Turn in your Bibles to John chapter
3. This will be our last sermon
on John chapter 3. I want to finish up to the 21st
verse today. This has been kind of a long
study for me. I began studying it several weeks. before we began looking at it
together on Sunday, and I certainly haven't covered everything. I
should probably say more about verse 5, the water and the spirit,
but I won't have time to get into that thoroughly today. I do want to cover from verse
17 through 21. because this all ties together
and we should always read the scripture that way, that it isn't
just a bunch of disconnected statements of truth, but it's
a sequence. that carries with it a context,
a historical context, the people that were listening, and it's
a message to us. And that message, of course,
is what we're really interested in. What is God really saying
to us? Because whatever God says is all-glorious. Can you imagine
that God would condescend to speak to men and to speak to
us in a written form? and then to apply it to us by
His Spirit. That's grace, amazing grace. Before we begin, let's
pray. Our gracious Father, we pray
that you would speak to us through your Son. We know that in these
last days you have spoken to us in your Son. And we know,
Lord, that we can only live if we hear from Him, if we hear
of Him and believe Him. So we pray for this grace, Grant,
today that you would send your Spirit and cause us to believe
Him. not only to live now, but to continue to believe and to
continue to draw life from Him, and to know the Lord, truly know
the Lord, and fellowship with Him in the communion that we
have in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray You would
disclose Yourself to us in the clarity of Your Word by Your
Spirit. Teach us in our heart and cause
us, Lord, knit our hearts together with You. in the fellowship of
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. In his name we pray,
Amen. John chapter 3, I want to start
with verse 16 and read through verse 21. 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. That in
and of itself is truth that we can't really plumb the depths
of, can we? That God loved the world, gave
His only begotten Son, and whoever believes in Him, not whoever
is sinless in themselves, who does what God requires, but looks
to Christ, they have everlasting life. Verse 17, For God sent
not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the
world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not
condemned, but he that believeth not is condemned already, because
he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son. So
there in that verse, that one verse, verse 18, you see that
there are those who are not condemned and that there are those who
are condemned. And this is the condemnation,
that light is come into the world, and men love darkness rather
than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that
doeth evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his
deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh
to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they
are wrought in God. So that's the scripture I want
to look at with you today. God, it says in verse 17, these
are the words of the Lord Jesus himself, the Son of God. When Jesus spoke, he didn't say,
thus saith the Lord. He said, verily, verily, I say
unto you, because he is the Lord. And so, when we read these verses
of scripture, it carries with it not only the full authority
of God, because it's scripture, but also knowing that it was
spoken by the Lord Himself in the body of the Son of Man. But also, it's a comforting thing
to us. It's extremely comforting to
know that the one who is God and man, our mediator, speaks
these words to us for our salvation, to direct us to the truth, to
believe Him, and in so believing, to have everlasting life. So
in verse 17, it teaches that Jesus didn't come into the world
to condemn the world. Not on His first coming. There
was a first coming of Christ into the world. He came as one
who was born because he wasn't always a man in heaven. He wasn't
a man until he was born as a man. He took on a body. His father
prepared for him in order to sacrifice his body with our sins
and to save us from our sins by his own blood. So there was
a time when he came into the world. And he came into the world
with that purpose of saving his people when he first came. Notice
he says, he did not come into the world to condemn the world,
but that the world through him might be saved. His purpose of
coming the first time was salvation. His purpose of coming the second
time will include judgment. But he didn't come the first
time to judge the world. And that's amazing. He said to
the Pharisees, I don't condemn you. I don't judge you. But Moses'
words do. You have one that condemns you,
the one you trust. It's Moses. But they wouldn't
look to Christ. And so they were under that condemnation.
But he didn't come the first time to judge the world, to condemn
the world. The word condemn means to issue
a sentence of punishment. When the judge receives the verdict,
It's either guilty or not guilty in our court system today. And
he issues the penalty. That's called a sentence. He
sentences the person who is accused of being guilty of a certain
punishment. He might have to pay a fine,
go to jail, or something else. But when God sentences us for
our sins, it's a sentence of death. The wages of sin is death. Romans 6.23, and the soul that
sinneth, it shall die. Ezekiel 18.4.20 So, sin brings
death, and that's the condemnation. That's the sentence God gives.
