The Bible in Miniature

John 3:16-36

INTRODUCTION

What would you do for love?

Emperor Shah Jahan, to show his love for his late wife, Mumtaz Mahal gave her a great palace for her final resting place known today as the Taj Mahal. It took 22 years to build and cost 32 million rupees, the modern equivalent of around 1 billion pounds.

When we love somebody, we express our love through giving; giving of our time, our passions, our money and our resources. Real love is costly. Love that comes on the cheap isn’t truly love, it’s something else.

Meat Loaf famously sang “I would do anything for love.”

But what would you do for the love of someone who hated you? What would you give for the love of someone who really didn’t care whether you existed or not? “But I won’t do that” to quote Meat Loaf again… Now we’re getting closer to understanding something of what John 3:16 is saying.

John 3:16 is without a shadow of a doubt one of the most famous and indeed most glorious verses in the whole of the Bible - John 3:16. But arguably it’s not a verse that’s terribly well understood.

In chapter 3 John records a meeting between Jesus and the Pharisee Nicodemus. Their conversation is recorded for us at the beginning of the chapter. But because there is no such thing as speech marks in Koine Greek it’s not absolutely clear where Jesus and Nicodemus’s conversation ends and where John’s own commentary begins. Most believe that Jesus’s words end in verse 15 and then John picks it up in verse 16. And I believe that is the case - the language in verses 16-21 is very like John and not so much like the language Jesus used. Verses 16-21 are like John’s commentary on what Jesus has said to Nicodemus.

Our passage today splits down into three parts:

Verses 16-21 (The Bible in miniature)

Verses 22-30 (The Bridegroom and His friend)

Verses 31-36 (The Father’s Messenger)

THE BIBLE IN MINIATURE (16-21)

Martin Luther said famously of John 3:16 that it is The Bible in Miniature, like a tiny miniature replica it contains condensed within it many of the larger themes of the whole of the Bible.

It begins with God of course, ‘for God so...’ just as the Bible begins with God, so does the gospel and so should all of our thinking - it should begin with He not me!

It goes on to tells us about who God is - that He is a God of love. He’s not some sort of concept, or some sort of impersonal life force - He is a personal God, He is a relational God, He is a loving God. And if you don’t know that about Him then you don’t truly know Him.

And He has set His great love upon the World. And it's His love that is the cause of the Son coming into the world. But it’s worth pausing for a moment to consider the object of God’s love.

The Gospel according to John 6. Extended Comment I (3:16–21)

God’s love is to be admired not because the world is so big and includes so many people, but because the world is so bad: - DA Carson

It’s easy to love something that’s lovely in itself, it’s easy to desire that which is desireable, it’s easy to love those who love you back. But to love that which is not altogether lovely, to desire that which is not in itself desireable, to love those who are to be honest, ambivalent about you - now that’s something else altogether!!

This is the incredible scandal of the gospel - that God’s love reaches out to those who don’t deserve it! God’s love is grace!

Romans 5:6–8 ESV

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Elsewhere John writes in his first epistle that we are not to love the world or anything in it (1 John 2:15-17) - John often uses the word kosmos or world not to refer to the literal planet earth, or even to simply refer to all humanity, but to actually speak of the sinfulness and darkness of humanity. But God is able to love the world - His love isn’t like our love, God’s love is holy, pure and cleansing. He isn’t defiled by unclean things like we are - His love cleanses whatever it touches.

Many people read the start of the verse like this - For God soooooo loved… Like the word was speaking of the volume of God’s love. When actually the Greek word translated as so is the word houtos, which means ‘thus’. So what it actually says in the Greek is - For God thus loved the world… that He gave His only begotten son.” So is it telling us about the volume of God’s love? Yes absolutely, but in a literal sense it’s telling us about the manner of God’s love, about how He has loved the world.

He has loved the world through giving up his only begotten son. Giving up His son Jesus Christ as an offering for sin, giving him up to death, even on the cross.

John not only tells us the manner in which God has loved the world - He also tells us how to access God’s love… Through believing in His son.

Many quote the beginning of verse 16 to prove the universality of God’s love as though that were the final message of all scripture - God loves the whole world, there you have it - so stop with all this gloomy talk of wrath and judgement and hell. But that’s not where the verse and indeed this who passage ends. John goes on to say that God’s saving love is accessed only by those who believe.

Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, 28th Edition Chapter 3

ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλʼ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον.*

The literal reading is ‘that all those believing in Him might not perish but have eternal life.’ No one accesses God’s saving love outside of faith in Jesus Christ.

The root word for “believe” appears no less than 5 times in this passage - it’s something that John really wants for us to get - You don’t access God’s saving love through just existing, nor can you receive it by being good, you receive it by believing in the Son.

John 3:16 tells us this; that God loves us radically in and through His Son; Jesus Christ. If we don’t feel his love, if we can’t discern his love in a low point in life we need only look at Jesus and we can know - He came because of God’s love for me. And we can enter into God’s love through faith in Christ.

I don't always feel His presence. But God's promises do not depend upon my feelings; they rest upon His integrity.

R. C. Sproul

When we believe on Christ we receive what belongs to Him, and He takes what belonged to us - the great exchange. And we are transformed - we are born again, we become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 8:1 ESV

1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

So why doesn’t everyone believe then? It’s so simple - God has made it so easy to be saved so why doesn’t everyone believe?

Because of this… John 3:19

John 3:19 ESV

19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil

The reason more people don’t love God is because they love something else more - darkness. Why do they love the dark? Because they don’t want accountability, they want to keep doing whatever makes them happy, whatever gives them the most pleasure - they see God as the cosmic killjoy. The reason why more people don’t love God? Because they love their sin more.

THE BRIDEGROOM AND HIS FRIEND (22-30)

Then in verse 22 we follow Jesus and His disciples out of Jerusalem and into the countryside where they were baptising people. John the baptist was nearby also baptising people in the River Jordan at a place names Aenon.

John’s disciples come to him and tell him that Jesus is now also baptising and that ‘all are going to him.’ Chapter 4 verse 2 clarifies that it was Jesus’s disciples doing the baptising not he himself.

You might imagine that some of John’s disciples could have had their noses put out of joint by Jesus’s growing popularity. Almost saying - Rabbi, what are you going to do about this?

But John isn’t jealous, he doesn’t see this as Jesus stealing his ministry; he rejoices greatly. He says - the one who has the bride is the bridegroom (meaning Jesus). And the friend of the bridegroom (meaning himself) who stands and hears him rejoices greatly at the bridegrooms voice.

There’s no place for jealousy and self interest in gospel ministry - the end goal is to see the bride come to the bridegroom and rejoice at His voice! There’s no place for big names, and big brands - only one big name; Jesus.

“He must increase, but I must decrease.” John recognises that the baton has been passed - his work is done, he has prepared the way for the Messiah and now the Messiah is here. What a sense of peace and joy John must have felt - to know that he had fulfilled His purpose in the Lord and now his time to exit stage has come and the time for Jesus to take the stage has arrived.

All our work in this life should be to see the name of Jesus increase and to see ours decrease. Not that we look to denegrate ourselves or talk ourselves down - but that we make so much of Jesus that we make little of ourselves in comparison.

THE FATHER’S MESSENGER (31-36)

In verse 31 it’s almost like John picks up what he was saying in verses 16-21. But John places this bit of narrative about John the baptist there to emphasis again that Jesus’s ministry is not like that of another prophet, he’s not another John the baptist, his ministry is greater than that of John the baptist’s it’s greater than that of the chief priests and pharisees - His ministry is not from earth it’s from heaven.

Christ is unique - You you mustn't put anybody near him. You mustn't mention him in the same category as Confucius or the Buddha or Muhammad or anybody else. Why? Because he is the only begotten son of God. - MLJ

Jesus is above all, John says, He utters the very words of God, He gives the Holy Spirit without measure, He is the Son of God the Father, and the Father has given all things into His hand.

Jesus is the Apostle of the Father -He is God the Father’s messenger in the world, and as such, those who reject the Messenger also reject the one who sent Him; the Father. You can’t love God but reject God’s messenger. You can’t claim to follow the God of the Bible but reject the one whom He has sent.

John 3:36 “36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

Notice what it says - whoever believes/whoever does not obey. You’d expect it to say whoever believes/whoever does not believe in the Son but it doesn’t. Why? Well, because belief in Christ isn’t something that the God commends, it’s something that He commands. To not believe in Christ is to disobey Him - it’s not morally neutral in other words, it’s sinful. To not believe in the Son is to reject God the Father as well. And the wrath of God remains upon the one who does not believe.