Let's look at the third chapter
of the Gospel of John. In this context, the Lord Jesus
is speaking to Nicodemus. He sets before Nicodemus two
necessities, and we've certainly addressed these in previous messages. In the seventh verse, he says
to him, you must be born again. This is the work of the Spirit.
You know, when we speak of the covenant of grace, We often speak
of the work of the Father choosing the Savior and then choosing
the people. Indeed, God the Father sent His
Son into the world to redeem those that He elected unto salvation
before the world began. We speak of the work of the Father
in the covenant of grace. We also speak of the work of
the Son of God in the covenant of grace. He is the covenant.
He's the surety of the covenant. He's the revealer of the covenant. He is the mediator of the covenant. And the Lord Jesus came into
the world to fulfill all of his covenant obligations. He came
to redeem his people, to save his people from sin and from
death. But we need also remember the
Spirit of God is vitally concerned in that covenant. The Spirit
of God was not an idle bystander in the covenant or the contract
of grace. He was intimately involved. As the Father selected a people
unto salvation, And as the Son of God promised that He would
enter into the world and lay down His life for those people,
the Spirit of God, He also had His own responsibilities to fulfill
His covenant obligations. Indeed, the Spirit of God would,
of course, inspire writers to write the Word of God. He would
come in great power upon Mary, and the nature of the Savior
would be conceived by the power of the Spirit of God. In fact,
the Word of God also says that He was active even in sending
the Lord Jesus into the world. Let me give you a reference on
that and hold your place in John 3. We'll get to that. But go
back to Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 48. The Spirit
of God with the Father, together they sent the Lord Jesus into
the world. They sent the Son of God into
the world in Isaiah chapter 48. This is our Master speaking. This is our Redeemer. Indeed,
this is the Son of God. And he says in Isaiah chapter
48 and verse 16, he says, "...to come ye near unto me, hear ye
this. I have not spoken in secret from
the beginning, from the time that it was, there am I. And
now the Lord God and His Spirit hath sent me." So both the Father
and the Spirit were active in sending the Son of God into this
world, and the Spirit of God indeed filled the Son of God
with power. We know that the Scriptures say,
the New Testament says, that the miracles that the Savior
did, He did by the authority of and by the power of the Holy
Ghost. The Spirit of God ministered
unto the very humanity of the Son of Man. The Spirit of God
raised Him from the dead. And the Spirit of God specifically,
and this is in the context, the Spirit of God reveals the Lord
Jesus to us. That is, to the elect. It is
that work of the Spirit of God to give us life. He uses the
Word of the Gospel. There is something that he uses.
He doesn't use error, He doesn't use just anything, but He uses
the Word of the Gospel. And He makes it to be the Word
of life to the people of God. As the Gospel goes forth this
evening, the good news of the Lord Jesus and His work of reconciliation
and redemption, the Spirit of God takes this very message and
makes it effectual in the hearts of God's elect. And in making
the word effectual, He miraculously resurrects the spiritually dead
from the grave. And when the Spirit of God speaks
in life-giving power, that's when we live under God. We're
alive then under the Gospel. And the things of the Lord Jesus
then mean everything to us and we see the very glory of God
revealed in the face of Jesus Christ by the Spirit of God. The Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus,
you must be born again. That's the work of the Spirit
of God. A little further over in the
Gospel of John, the Savior speaks about the Spirit who would come
into the world, but He said, He won't come until the Son of
Man is glorified. That is the Spirit of life, the
very Holy Spirit of God. His entrance into this world
in the fullness of His power, was based upon our Lord fulfilling
His redemptive obligations, and then once we had been redeemed
by His blood, the Spirit of God then came in His fullness, sent
by the Father. In fact, the Spirit's coming
is called the promise of the Father. The Spirit of God, He
was sent into this world to reveal Christ Jesus to the elect of
God. Now understand this, when the
Spirit of God comes, He doesn't come to add to the work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. The work of redemption, it's
already finished. It's already accomplished. He
doesn't come to fulfill or to further do something that the
Lord Jesus began. No, that's not correct. But on
the basis of the Son of God having brought in everlasting righteousness,
on the basis of the Son of God having removed the sins of all
of His people and separating us from our sins as far as the
East is from the West, The Spirit of God then comes to us in great
life-giving power to convince us that the work of salvation
and redemption has already been accomplished by the Savior. So
don't misunderstand the work of the Spirit of God. He doesn't
come to add anything to the work that the Lord Jesus did. That
work is accomplished. But rather, He comes in life-giving
grace. He comes to reveal the Savior
unto us. The Savior says to us that the
Spirit of God, He would come and convince us of sin and righteousness
and judgment. First of all, of sin, because
we didn't believe on Him. You know what the Spirit of God
does? He persuades us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He
shows us works is not the way to God. He shows us baptism is
not the way to salvation. He shows us that keeping the
Ten Commandments, that's not the way of divine acceptance.