When God gave Adam and Eve in the garden a command, He said,
don't eat, do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. You can eat of every other tree, including the tree
of life, but not of this tree. Not the knowledge of good and
evil. He says, for in the day that you eat thereof, you shall
surely die. And they ate, and they died. They received the punishment
of the sentence of condemnation. That's what it means to be condemned,
to receive the punishment of God against us for our sins. And Jesus says he didn't come
the first time to do that for the world. The world, as you
know, it says in Acts chapter 17, if you want to look there,
when Paul was preaching to those at Athens, he said this, he says,
that God, verse 24, that made the world and all things therein,
seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples
made with hands, neither is worship with men's hands, as though he
needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life and breath and all
things, and has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell
on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times
before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation, that they
should seek the Lord. If, happily, they might feel
after him and find him, though he be not far from every one
of us. For in him we live and move and have our being, as certain
also of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring.
For as much then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not
to think that the Godhead is likened to gold or silver or
stone, graven by art and man's device, and the times of this
ignorance God winked at. But now commandeth all men everywhere
to repent. So there was a time when God
passed over the sins of the world and didn't destroy it before
Christ came. He didn't pass judgment on the
entire world then. There were times when he did
pass judgment. At the flood, for example, everyone
except Noah and his family perished in the flood. And Sodom and Gomorrah
is another case. And many different times in history
God has sent judgment into the world. But never in a universal
way. And Jesus didn't come the first
time to judge the world. But he says here in verse 31,
because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the
world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof
he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised
him from the dead. So he raised Christ from the
dead, sat him on his throne. He's the judge of all and also
the Savior of his people. And so this judgment to come
will occur at Jesus' second coming. But when Jesus came the first
time, he says, I did not come to condemn the world. And even
the devils, when Jesus cast them out of the demoniac in Mark chapter
5, they asked him, have you come to torment us before the day?
before the Day of Judgment, they were terrified, knowing He held
their eternal destiny in His hands. And He didn't judge them
then in that sense, but He will judge the world on the last day.
But the first coming of Christ is a day of grace. And that grace
continues until the end of time, when the Lord Jesus has called
all of his sheep and gathered them all together, so that not
a hoof of all of his sheep is left behind, but they're all
saved and saved to the uttermost, then the world will end. Then
he will come in judgment against the wicked, and he will gather
his sheep together with him. the first time he came, he did
not come to judge the world. The word world here includes
all men everywhere throughout the world, because all men will
eventually stand under the judgment of God. But of those who stand
under that judgment, some will not be condemned, and some will
be condemned, which is what the next verse talks about. He says,
Verse 17 again, For God sent not his Son into the world to
condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
Jesus Christ descended from heaven. And in that descent, he joined
his divine nature to his human nature when he was born, when
he was conceived in the Virgin Mary and born through her. That was the time when the Son
of God took on the nature of his appointed role as son of
man. And that's what it refers to here when it says, when God
sent not his son into the world. That's when he came. He came
into the world. He was with the Father He came
into the world and He returned to the Father. The first time
He came, He came as Son of God into the world, taking on the
nature of Son of Man. And when He rose from the dead,
He still has that nature. And He will forever have that
nature of man in heaven. There's a man on the throne of
heaven, ruling over all things. And He's one person, the Son
of God and Son of Man. But He didn't come into the world
in that incarnation to condemn the world, but that the world
through him might be saved." Now the word here, might, in
this phrase, the world might be saved. When we use the word
might, sometimes we say it, well, he might. come over today, or
he might not, or I might be able to get to that today, or I might
not. When we use the word might in that way, we're using it as
a word of it might happen or it might not happen. It's a word
of probability. We're not sure. But when God
uses the word might here, it's not a word of it might or might
not happen. It's a word of purpose. And whatever
God purposes, is what actually happens. So that what God says
here, that he came into the world not to condemn the world, but
that the world through him might be saved. In other words, he
had to come into the world in order that the world might be
saved. so that there's no possibility that those of whom he's speaking
here would not be saved. And so you can see this use of
the word might in several places in the New Testament. And I'm
just going to take you to a couple. In Galatians chapter 4, in verse
4, talking about this same coming into the world, Galatians 4.4,
but when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth
his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them
that were under the law." Now listen carefully. Why did God
send His Son? To redeem them that were under
the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. Did He
redeem us with any possibility that we would not receive the
adoption of sons? All those for whom Christ gave
His life a ransom in payment to God as our surety, He gained
their release. Remember Judah pleading with
Joseph for his youngest brother Benjamin? He said, take me instead
of the lad, and let the lad go free. It wasn't just take me. But take me instead of the lad,
and if you take me instead of the lad, then let the lad go
free." That's redemption. So Christ redeemed us. He was
made under the law, made of a woman, made under the law, in order
that He might redeem us by shedding His blood, taking our sins and
shedding His blood in payment for our sins. God having received
a full payment from Him, set free all those for whom He shed
His blood. Otherwise God would have received
a payment of ransom and accepted that payment and not released
those for whom Christ died. That cannot happen. So he redeemed
them that were under the law that we might receive the adoption
of sons. There's no difference between
those who are redeemed and those who have been adopted. And he
says, And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit
of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So all
those to whom God sends his spirit are the adopted sons and the
redeemed sons of God. And this is why Christ gave himself
for them to redeem them in order that they would receive the purpose
God had ordained for that redemption to be made the sons of God. Another
place in scripture where this is also used, the way that God
uses might like this, is in 1 Peter chapter 3. In verse 18, and you'll
see a similar way that it's used, 1 Peter 3.18 says, For Christ
also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust. What does that mean, the just
for the unjust? It means he suffered instead
of them, he suffered on their behalf. His suffering for them
released them from suffering, and they received the blessing
that He obtained because He suffered and fully paid for their sins,
and fully answered God's justice, and satisfied His justice, and
fulfilled His law. They received all that because
He died for them. It's a word of substitution.
