for them. People
stumble over the passage in Romans where it is written, Jacob have
I loved, Esau have I hated. That's a quote from the book,
I believe it's the Old Testament prophet Micah. And there it says, Jacob have
I loved, Esau have I hated. And he illustrates that truth
by saying, I gave Jacob the land of promise and I sent Esau out
to the barren heights. So the love of God for Jacob
and the hatred of God for Esau was not about, you know, the
way we might think of our love for someone or hate for others.
It was all tied up in what he did. So it's perfectly legitimate
that this verse begin with this word translated so. For it means
here is how God loved the world. It means God did something. It doesn't mean God felt something. It doesn't mean God tried something. He actually did something. So here is how God loved the
world. Now we need to look at that word
loved, not so much in the meaning of it, we've already covered
that, but the word loved there is in a tense that the Greek
language has that we don't have. Notice here it does not say,
God loves the world. Now people look at this verse
and they'll say, God loved the world. And then they'll look
at the crowd and say, you see, God loves you. This verse does
not say God loves the world. I'm not saying that he doesn't
presently love the world. I'm just saying this text of
scripture does not say that. Nor does it say, as our simple past tense, the word
loved might imply, That a long time ago, God loved the world,
but he finally got fed up and quit. This is in what is called
the Greek aorist tense. And like I said, we don't have
this tense in the English language, but that which characterizes
the aorist tense is that it is speaking of a singular action
at a particular point in time. If we were to try to illustrate
this, a man, let's say, is in a car
accident. He's been thrown from his car,
and he's broke up bad, and he's unconscious. So the rescuers
come, and they look him over, and they put the splints and
stuff on that's necessary to hold him in position. And then
they put him on that stretcher and they put him in the ambulance
and take him to the hospital. Now here is a singular event. And even though the people involved
may not even know who the man is, they've never met him before,
it may be they'll never meet him again, what they did was
a singular act of love at a particular time. It says nothing about how they
feel about Him, but that was an act of love because they did
for Him what needed to be done for Him. They extended themselves,
they put effort into it. If they're, like in our little
town here, it's all volunteer, that means they were at home
maybe watching their favorite TV show or in the middle of dinner
and the alarm went off, but they set aside all the things that
they were normally doing, that they were enjoying doing, and
they went out to where that man was and they took care of him. And so it could be said of anyone
involved in the rescue of that man, Those people loved that
man. And they loved him in that aorist
sense. Here's a singular event. Here's
how they loved him. They went to him. They did for
him what needed to be done at their own expense. So when it says God loved the
world, it's not talking about any kind of long-term feeling
or action, it's talking about a single event, something that
God did. And what he did, we might say
it was motivated by love, But that's not the way the verse
is talking about it. It's saying what he did is the
love. Do you see that? That illustration I used there
of the rescue team. Now, I'm not saying God's like
this. I'm just trying to point out that the action is the love. It could be that they were in
the middle of a fine meal. Maybe it was Thanksgiving Day. And they're sitting there with
their family. They enjoy what they're doing. And then the alarm
goes off. It could be that some rather
uncharitable thoughts went through their mind. Could be the guy
was sitting there and he was just about to dive into some
wonderful pumpkin pie and that alarm went off. I'll put this
in the fridge, I'll eat it when I get back. And he knows it's
not going to be as good when he gets back as it was fresh
coming out of the oven like that. But he puts that aside. And he
may be thinking to himself, I imagine whoever I've got to go rescue
probably had too much to drink maybe. And that's why he's in
an accident. Got himself into trouble. But you know what? He
goes anyway. And so even if there wasn't any
of that what we might call love in the
emotional or sentimental sense. The act of leaving his table
and going to where the man was and doing for the man what needed
to be done, that is the love. And when it says of God, In this
way, God loved the world. It's pointing to something that
God did. And then we come to another word
that people stumble over, the word world. Now people take that to mean
everyone in the world. But the Greek word translated
world, it's the word cosmos. actually does not mean world
as in the earth. It can be used to describe that. It could even be used to describe
or indicate the people of the world. But the essential meaning
of this word is an order or an arrangement. Now I said the Greek
word is cosmos. And we often hear outer space
or the whole universe referred to as the cosmos. Why? Because there is an arrangement
to it, an order to it. We may reduce that sense to mean
just our solar system. We could use the word world to
describe the order and arrangement of the planet on which we live.
We could also talk about the world of humanity. We even do this in English, in
our English language. We might say something like,
well, the world of baseball. Now, when we say the world of
baseball, we're not necessarily even talking about the people
involved with it. We're talking about the concept
of baseball and how it's worked out in this world. When it says
God loved the world, what does it mean? Well, God created the world,
didn't he? And he loved the world he created. But that doesn't mean he loves
everything that's in the world. In fact, let me illustrate it
this way, and how this word world is, I believe, is used right
here. In the days of Noah, man was
destroying God's world. And I don't mean just in the
environmental sense. Maybe there had been some of
that going on, I don't know. But there was wars, there was
violence. That was not the world that God
set up. God set up a world of peace.