He shows us Christ Jesus is the way. And we believe Him. He convinces us of the sinfulness,
the wretchedness, the rebellion of not believing on the Son of
God. For unbelief, you see, is calling
God a liar. Is it not? That's what the Scripture
says. And the Spirit of God convinces
us of the awfulness of unbelief. And then we willingly, believingly
embrace the Son of God for all that He is and for all that He's
done. He convinces of sin. He convinces
of righteousness. because He's gone to the Father.
The Spirit of God convinces us that righteousness has been established
by the substitutionary death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
the Spirit of God convinces us of the beauty of that righteousness,
and the necessity of that righteousness, and the wonders of that righteousness,
and the Spirit of God shows us that's the righteousness we've
got to have. He convinces us of that. And
He convinces us of judgment. Of judgment. Scripture says because
the prince of this world is cast out, he's judged. Well, what's
the basis of Satan being cast out? Our sins have been paid
for. And Satan has been taken captive
by the Savior. The Spirit of God does all of
these things. And the Lord Jesus sets forth
that work of the Spirit in saying that ye must be born again. Then
He says the Spirit of God is like the wind. It blows sovereignly. It blows irresistibly. It blows
powerfully. That's the work of the Spirit
of Grace. He blows sovereignly where He
will. He blows irresistibly. Nobody
can stop Him. And He blows savingly. For when
He comes to deal with a sinner in life-giving power, none can
stop Him. None can stop Him. So the Savior
spoke to Nicodemus about the necessity of the new birth. And
then secondly, He speaks to Nicodemus about the necessity of His own
death. of the Savior's death. And so he says in verse 14, as
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must
the Son of Man be lifted up. You see, no death. If the Savior had not died, no
death would mean no satisfaction to justice. And no satisfaction
to justice would mean no salvation for us. And no salvation to us would
mean that all the promises of the covenant of grace would not
be kept. This cannot be. So the Savior
says, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even
so must the Son of Man be lifted up. He must die. He must die. He says in verse 15 that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life. Now, to
what do we trace both our new birth and the gift of the Son
of God dying in our stead. Well, we trace it to the love
of God. And he sets that forth in verse 16. For God so loved
the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth
in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. The reason for the new birth
or I could even say the origin of the new birth and the origin
of our redemption, the cause of our new birth and the cause
of our redemption, the source is God's love for his people. And in this 16th verse, specifically
the gift of Christ by the Father was the effect of his love. This
is what our Lord Jesus attributes it to, the Father's love. You see, the mission of the Lord
Jesus in the fullness of time to be the propitiation for our
sins and to redeem us from all iniquity was because of the love
of God. And this was manifested, the
love of God, in that Christ came to die for us. In this 16th verse,
and we've already covered it in a couple of messages, but
could I give you seven things? Let me just break down this verse
for you. Seven very simple things. Number
one, here's the verb tense of the love. For God's so loved. He's so loved. He's always loved
us. It's an everlasting love. This
is love that predates all of time. It goes back into the ceaseless
ages of eternity. God loved us then. Secondly,
here's the greatness of His love. For God so loved, He so loved
the world. This is love without measure. Love that cannot be measured
in any way. You can't measure the depth of
it, nor the height of it, nor the breadth of it. This is infinite
love. Love without measure. He so loved
us, thirdly. Here's the scope of His love.
God so loved the world. And that must have absolutely
shocked Nicodemus. Because the love of God is not
limited to one nationality. The love of God extends to people
of all nations and all kindreds and all tribes and all languages. God has a people from every nation. And fourthly, here is the nature
of this love. God so loved that He gave. He gave. You see, real love always seeks
the greatest interest. and the well-being of its object. Love is unselfish. Love is ever-giving. And love gives, if somebody loves
you, they give of themselves to you. You know, I see lots
of times parents, they're buying all kinds of toys for their kids,
and kids have got every kind of toy of every kind of sort
there is. Here's what kids need. They need
you to give yourself to them. Your love. Yourself to them. That's really what love does.