So he says, for Christ also has once suffered for sins the just
for the unjust that he might bring us to God. You see the
word might? Did he do all this with the possibility that we
would not be brought to God? Of course not. He doesn't fail
in his purpose. And this is one of the most important
things to realize when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, that
we're believing that he's the one who cannot fail. His purpose
will be successful because his work will follow his purpose,
and all for whom he died shall be saved. They will be adopted.
They'll be brought to God. And so in John chapter 3, back
in verse 17, he says, He came into the world, he was sent into
the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world through
him might be saved. He's talking about a certainty.
This world for whom Christ died, for whom Christ came, and for
whom He shed His blood, as it said in verse 14, He was cursed,
like the serpent in the wilderness was cursed, and all who looked
to Him didn't perish but have eternal life. So He took away
the curse of God's law against His people by enduring that curse
in Himself for them. It wasn't a might as if it could
not happen. It was a might as a certainty,
a fulfillment of God's purpose. Why did you, let's say, why did
you do that? Well, in order to do this other
thing. I did it in order to get that. Now, in our case, we do
things in order to get something. We might fail in that, but God
doesn't fail. And so the Lord Jesus didn't
fail in it. Well, then you might ask, well,
then if he didn't fail in it, then can the world here mean
everybody in the world? And that's what we want to see
here, is that in John 3.16 and in here, he's talking about the
Gentile world in particular. The elect among the Gentiles. So, I want to show this to you
in a couple of other verses. If you want to look at John chapter
6. This is used in several cases, but I'll just take you to a couple.
In John chapter 6 and verse 51, Jesus said this. Remember, he
said, I am the bread that came down from heaven. In verse 51
of John chapter 6, he said, I am the living bread which came down
from heaven. So you can see, now, here's the
same thing that he said in John 3.17. He was sent into the world. He came down from heaven. Why
did he come? Because he's the living bread.
What does the bread do? Well, he says, which came down
from heaven, if any man eat of this bread, which would be himself,
right? He shall live forever. And the
bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for
the life of the world. Does everybody in the world have
this eternal life? No, we know that's not true because
many will stand on the last day and Jesus will tell them to depart
and that he will send them into everlasting punishment as we
read in Matthew 7 and Matthew 25. So we know that not all people
in the world have this life. Some do, and they're the ones
who receive this bread and eat of this bread, which is the Lord
Jesus Christ in his broken body. Remember how he fed the 5,000
men plus women and children? He took the bread, he broke it,
he gave it to his disciples, and they distributed it to the
people. And so the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross took himself
with our sins, he was broken, And having borne our sins, God,
in his broken body, and his shed blood, God gives us, through
the gospel, he gives that bread to us. And the gospel comes to
us through the apostles, and the prophets, and the teachers,
and the preachers, right? Christ is taking his body and
breaking it, he sends it through the gospel, through the preaching
of the gospel, and we, who are hungry, receive it by faith,
and by faith we eat. His broken body as our sin-atoning
sacrifice, as our propitiation, as our acceptance with God. And
eating Him by faith, that is eating what Christ has done,
who He is and what He's done for us as our Savior. We live. He says, all who eat my flesh,
I will give them life. So the world that he gives life
to are those who receive the bread, who believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. And this is consistent with all
that John 3 is saying here. But it shows here that the word
world used by Jesus in John 6.51 is referring to those he, on
purpose, gave himself to save, and they are actually saved and
given life. Look at verse 53, same chapter, John 6.53. Then
Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say to you, except you eat
the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you have
no life in you." So clearly some didn't have life because most
of those who heard him left, they were offended. But some
did. Some stayed with him because
they trusted that his broken body and shed blood was all their
life before God. And they received that life from
God. And another place that this is used is in the book of Romans.
