What Wondrous Love is This?
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Context
New Birth
Necessary to see and enter the Kingdom
Sparked a good question by Nicodemus
The Thesis of Jesus’ whole conversation is “You Must Be Born Again”
What do we think of when we hear the term “Born again?”
Life
Miracle
Fatherhood
This new birth that Jesus describes, the one we “must have” in order to know God. This is imperative. This is critical.
That is why this passage, and one of the pinnacle verses in it, John 3:16, has become one of the most well known, memorized, well loved, and oft-repeated verses in all the Bible.
It is the Old Old Story, and sometimes falls as repetitive or even dull on our ears. Does it fall as repetitive and dull on your ears?
Shaping our Life, Shaping our Church
As fundamental and profound as Jesus says this truth is, that we must be born again, does this shape our lives?
are you born again?
do you view life in Christ as something that needs this kind of miraculous and foundational beginning?
do you dwell in this “new birth?” or are you content to sink back into the old man?
We can ask the same question about church life.
do we see this fundamental need as our chief rally cry? People must be born again, and we have this message of life.
does this need, and the clear and amazing news that comes with it - the gospel - shape our actions and priorities as a church family, a church body?
Let us look at this ever old but ever new scripture together, and let us pray together that God will give us eyes to see - either for the first time, or in a renewed way.
What will come of it?
If you are not born again, that God will work this miraculous work in you, giving you new life, a new beginning.
In our church, that we can “catch the vision” for the gospel in a fresh way.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
God has given his love in a way that is surprising, miraculous, and profound to all who will come to him.
God has given his love in a way that is surprising, miraculous, and profound to all who will come to him.
Who?
Who?
First who, God. It all begins with God.
From the very first verse of scripture, we find this theme. “In the beginning, God.”
John actually repeats and transfers that theme in the beginning of this book. Whether it is the beginning of creation existence as we know it, or the beginning of new creation and new life, the beginning is God.
Nobody imposed upon God to create the world, and nobody imposed upon God to show this wondrous love.
There was no twisting of God’s arm in displaying his beauty in creation, in bringing other beings into existence. And there was no twisting of God’s arm in setting his love upon his people, giving forgiveness and new life, opening blind eyes and softening stony hearts.
It all begins with God, and it all goes toward God. After all, what was the purpose behind the new birth? To see and enter God’s Kingdom. We could search the rest of scripture to find out why this is desirable - but to put it simply, where God is truly king, the citizens of that Kingdom are at peace.
Second who, the recipients.
The world, generally. All who will believe, specifically.
From the beginning of creation, God’s intention was not to have a general relationship with all of people, a leave it or take it kind of thing, but rather an intimate, familial, loving relationship with a people who will take his name, display his character, and reflect his glory.
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
cf. Deuteronomy 7:6.
What does this tell us?
That God’s character of love, his goodness and awesome power is not intended to be a generally known truth that is part of the makeup of life. It is meant to be intimately known, and he is meant to be intimately known. And those who come to him are intended to know him and be known by him. So see and know his power, to understand and be changed by the fact that we are his, and he is ours.
And again, this begins with God. We can’t see him unless he shows himself to us. We can’t know him unless he makes himself known to us. We can’t love him unless he first loves us.
Stop there for reflection for a moment. How do we apply that in our lives, Christian?
Do you think much about that fact, that if you know God it is because he has revealed himself to you?
Do you think about that, church, that God has set his love upon us as a people for his own possession, to take his name, display his character, and reflect his glory?
How will your life, and our lives, be different when we have this purpose in mind?
What?
What?
“so loved...”
We often read that as “he loved so much…” “You are so in trouble...”
But it is a demonstration, a teaching moment here.
He loved “in this way...”
What kind of love? how deep is it? how intense is it? how serious is it? how real is it? how affective is it?
In this way - that he gave.
He made the first move, and his move was to give.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
He gave his son to bring back his people.
Cynically, you could say that he gave to get… That is true in a sense. He gave his son to get you and I - all the believers.
But what a perfect kind of relationship. There is no sinful jealousy or sinful greed here. It is a desire to be glorified in redemption and love.
And he keeps giving, working through us as a means to display this love, to keep drawing people to this wondrous love.
Do you see and know this, dear one?
And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
Again - remember the stakes here.
This is in order to see and know God, to see and enter his kingdom. But it is not as if there is either positive or neutral - no, this is God’s world. Those who don’t see and enter him are not ignored by him, but face his righteous wrath.
God’s wrath is his goodness standing against that which is evil, and apart from him we all stand in that pathway.
How true is is wrath, and how tied to his goodness and love is it? It is so tied to it, that the way he remedied it was to pour it out on his own Son, for all who will believe.
What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, O my soul!
What wondrous love is this, that caused the Lord of bliss
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul, for my soul,
to bear the dreadful curse for my soul.
When I was sinking down,
Sinking down, sinking down;
When I was sinking down
Sinking down
When I was sinking down,
Beneath God's righteous frown,
Christ laid aside his crown
For my soul, for my soul!
Christ laid aside his crown
For my soul!
GOd’s love and wrath are intrinsically tied together, and they are both tied to his goodness and holiness. What kind of goodness winks at wickedness, vileness, murder, hatred, and all kinds of filth?
And what kind of love takes the blame and punishment for all that?
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
for us - in our place.
What kind of love?
A love that makes the first move
A love that gives
A love that is pure - tied to goodness and holiness
A love that sacrifices, and substitutes.
So What?
So What?
“That all the believing ones would not perish, but have everlasting life...”
The love is strong, and the stakes are high.
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
When we ask “so what” we ask what does it mean? What is the value?
May we not simply say “so what.”
For all of us, concerning what we need.
Must be born again.
To know and see God
To be freed from the stream of wrath
To be given eternal life
as believers, concerning what we have, what’s been done.
as believers, concerning this message that we have.