God set up a world of blessing. God set up a world of paradise,
and man turned it into what we might call a hell on earth. But God did something, and what
he did was a singular action of love for this world. And what's that? He destroyed everyone that was
ruining the world. And yet he also showed by a singular
act of love, he showed a special regard for Noah and his family. And he preserved Noah and his
family in that ark, along with two of every kind of animal. And in having that ark built, and protecting
the ark throughout the flood, and in putting Noah and his family
in that ark, and two of every kind of animal in that ark, by
that action, God loved the world and God saved the world. He didn't love everybody in it,
he didn't save everybody in it, but he saved the world by saving
Noah. He loved the world by this act
of love toward Noah and his family. God loved the world like this. This world of rebellious humans,
this world that we, in our disobedience and rebellion, are destroying.
He saved it. Oh, excuse me, he loved it. And
he loved it by sending his one and only son. Now this tells us something right
off. The world could not be saved
apart from the Son being sent. God could have a great deal of
affection for the world. God could have had a sentimental
love for the world. But that would have accomplished
nothing. It was an act of love that brought
about the salvation of God's world. And this act of love was
the one-time giving of his only begotten Son. Now we won't go into all that that giving
means. But we know that he gave the
son, and in giving the son, the son did the work that his father
sent him to do, which was to bring in an everlasting righteousness,
according to the prophet Daniel. to die in the place of God's
people. And then having died that death,
a death under the wrath of God on the cross, God raised him
from the dead, seated him at his right hand. Now what did
that accomplish? And here's something else about
this verse that people get wrong, because people will say this,
well, you see, God, right here, He loved everybody in the world
so much, so He gave His one and only Son
so that if someone believes in Him, they won't perish. Now, you know what that implies?
It implies that the love of God can find fulfillment only if
a person believes. And the giving of Christ will
accomplish something only if a man believes. In other words,
the way most people look at this scripture, it's the will of man
expressed in his so-called free will faith that makes the love
of God and the giving of Christ to be effective. That is completely
backward from the way God does things, and it's backward from
what's being said here. Notice how it's worded. God so
loved the world, or God loved the world in this way, He gave
His one and only Son, so that the ones believing in Him would
not perish, but have everlasting life. Now, what's the right way
to draw a conclusion from this? If God had not done this singular
act of love in the giving of His Son, people who believed
in Him would have perished anyway. You see, it's not faith that
gives saving power to the love of God and the sacrifice of Christ. It's the love of God in sending
His Son to be a sacrifice that gives power to faith. Faith accomplishes
nothing by itself. The devils believe, but they're
still lost. Why? Christ never died for them. God didn't love them. God did
nothing for them. Had God done nothing, then the
entire world would have perished, would have been destroyed. But
God loved the world, didn't want it destroyed. So what did he
do? He sent his son. And there were those in the world
whom he had chosen, and his spirit gave them faith. But that faith
would have accomplished nothing if God had not committed this
act of love in giving his son. And that made faith to be a useful
and powerful thing. You see, faith cannot of itself
justify. Faith is not a substitute for
righteousness. Faith simply lays hold of God's
promises of righteousness in Jesus Christ. In truth, this
scripture does not really address the point of who in this world
does God love. Because the sense of the word
world here is not the individuals in it. It's just the world as
a system. The world as his creation. And he loved this world he made, and seeing
its ruin and destruction, he loved it by sending his son. And therefore those who are in
this world who believe him will not perish with the rest of the
world. they will have everlasting life. Verse 17, God did not send his
son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world
through him. If he had sent the son to condemn
the world, the world would no longer exist. But Jesus Christ
saved the world by dying for a chosen people, and in saving
them from destruction, just as God saved Noah from destruction
in the days of the flood, Christ saving from destruction His people,
that saved the world. Whoever believes in Him is not
condemned. Paul said, if any man Or, there's
therefore now no condemnation to them who are in Christ. Why? They've been saved. They have been removed from the
world of condemnation and brought into a world of justification. It says, whoever does not believe
him stands condemned already, because he has not believed in
the name of God's one and only Son. Now to disbelieve God is
to make Him out to be a liar, and that in itself is sin enough
to condemn us. But when it says that we are
condemned because we have not believed, it's not so much that
unbelief brings us into condemnation, unbelief leaves us in condemnation. So as we look at the Scripture
before us, of God in his singular act of love to this world in
which you and I exist. The question is not, does he
love everyone in the world? We know that he does not. He
said, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. We are not talking about any
kind of ongoing attitude of God towards individuals. We are speaking of a single individual
act of God by which he loved the world and made the faith
of his elect to be powerful to the salvation of their souls. And the only thing you and I
have to consider is this. Am I among them that believe? And if I am not, why not? If all who believe do not perish,
but have everlasting life, is that not the group you want to
be a part of? And the promise of God, he that
believes, shall not be judged, condemned. That promise goes
out, and it goes out without any restrictions. We know that
only God's elect will believe, but the promise doesn't go out
to the elect as such. It simply says, everyone who
calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. So we don't have
to concern ourselves with some of these questions. We only need
to know this, God's love for our messed up world is revealed
or it actually is his giving of the son. and all who believe
in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life. Heavenly
Father, bless us as only you can bless us. Make this word
powerful in the hearts of those who have