If you want to turn to Romans chapter 11, the word world is
used like this to refer to the elect among the Gentiles that
Jesus came to save. In Romans chapter 11, without
giving you the full background here, I'm just going to jump
right in. It says in verse 11, of Romans 11, Paul is asking the
question about the nation of Israel. He says, I say then,
have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid. But rather, through their fall,
salvation is come to the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.
So, God sent salvation to the Gentiles, but how did he do that?
Well, the nation of Israel as a nation rejected Christ. They
would not believe Him. And so God took the gospel from
them and sent it to the Gentiles. So the result of their unbelief,
the unbelief of the Jews, was a great blessing to the Gentile
believers, wasn't it? It was God's purpose that in
Israel's rejection, He wouldn't lose, but he would actually gain
in his purpose. That their evil, God would turn
to our good, because he would send the gospel of his saving
grace to us, the Gentiles. He says now, in verse 12, Now
if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and who is the
world here? Well, he just said, the Gentiles.
If the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing
of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness?
The nation of Israel didn't believe God as a nation. There were always
elect among that nation that did believe. And so, in their
rejection of Christ, God sent the gospel to the Gentiles, and
in the Gentile nations, there were those who were God's people,
and He saved them. So he goes on, he says, look
at verse 15 of the same chapter, he says, for if the casting away
of them, the nation of Jews, if the casting away of them be
the reconciling of the world. Now how much of the Gentile world
was reconciled by the gospel. Were all Gentiles reconciled? No, of course not. But there
were some who were, and they were the ones who believed, but
they believed because they were ordained to eternal life. Acts
13.48. So God called out of the Gentile
world, he called his elect out of them according to his eternal
purpose. And that was always his purpose. So when Jesus came
into the world, not to condemn the world, neither Jews nor Gentiles,
at his first coming, he did come to save the elect among the Gentiles. He came to save them and he actually
accomplished that purpose. Now look at Romans chapter 15,
while we're there. Romans chapter 15, he says a
lot of things about the Gentiles, about God's purpose to save the
Gentiles, which we are. But in Romans 14, if you look
at the context here, he begins Romans 14 by talking about how
within the church at Rome, and in all churches for that matter,
there were those who were strong in faith, who were mostly Gentiles,
but probably some Jews, and those who were weak in faith, who were
either Jews or were inclined to believe like the Jews. And
when it came to the matter of eating meat, or of particular
days being Sabbath, the day of Sabbath, those who were strong
in faith were willing to take the meat and eat it because they
realized that was all under the Old Testament, the Old Covenant
given for another purpose to teach us about God's saving grace
to us in Christ. And so that the eating of meat
and the keeping of the Sabbath were no longer an issue because
they were fulfilled in Christ. But some were strong in the faith
and so they ate meat and they didn't regard any day because
they regarded every day as to the Lord. And those who were
weaker in faith didn't eat meat because they thought it was forbidden
or they kept the Sabbath because they thought they had to, they
were still influenced because of the weakness of their faith
by the law. And so in Romans 14, he says in verse 1, him that
is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations.
For one believeth that he may eat all things. That would be,
for example, a believing Gentile. Another who is weak eats herbs. That would be, for example, a
believing Jew. Let not him that eateth, a believing
Gentile, despise him that eateth not, say a believing Jew, and
let not him which eateth not which would be a believing Jew,
judge him that Edith, which would be a believing Gentile, for God
has received him." What is he saying here? The distinction
between Jew and Gentile has been erased. It has always been the
case that God doesn't make a spiritual distinction between Jew and Gentile,
but that wasn't made clear until the cross. Remember in Ephesians
3, when Paul preached there, he said, God has given me the
revelation of this mystery, how that before the foundation of
the world, by the eternal purpose of God, both Jews and Gentiles
would be saved, and make up one body. So that neither Jew nor
Gentile, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, neither slave
nor free, neither male nor female, you're all one in Christ. That
was the message that was hidden from the foundation of the world
until Paul preached the gospel. And it was so hard for the Jews
to receive this that many, many times throughout the New Testament,
this lesson is brought to them and they find it hard to receive. And so in Romans 14, Paul writing
to the Church of Rome, he's explaining to them the need to be patient
with those whose faith is weak, that those whose faith is strong
should not judge the weak brother, and the weak brother should not
despise the brother whose faith is strong. So you see the background
for Romans 15? So he says, in verse 22, I'll
just sum it up, he says, Hast thou faith? Have it to thyself
before God. It's not what we think of our
brother or what he thinks of us, it's our faith towards God
that matters. Happy is he that condemneth not
himself and that thing which he allows. And he that doubteth
is damned if he eat because he eats not of faith for whatsoever
is not of faith is sin. So don't go around doing things
with a doubtful mind. Do what you do in faith understanding
that in Christ you're free. But if you don't understand your
freedom and you violate your conscience, then you're sinning.