Love gives of self. Love gives of its time. And of
its effort. That's what love does. How do
we know God loves His people? He gave His only begotten Son. This is the nature of this love. God so loved the world that He
gave. He gave. God gave the greatest
gift. His only begotten Son. His unique
Son. The everlasting Son of the everlasting
Father. God gave Him. God gave him. And then notice the sacrificial
nature of this love. He gave. He gave his son not
just to live among sinners, not just to walk among his enemies,
but to die for his enemies. to die the death of the cross. What an awful death! This ignominious,
shameful death of the cross. God gave His Son to die. How
much does God love His elect? We studied last week He loves
His elect as He loves His Son. Well, what is it going to take
to save His elect? It will take the giving and the
death of His only begotten Son. And God gave Him. God gave Him. That's the sacrificial character
of love. And then, sixly, what is the
reason for this love? What's the purpose of this love?
That whosoever believeth on him should not perish. I tell you,
this God of love has a people who will never perish. No condemnation,
no judgment shall ever come to those that God gave to His Son,
these whom the Spirit of God will bring to faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. We have everlasting life. We
shall not perish, which brings me to the last thing, the result
of this love, but have everlasting life. This is what the Lord gives
to His elect. You see, He not only gives us
spiritual life, you must be born again. He gives us spiritual
life. But He also gives us, in verse
15, He gives us eternal life. What is eternal life? To know
God. The Savior defined that in John
chapter 17. This is eternal life. That they
might know Thee, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom Thou
hast sent. That is eternal life. And here,
what is the length of this life? Well, it's everlasting. It's
a life that will never end. It's the very life of God given
to us and God can't die. We'll never perish. Never perish. Which brings us then to verse
17. Why did God send His Son? Why
did God send His Son? Look at verse 17. For God sent
not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the
world, the world through Him, might be saved. God sent Him,
but He didn't send Him to condemn the world. He didn't send Him
to judge the world. You see, God didn't send His
Son into the world to destroy us for idolatry, even though
we deserve destroying, but He didn't send Him to destroy us.
He didn't send His Son into the world to punish us for our wickedness,
though we deserve to be punished for our wickedness. And He didn't
send His Son into the world to condemn the world that He loved.
He sent Him to save the world that He loves. God sent Him to
save the world of His elect. Now in the Word of God, it's
very clear that there are two worlds. Go with me to 2 Peter,
2 Peter chapter 2. In the Word of God, there are
two different worlds. 2 Peter 2, look at verse 5. 2 Peter 2.5, "...and spared not
the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person." Saved him
by his grace. But Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord, is what the Scripture says. He was a righteous man,
therefore God called him into the ark. He was righteous through
the imputed righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
was himself a preacher of righteousness. Watch this, bringing in the flood
upon the world of the ungodly. And you know what? Noah wasn't
a part of that world. Was he? Noah was not a part of
that world. He was not a part of the world
of the ungodly. Neither was Abel. Neither was
Seth. Neither was Abraham. And you
can just go on down the line. God's elect are not of the world
of the ungodly, so therefore there must be another world,
and that's the world of the godly. There's the world of the ungodly
and the world of the godly. Look at John chapter 6. This
is further illustrated here in John chapter 6. And here's our
Lord's discourse upon Himself being the bread of life. The
day before this, the Savior had fed thousands of people with
bread and fish. The next day, He reveals Himself
as being the bread of life. Look at John chapter 6, look
at verse 31. Now that's what the Jews said. They said, Our fathers did eat
manna in the desert. As it is written, He gave them
bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from
heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.
For the bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and
giveth His life unto the world." There's the world of the ungodly,
and then there's the world which the Savior came to give His life
for. There are two different worlds.
Now notice this, just sort of in passing. He says, for the
bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, but he doesn't
say, and offers life to the world. He doesn't say that. And this
is a vital point that needs to be understood. The Savior, He
didn't come into this world to offer Himself to sinners, or
to offer anything else to sinners. When He's spoken of as being
an offering, He's always the offering to the Father. Isn't
that right? He's always the offering to the
Father. I hear people say, we believe
in the free offer of the gospel. It's not an offer! It's not an
offer! The offering of the Lord Jesus
is not to us, but to the Father. It's like every sacrifice in
the Old Testament. It's said of those, it's the
blood before the Lord. It was for God. When our Lord
Jesus died, He was offering Himself a sacrifice unto God. You see, if something is offered,
There is certainly the implication that either that which is offered
will be received or rejected. And men love that. They love,
well, I believe in the universal offer of the gospel. Yeah, because
that puts all of the glory for salvation to the sinner. It's
up to you. But our Lord Jesus is not offered
to sinners. He was an offering to God. An
offering to God. I'll give you an illustration
of this in Luke 23, 36. It says, while the Savior was
on the cross, when He was first on the cross, they offered Him
vinegar. That was to dull the pain. They
offered Him vinegar. Will He receive it? Will He reject
it? Well, He rejected it. Now after
the three hours, they offered Him vinegar again. He accepted
it. He accepted it. You see, an offer
indicates you either receive it, accept it, or reject it. Our Lord Jesus is not an offering
to us. The blood is not offered to you.
