The Gospel According to John

Biblical Research Monthly
October, 1955
Dr. David L. Cooper
(Installment Nine)

"FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD"

In our studies in the Gospel of John we are considering the conversation which Jesus had with Nicodemus, the record of which is found in the third chapter. Although Nicodemus was, as we have already seen, a ruler of Israel, he did not understand the primary elemental facts and principles with regard to salvation and the kingdom of God upon earth. There are many people in his condition today, though they are highly educated, cultured, and refined. The primary object in life is to prepare for eternity. The way to prepare for it is to be born again, that is, to be born of the Spirit—to become a new creature in Christ Jesus by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit: "For we also once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. 4 But when the kindness of God our Saviour, and his love toward man, appeared, 5 not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy he saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 which he poured out upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour; 7 that, being justified by his grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life" (Tit. 3:3-7).

Jesus reprimanded Nicodemus for not having understood the elemental facts regarding this spiritual kingdom. Then he pressed home the point that, if Nicodemus and his associates could not understand the elementary things such as the new birth, how could they believe if He, Jesus, spoke of heavenly things. The Lord Jesus was the only man who was thoroughly qualified to speak about heavenly realities; because He, after He had entered the world by miraculous conception and virgin birth, had ascended to heaven and, as the Son of man, the God-man, had seen the realities of heaven.

Then coming back to the necessity of salvation, the Lord Jesus, in verses 14 and 15, drew a parallel between the Israelites who were bitten by serpents, and who looked upon the brazen serpent and were healed physically, and those who are sin-sick, and who look to Jesus as He is lifted up upon the Cross, and are healed of their spiritual ailments. One must look and live.

God so Loved the World

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life" (John 3:16). This passage is called the people's verse, because it applies to everyone—every person of all tribes and races regardless of conditions and circumstances. Remember that it is God—the self-existent One in whom we live and move and have our being—who has loved the world, and still loves it. His heart goes out to every creature. One of the reasons why He loved us is that we are all His offspring. Just as a father pitieth his children, so doth Jehovah pity His offspring:

13 Like as a father pitieth his children,
     So Jehovah pitieth them that fear him.
14 For he knoweth our frame;
     He remembereth that we are dust. (Ps. 103:13,14)

He pitied them and loved them to the extent that He gave His only begotten Son to die for them.

We are told that God loved the world. Though the term as employed here refers primarily to the physical globe, it is clear from the context that Jesus was talking about the people who live upon the earth. The reason for this interpretation is that the world of which He is speaking can believe or disbelieve and may voluntarily choose life or death. These facts show that "world" is not used here in its primary sense of referring to the literal physical globe on which we live, but to the people living upon it.

Someone has said that every man's name is written in John 3:16 in the relative pronoun "whosoever." Anyone can rewrite John 3:16 and substitute his own name instead of the pronoun "whosoever." When he has done so, he should meditate upon the tremendous import of this thought and praise God.

In many passages of Scripture we see reference made to God's loving us when we were in a helpless and hopeless condition. For instance, in Romans 5:6-8, we have this language; "For while we were yet weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: for peradventure for the good man someone would even dare to die, 8 But God commendeth his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." We were weak, in that the flesh is weak. Though we were in this condition, Christ died for us. Among men there is hardly one to be found who will die for a righteous man, although on some special occasion a person may be found who will dare to die for a good man. But God has commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He saw us in our helpless condition, left heaven, came to earth, suffered, and died for us that we through His suffering might have life. In the light of Christ's loving us and giving Himself up for us, a person can more fully comprehend what God means in Psalm 103:14-18:

      For he [the Lord] knoweth our frame;
      He remembereth that we are dust.
15  As for man, his days are as grass;
      As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
16  For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone;
      And the place thereof shall know it no more.
17  But the lovingkindness of Jehovah is from everlasting to everlasting
      upon them that fear him,
      And his righteousness unto children's children;
18  To such as keep his covenant,
      And to those that remember his precepts to do them."

Oh, the boundless, matchless love and compassion of God!
Now let us turn to the New Testament to see further what it tells us about the love of God.

Did Christ die for every individual in the entire universe? This question is answered in Hebrews 2:9, which reads as follows, "But we behold him who hath been made a littler lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that by the grace of God he should taste of death for every man." According to this verse Christ tasted death for every soul and made life eternal possible for every individual who has been born, or will be born. In I Timothy 2:1-3, the Apostle urges that the Christians pray for all people, especially for rulers, that they may legislate and conduct the affairs of government so that the people of God may lead quiet and peaceful lives in all godliness and gravity. Concerning such a prayer of faith, the Apostle declares, "This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; 4 who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:3,4). On the point of Christ's dying for all and willing that all should be saved, the Apostle Peter declares that "the Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).

When a person reads all these verses and many parallel and related passages, he is driven to the conclusion that Christ did make provision for the salvation of every soul that is born into this world. If anyone is not saved, it is on his own account.