Okay, now, that's the background to Romans 15. So he goes on,
he says in verse 1 of Romans 15, You see how What the Gospel, the result of
the Gospel does, it turns our focus not inwardly but outwardly. First trusting Christ and then
to His people. Our life should be lived for
the sake of Christ and His people. That's what he's saying. For
even Christ pleased not himself, but, as it is written, the reproaches
of them that reproached thee fell on me. Now if he took the
reproaches of his people on himself, how much more ought we to bear
the weakness of our brothers in Christ? For whatsoever things
aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience
and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. Now, the God
of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward
another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one
mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Wherefore, and here's where I
wanted to get to, wherefore, receive ye one another as Christ
also received us to the glory of God. Always view what God
has done for you for Christ's sake. When you trust Christ,
you're actually staking your hope on the fact that God looks
upon you and thinks upon you as He looks upon and thinks upon
His Son. That's your entire hope that
God would receive you for Christ's sake. And that's what he's saying.
God has received us. Christ has received us. To the
glory of God, we ought to receive one another. Then he goes on,
verse 8. Listen to this. Now, I say, that
Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision. That's another
name for those who adhere to the law of Moses. The circumcision.
He was a minister to the circumcision. What does that mean? It means
that when Jesus came into the world, who did he go to? He went
to the Jews. Wasn't that what he did first?
He went to those synagogues. At 12 years old, he was in the
synagogue asking questions. He kept going to the synagogue. And on the hillsides of Judea,
preaching the gospel. He was a minister to the circumcision
for the truth of God to confirm the promises made to the fathers.
God had promised salvation to the seed of Abraham. And that
included his physical seed. of whom some of which were elect,
and it included his spiritual seed, of whom some were Gentiles,
but all were believers. So he sent him first to the Jews
to confirm the promises made to the fathers. Verse 9, And
that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy, as it is written,
For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, and
sing unto thy name. This is Christ in prophecy saying,
I will confess to thee among the Gentiles and sing to thy
name. You see how abrasive this was to the Jew? The one who was
brought up thinking that God loved only the Jews, that God
was going to only save the Jews, it was offensive. And yet the
Gospel comes to us in our pride and it offends us because it
reveals God's love, not just for the people in the nation
of the Jews, but also in the nations of the Gentiles. He says,
In verse 10, and again he said, Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his
people. That's amazing, isn't it? And
again, Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and laud him, all you
people. And again, Isaiah said, There
shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over
the Gentiles, in him shall the Gentiles trust. All these scriptures
are piled one on top of the other because there was such a natural
darkness to this truth and opposition to it in the mind of the Jews
and the Gentiles. To the Gentiles it was the gladdest
news ever heard. But to the Jews, it was offensive
because in their prejudice, in their pride and prejudice, they
couldn't allow that the Gentiles also would receive mercy from
God. The point here is that when Jesus speaks of saving the world,
giving His life for the world, in John 3.17 and John 6.51, He's speaking about the Gentile
world and out of that world he would call his people. One more
verse to cement this. Look at Acts chapter 15. And
when you read the New Testament, this is the huge, huge truth
that's constantly being set forth. That God saves sinners out of
Jews and Gentiles, not by their righteousness, not by their physical
relation to Abraham, not by their physical birth, not by any of
these things, but because He has chosen them in Christ, given
them to Christ, He shed His blood for them, and He called them
by His Spirit through the Gospel. And in Acts 15, this is what
Peter says in verse 9. He says in verse 8, this is Peter
talking to the Jews in Jerusalem, how God saved Cornelius and his
household who were Gentiles. He says in verse 8, And God,
which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the
Holy Ghost, even as he did to us. And he put no difference
between us and them, us Jews and these Gentiles. No difference. God made no difference. Why are
you making a difference? He says, purifying their hearts
by faith in seeing Christ, that their salvation was in Him, His
redeeming blood, His cleansing blood. He purified them before
God by His one offering, perfected them forever. They latched hold
onto that by God-given faith, and in that act of faith they
received to themselves the truth that Christ was their complete
salvation. Verse 10, now therefore why tempt
you God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither
our fathers nor we were able to bear? This yoke of keeping
the law in order to be saved. But we believe, notice how this
agrees with what Jesus is saying in John chapter 3. We believe
that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we, we Jews,
shall be saved even as they, these Gentiles. Now that's phenomenal. that Peter would be so humble
as to say, we, Jews, are going to be saved like those Gentiles,
instead of saying, they're going to be saved like us. You see
the difference? That's the attitude of a sinner
who knows his salvation is by grace alone. We're going to be
saved just like they are. Because we have such a low view
of the Gentiles, our view of ourselves should be even lower.