Well, will you accept what Jesus did for you? What Jesus did is
not offered to you. We reap the results of what He did.
But His sacrifice was offered to the Holy Father whose law
had been offended, whose justice was aggravated, and rightly so
because of our sinfulness. And He was the offering to God.
Well, will God reject or accept? God accepted Him. because of
who offered it and what the offering was. The one who offered the
offering was the Son of God, and that which He offered was
the sacrifice of Himself. And God received it. God accepted
it. So the Savior doesn't say, and
offereth life unto the world, but He giveth. He giveth life
unto the world. You see, there's a world that's
born in spiritual death, that will live in spiritual death,
and die in spiritual death, and suffer the second death forever
and ever and ever. There's that world. That's the
world of the goats. That's the world of the ungodly.
All of those that perished outside of the ark, they were the world
of the ungodly. Noah was not numbered among the
world of the ungodly. None of God's people are. There
is that world that Christ Jesus came to die for. And He gives to that world everlasting
life. Look at one more passage on this.
Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 5. The book of 2 Corinthians chapter
5. Our brother read this a few minutes
ago. Let me just read two or three
more verses. Look at verse 18. 2 Corinthians 5.18, And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself
by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation,
to wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself. That's the world of the godly.
That's the world of the elect. That's the world that God loved. That's the world of which we're
numbered by the grace of God. reconciling the world unto himself,
not imputing their trespasses unto them. You see, the world
of the ungodly, their trespasses are imputed to them. They are
charged to them. And they are going to die in
their sins. But there is another world, and all of the trespasses
of those of that world, they are not imputed to them. Our
trespasses are not charged to us. Oh, they're our trespasses. They're our sins. They're ours. But they've been lifted off of
us and they've been charged to a worthy substitute. One that
God approved of. And He died in our stead. He died in the stead of this
world of the godly. And He's committed to us the
word of reconciliation to tell people about this. Now then, we're ambassadors of
Christ. As though God did beseech you
by us, we pray you in Christ's stead, be you reconciled to God. Now, if this world of God's elect,
this world that He came to give life to, If our trespasses are
not imputed or charged to us, well then who are they charged
to? Who are they imputed to? That's what verse 21 answers.
Verse 21 answers that question. For God the Father hath made
God the Son to be sin for us who knew no sin. that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. You see, it only
stands to reason. I've heard people try to get
around imputation in this passage. There's no way to get around
imputation in this passage. Because the fact that our trespasses
are not imputed to us naturally raises the question, well then,
to whom are they imputed? Who are they charged to? And
the answer is they were charged to somebody who had no sin of
his own. A perfect substitute. And when
he died, he died the perfect sacrifice for sin. The just died
for the unjust to bring us to God. Why did God send His Son into
this world? Why was Christ sent? Well, the
answer is given. Go back over here to John 3 real
quick. God sent not His Son into the
world to condemn the world. In fact, if you look at Romans
5, 8, 10, the world is condemned. We are condemned already. We
are already condemned. We are condemned in Adam. But that the world, the world
of the godly, the world of the elect, the world of God's people, that this world through Him might
be saved. Now that word might, that doesn't
mean maybe they will, maybe they won't. It means in order that. Why did God send His Son? He
sent His Son in order that the world of His elect would be saved. Well, did He save the world of
His elect? Well, let's see. His name is
Jesus. Which means, for he shall save
his people from their sins. But does he have the authority,
does he have power to save his people from their sins? Oh yes,
because you see his name is also Emmanuel, God with us. He's able to save, this is what
we read in Hebrews, he's able to save to the uttermost all
that come to God by him. Why did God send Him? He sent
Him to save us. He sent Him because He loved
us and He sent Him to save us and He sends the Holy Spirit
to convince us of what Christ did and who Christ is and to
seal us in the Gospel, what the Lord does. Let's sing 127, right?