God Gave

Someone has said that love always expresses itself in acts of kindness and goodness in behalf of the one who is loved. Love always sacrifices for the one loved. If there is no giving up nor sacrificing on the part of one person for another, we may be certain that that one, who lives a self-centered life, does not genuinely love the other. In that marvelous chapter, Romans 8, the Apostle speaks of God's love and of His giving up His Son for us and together with Him giving us all things. "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?" (Rom. 8:31, 32). Since God withheld not the greatest gift possible, namely, His Son, to suffer and die for us, it stands to reason that He will give us the lesser things that are necessary for our life both here and hereafter. In this connection I think of the song,

Count your blessings, name them one by one
And it will surprise you, what the Lord hath done.

Innumerable are God's provisions and mercies for us every day. Let us praise Him for all His gifts and bounties.

Everyone Must Believe

Since God gave and Christ came and opened up the new and living way of approach to God, it is for man simply to believe and receive. Salvation is put in the simplest terms in order to make it accessible to everyone in the world. Praise God because salvation is not offered to the wise as such, to the strong, to the rich, to the beautiful and handsome, and to the affable. Few people could qualify under those conditions. The Lord has graciously, through love for everyone, put salvation in the simplest terms possible—only believe, only trust. On one occasion the Lord Jesus spoke of salvation in the simplest terms as seen in John 5:24: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life." According to our Lord's statement, when one hears the Word with an open heart and believes that God has sent Christ as a propitiation for his sins, he is given eternal life—he that "believeth him that sent me hath eternal life." Anyone who thus believes has eternal life and is assured that he shall never come into judgment, since he has passed out of death into life. The judgment here mentioned is the judgment of the great white throne, before which the lost will appear, in the second resurrection (Rev. 20:11-15).

In connection with our examination of John 3:16, let us turn to the conversion of the Philippian jailor (Acts 16:11-34). At midnight Paul and Silas were singing and praising God, notwithstanding the fact that they were in pain—having been beaten and unjustly thrown into prison. Suddenly there was an earthquake which caused the doors of the prison to swing open. The jailor—thinking that the prisoners had probably escaped and realizing that he was responsible to the authorities for the safe-keeping of the prisoners—drew his sword, and was about to kill himself. The Apostle Paul, seeing him in the very act, cried out with a loud voice, saying, "do thyself no harm, for we are all here." Then he called for lights and "sprang in and, trembling for fear, fell down before Paul and Silas and brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" This man was in dead earnest. He realized that he was face to face with the power of God. He wanted to be saved and to get right with God. In answer to his question as to how to be saved, Paul and Silas said to him, "…Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house" (Acts 16:31). The man asked a direct question as to what he must do to be saved. The Apostle, inspired of God, told, him exactly how to be saved, namely, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Possibly if some of us had been there and had been asked the same question, we would have given a different reply—one with some addition or modification. Since the inspired Apostle told him to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be saved, we should say the same thing today.

But some people today, having a legalistic slant upon the gospel, insist that a person must obey some command to be saved. For, they tell us that faith always implies obedience—faith invariably manifests itself in some outward act. Hence they say that the command to believe in Christ is in reality a command which implies some act by which the faith is perfected. Is this position correct? No. In the eleventh chapter of Hebrews we have an abridged roll call of faith—God's honor roll. We are told that faith is "the assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen." Faith then is the assurance of the thing for which we hope. It is a conviction of things not seen and not possessed. By faith the elders had witness borne to them. They believed God implicitly. Because they did so, God gave them witness that they were acceptable to Him. We are furthermore told that "by faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear." We understand that the worlds have been created by the word of God. This belief was a profound conviction with them. Such a conviction in this instance could not assert itself in action; yet it was faith—the same kind of faith as that which Abel had when he offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. It was the same kind of faith as that by which Noah erected the ark. It was the same kind of faith as that by which Abraham forsook his native land and went to a land which God promised to show him.

Let us take a further look at faith and ascertain whether or not it always has to express itself in action in order to be faith. Speaking further of these worthies of faith, the Apostle Paul, the writer of the Book of Hebrews, declares that there were certain ones, "who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens. 35 Women received their dead by resurrection: and others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection; 36 and others had trials of mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: 37 they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, they were tempted, they were slain with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated 38 (Heb. 11:33-38). Some of these had an opportunity of expressing their faith in actions, whereas others of these did not have an opportunity of doing anything. Yet the faith of all of them is recognized as faith by the Lord and was acceptable to Him.

Whenever a person has faith, and God instructs him to do anything, he will do it without question. The thing—and the only thing—which obtains salvation is faith.

Necessity of the New Birth

Man's nature is corrupt. He must be born again. He must experience the new birth, which is accomplished, as we have already learned, by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. Whenever a person in absolute trust turns his case over to the Lord Jesus and accepts Him as the atonement for his sin, the Holy Spirit regenerates his heart and brings him to the new birth. Without this spiritual experience no one can be saved. It is offered to one and all, free and without price.

The life which is imparted at the new birth remains in one. He can never lose it. The one who believes has eternal life—that spiritual life which lasts throughout time and all eternity. This position is affirmed by the Apostle John in the following quotation: "Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin (does not continue in the practice of sin), because his seed abideth in him: and he cannot sin (continue sinning), because he is begotten of God" (literal translation of 1 John 3:9). This new nature implanted in the soul at the new birth abides in the person thus saved through out time and all eternity.

Praise God for such a wonderful salvation as is offered to us in Christ.