Just like Jesus told Nicodemus as Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness. For these people who were bitten
because of their sin, speaking against God and Moses and not
believing Christ, That's what you're going to have to take
your place as, Nicodemus, a serpent-bitten sinner. And so Peter says the
same thing here. But look at verse 15. So, there's
some argument going on in this whole discussion. And James stands
up and he clarifies things. It says in verse 13, And after
they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and brethren,
hearken to me. Simon, Peter, hath declared how
God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them
a people for his name. So when God visited the Gentiles,
did he do it to take all of the Gentiles? No. But he took out
of the Gentiles a people for his name. And to this, James
goes on in verse 15, and to this agree the words of the prophets
as it is written, after this, God says from Amos chapter 9
and verse 11 and 12, after this I will return and will build
again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down and will
build again the ruins thereof and I will set it up. What is
God talking about here? Why is James talking about the
tabernacle of David in the middle of this argument about whether
the Gentiles should be circumcised or not? Because James, by the
Spirit of God, is interpreting the meaning God had in that prophecy
of Amos, that the Tabernacle of David refers to the Church
of God, signified by the Tabernacle of David, which would be built
up through the preaching of the Gospel. And what would that Tabernacle
be made of? What would it be built up out
of? According to 1 Peter 2, the living stones, those who were
chosen and put into that tabernacle as the dwelling and habitation
of God by the Spirit. 16. Again, After this I will return,
and will build again the tabernacle of David, which is fallen down,
and will build again the ruins thereof, and will set it up,
that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all
the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who
doeth all these things, known unto God are all his works from
the beginning of the world. What a powerful sermon James
preached right there. But it answers his question.
What did Jesus mean when he says that God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish but have everlasting life? And in verse 17 of John
3 that he didn't come to condemn the world but that the world
through him might be saved. It's referring to the elect among
the Gentiles called the world by the Jews who would be saved
because that's why Christ came. to save his people out of every.
But Nicodemus thought the Gentiles weren't going to be saved. The
Jews thought that when the Messiah came, he was simply going to
destroy the nations of the Gentiles and subject them to the authority
of the Jews. They understood everything as
a national Messiah. And so they completely
missed it. Alright, so now back to John
chapter 3. Notice in verse 18, I spent more
time on that than I thought I would, but I wanted you to try to appreciate
this. Let me condense it into this
statement here. There was never a time in history
when God saved only the Jews. There was never a time. Remember
Abraham? He wasn't a Jew until he was called. Until he was circumcised. And he was called before he was
circumcised. And given righteousness before he was circumcised. So
he was deliberately justified by God before he was ever circumcised. So not Abraham. And remember
in Luke chapter 4 when Jesus came and he preached, I'm sent
to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to
set at liberty them that are bound. Remember what the reaction
of the Jews was in Luke chapter 4? They were so angry. And Jesus
said, now listen, in the days of Elijah there were many widows,
but Elijah was only sent to one and she wasn't even a Jew. She
was of the city of Sarepta. And he gave another example of
Elisha who healed the Syrian leper. Remember? He said there
were many lepers in the days of Elisha, but he only healed
one. It was a Syrian Gentile. And
for this, Declaring the fulfillment of God's prophecy in Luke chapter
4, they wanted to push Jesus off the cliff. That's how strong
the opposition in the mind of the Jews was to the Gentiles
being saved. So when Jesus says this in John
3.16, He's saying, look, there's never been a time when only Jews
were saved. Not before the cross, and not
after. Not only that, but there's never been a time when only Gentiles
were saved. Not before the cross, and not
after. And that's what Romans 11 is about. How that God didn't
say, well, okay, the Jews have offended, they wouldn't believe
Christ, and therefore, from now on out, I'm only gonna save Gentiles.
He says, no, no, no, no, no. There's always going to be a
remnant out of the nation of the Jews and the Gentile nations
of the world. And this is why, when he says
in Romans 11, 25, 26, and 27, that all Israel shall be saved,
it carries with it such a strong force, meaning that all of the
Gentile elect and all the Jews elect among the Jews will be
saved. But in John 3.16, this came as a huge, huge shock that
humbled Nicodemus and drove a stake into the heart of his pride.
Because this is what the Gospel does. It humbles us personally
and it causes us to see God's purpose and makes us bow before
Him in thankfulness for that purpose that we would be saved,
as Peter said, even as the Gentiles. But now in verse 18 of John chapter
3, Jesus goes on. He says, He that believeth on
Him is not condemned. The Him is Jesus, the Son of
God. Whoever believes, this is Jesus
Christ. Remember, all judgment has been
put into His hands. He's the judge of all. He says
this in John 5, 21-23. The Father has committed all
judgment into my hands. He's going to judge the world
in righteousness. And the one who is the judge
of all says this, he that believeth on him, the Son of God, he's
talking about himself, is not condemned. Now that's a phenomenally
amazing statement. that boggles our minds. From
the beginning of the world, ever since God gave the Law to Adam
and Eve in the Garden, this question has loomed large as the dominant
question in the minds of men. How can a man be just with God? God is holy. God cannot change
the truth. He does not lie. He does not pervert judgment. Everything that he does is completely
right. How can God, who is just and
right and holy and cannot lie, look on an ungodly sinner and
say, you are justified? You are righteous before me.
You are not condemned. How can God do that? Proverbs
17, 15 says, if it's an abomination to God, to condemn the just and
to justify the wicked. If it's an abomination with God,
then God won't do it. How can Jesus say, he that believeth
on the Son is not condemned? That's equivalent to saying he's
justified. If there's no cause for condemnation,
it's justification. How can this be? This is the
great mystery revealed in the scripture, that God is both a
just God and a Savior. And it all comes down to this
point, that the One in whom we believe is Himself our righteousness. And believing Him is not us making
a decision so that God will look upon our decision or making a
commitment and God will see our sincerity or our dedication in
that and then somehow He will respond to that. Nothing could
be further from the truth. Believing Christ is not an act
of our own that causes God to look upon us with mercy. It's
not even our subjective trusting in Christ, our confidence in
Him, that saves us. But it's Him who saves us. We don't look to our looking
at Christ, our sin-bearing, curse-bearing Savior. We look to Him, period. Jesus said if you have faith
as the grain of mustard seed, you can say to this mountain,
be carried forth into the sea and it will happen. Because it's
not the magnitude or the strength or even the purity of your faith,
it's the object of your faith. We don't have confidence in our
confidence. We don't trust our trusting. We don't have assurance
in our assurance. The strength of faith is in its
object. And this is completely obvious
if we think about it for a minute. The bridge is only as safe as
it is strong. It's not as safe as the one who
crosses it is confident it will be safe. If the bridge doesn't
go across the gorge, you're not going to cross. But if it does,
and it's strong enough, you can cross that bridge even though
you're timid and in a wheelchair and have no strength. The plane
that flies from New York to Paris, every passenger on board is safe
if they're in that plane, if the plane arrives. Their arrival
safety doesn't depend at all upon whether they believe the
plane is going to get there or not. Not the strength of their
faith they got on the plane, hoping it's going to make it.
Some doubted, some were strong, I don't have problems with plane
rides, and they got on. Somewhat presumptuously, they
all arrived safely because the plane arrived safely. It was
the strength of the object of their faith, not their faith
itself. And like so many other examples we could call. The one
who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ by God's grace has been
openly made known to be born of God because they believe. Our faith is the evidence of
the new birth and that faith in Christ, holding Christ alone
as our only confidence in salvation before God, is the proof that
God has given us that faith to direct us to Him so that He is,
in fact, our confidence because He died for us and gave His Spirit
to us. So, He that believeth is not condemned because another
was condemned for him, and he looks to that one, the Lord Jesus
Christ, as his sin-bearing, curse-bearing Savior. But for the Lord Jesus
to say this is precious indeed, because He is the one who gave
Himself to remove our condemnation. He just spoke about the curse
in verse 14 and 15, and now He's saying the curse is removed.
There is no condemnation to the one believing Him. You see? He
told the woman in John 8, Woman, has no man condemned you? She
said, No man, Lord. No man, Lord. And he said, neither
do I condemn you. You see, there is no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus. Because in Christ we have fulfilled
God's law and answered God's justice in the blood of his son.
We didn't do it, he did it for us. He died for the unjust to
bring us to God. And then in verse 18 he goes
on, but he that believeth not is condemned already because
he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
The one who doesn't believe is already condemned. He was condemned
before he didn't believe for his sin. And because Christ didn't
take his sin from him, evidenced by the fact that he didn't believe,
then he is under his own sin. He has to bear it for himself.
He's already condemned. Because he has not believed in
the name of the only begotten Son of God. That's the evidence
that he's a wicked man. And that he's under his own condemnation. Christ hasn't become his savior.
Verse 19. And this is condemnation. What
is this condemnation he's referring to? That light has come into
the world. And what is the light that came
into the world? The Lord Jesus Christ. And how was he the light? He was the light of how God's
law could be fulfilled in truth. And how God's grace could be
abundantly given to us because of him. So he says, light has
come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light. That's condemnation, because
men would rather have darkness than light, because their deeds
were evil. For everyone that doeth evil
hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deed should
be reproved. Everyone that does evil, that's
us naturally, isn't it? We hate the light, naturally.
Adam, when he sinned against God, and God called to Adam,
said, Adam, where are you? He hid. He said, I hid because
I was afraid. What makes us afraid? Our sin.
And sin is something that we love, so we not only fear the
light, but we love darkness more than light. That's what we are
by nature. God has to rescue us. So he says, that's why evil
comes from us. We hate light, naturally, and
we love darkness, naturally. But he says in verse 20, for
everyone that doeth evil hates the light, neither comes to the
light, lest his deeds should be reproved. In verse 21, but he
that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be
made manifest, that they are wrought in God. What is the one
who does truth do? What is the characteristic of
his life? the one who does truth, comes
to the light. You see, when we believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, we have all these things in our minds that
are barriers between us and God, don't we? We know we're sinners. We know we don't believe, or
we don't believe as we ought. We know we don't do what we ought
to do. We know we don't deserve God's blessings. All these things
are barriers between us and God. But when God shows us Christ,
those barriers through faith are removed because we see that
Christ has answered and removed every barrier between our souls
and God. He's brought us together. He's made peace between us and
God's truth and His righteousness and justice and lavished His
grace upon us because of His own substitution for us. And
believing that causes us to come to the light. Because coming
to the light, we find out who God is, and who we are in ourselves,
and who Christ is, and who we are in Christ. And that is fellowship
with God and with His Son and with His Spirit. There's nothing
we crave more as a believer than that God would speak to us in
a way of disclosure to tell us who He is and what He's done
and see His glory in Christ. That's what we want. That's what
we live upon. And so we come to the light confessing
who we are, what we've done, and looking to Christ as the
answer for every barrier between us and God, and the fulfillment
of every requirement so that all of God's blessings are given
to us for Christ's sake. And this is what faith is. It
looks away from itself and finds everything in Christ. So we're
back to how the strength of our faith doesn't save us, but Christ,
the one we believe, saves us. Romans 4.16 says, therefore it
is by faith that it might be by grace. To the end, the promise
might be sure to all the seed. God has designed our salvation
so that we would receive righteousness in our own experience by faith,
so that our salvation would be altogether of grace. so that
we would not be able to claim anything of ourselves, that we
would see it's all in Christ, because that's the very nature
of faith. And so we come to the light, knowing that the very
nature of this salvation is that God has laid everything that
we are as sinners on Christ, and we've received everything
that Christ is in His righteousness as our blessing. And faith convinces
us of that, so that we hope for this righteousness. We look for
the eternal glory, which is the reward of Christ's righteousness.
And this is phenomenal, that we who are sinners would be so
boldly enabled through God-given faith to come to God without
fear, confessing what we are, knowing in the honesty of our
heart, if God enables us to be so honest, that we're sinners
and we don't know how in the world God could justify us and
not condemn us But he finds the answer in Christ, and according
to his holiness and righteousness, in fact, in honor of his law
and justice, he justifies us for what he received from Christ
and silences every enemy. Satan and the onlooking universe
are told to shut up because God has justified us for Christ's
sake. And the believer, he relishes in this and he comes to God and
he wants fellowship with the God of grace and love, knowing
that his sins have been answered in Christ. What a grace! Why wouldn't we come to this
One who is so gracious to us when we were so ill-deserving
that He gave His only begotten Son in eternal love? Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that the Lord
Jesus Christ is our only and all-sufficient Savior, and we
pray, Lord, that you would magnify him in our eyes and magnify your
glory in him. And so save us and give us this
sweet fellowship of communion with you by your Spirit, and
teach us who you are, Lord. Humble us in ourselves, but magnify
our Savior in our eyes. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.