1. God
"God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes on him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16) - an address by Jo Johnson about the God of the Bible.
John 3:16, these are the words I believe that the Lord Jesus spoke to Nicodemus by night.
He said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have eternal life or everlasting life,” it says in the New King James Version.
So the starting point is God, “For God so loved the world.”
Who is this mighty person called God? A supernatural being who has a heart of such affection that His love encompasses the world, the world and all its inhabitants. The starting point for everything that we want to know about God is His own revelation about Himself in the Bible. And the Bible claims to be - and is - the Word of God, the inspired Word of God. That is, it's the words that men wrote down, men who were believers in God, they were seekers after God, and their lives were governed by the truth that God had revealed to them. Men like Moses and David and the Hebrew prophets, they were in touch with God in their lives, and through them God revealed to them and to us through their God-breathed writings, the inspired Word of God, God revealed many truths about the heart of God and about the heart of man. And so there’s a supernatural power in the Word of God that's absent in every other book that you may read in this world.
When we read the Bible, we're reading the living Word of God. It says in Hebrews chapter 4:
“For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
That’s how accurate and precise the Word of God can be. It gets to the very heart of human need and thought and action.
The Bible was written in two parts, the Old Testament and the New Testament. It documents God’s dealings with men since the beginning of time, and it spans a time period of 7,000 years. I say 7,000 because it also looks forward to the final 1,000 years of this earth, which is still to be fulfilled. And it contains truths about the nature of God and the nature of man and their relation to each other.
So the Bible tells us that God is omnipotent, God is omniscient, God is omnipresent. He’s omnipotent, He's all-powerful, He's omniscient, He's all-knowing and all-seeing. He’s omnipresent, He’s everywhere at the same time. And it tells us that man is mortal, and man is sinful, man is rebellious, man is proud, selfish and foolish. I could provide scripture references to support what I’m saying, but today I want to concentrate on some basic concepts about God that we find in His Word.
The very first words in the Bible reveal God as the creator of our world and the universe that surrounds us. You go back to Genesis 1:1, it says,
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
And in Genesis 1, you’ll find that the Hebrew word for God [Elohim] is a plural word. It's not singular, it’s more than one person. Because He says in Genesis 1:26, He says, “Let us make man in our image.” Plural. God said, “Let US make man in OUR image.”
That's why we believe that God is a Trinity. Three distinct persons, but one in essence, in purpose and in unity. The Holy Trinity, a Trinity of holiness. That’s a concept that’s beyond the ability of the human mind to understand. But we believe it because it’s both implicitly and explicitly stated in the Word of God. For instance, it's implicitly stated in the utterances of the living creatures that were seen by the Hebrew prophet Isaiah - in Isaiah 6. And he saw these living creatures above the throne of God in heaven in a vision. And they cry,
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty.
The whole earth is full of His glory.”
“The Lord, God, the Almighty”, three persons. “Holy, holy, holy.” - Yet did God not instruct Israel in Deuteronomy 6 through Moses, He said, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” - ?
One Lord! Ah, but the word God there is the Hebrew Elohim, plural. The Lord our plural God is one Lord. So there you have the truth of the Trinity, and yet God is one, and yet God is three persons.
But back to the Gospel according to John. The very first words of the New Testament revelation of God in the Gospel by John also go back to the beginning of the world's creation and give us a deeper understanding of the identity and nature of the supreme, all-powerful Creator. So let's go to John 1 and read the first three verses.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that has been made."
If you go to the beginning of the book of Hebrews, the writer to Jewish Christians in the first century AD, he began his letter like this. He said,
“God, having of old times spoken to the fathers in the prophets by diverse portions and in diverse manners, has at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things,
through whom also He made the worlds.”
God has spoken at the end of the ages in His Son, '“hrough whom He made the worlds.” You go back to John's Gospel and later in chapter 1 of John's Gospel, John reveals more about this wonderful person who is called the Word of God.
"In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
He says in verse 14,
"And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John bears witness, John [the Baptist] bears witness of Him and cries, saying,
‘This was he of whom I said, He that comes after me is become before me, for he was before me.’
For of His fullness we all received and grace for grace, for the law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.
No man has seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him."
So this divine person described by John as “the Word”, who was in the beginning with God, through whom all things were made - this divine person who was God and is God became flesh, took on a body of flesh and blood, became one of us. The hymn writer said it well,
The great Creator became my Saviour,
And all God's fullness dwelleth in Him.
John names this eternal person who is himself God. He says, “We saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” And then he says, “the law was given by Moses, Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”
He names this person, the Word became flesh, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Another old hymn says:
"Who is He in yonder stall,
At whose feet the shepherds fall?
Tis the Lord, the King of glory,
At His feet we humbly fall,
Laud, Him own Him, Lord of all.”
Yes, the child who was born of a virgin in Bethlehem was none other than Immanuel. Isaiah, foretold His coming. He said:
"The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel."
And the Hebrew word Immanuel means God with us. God is with us. This person came down from heaven and became one of us. And yet he's in every sense divine. He belongs to heaven. And yet he took on a body of flesh and blood. So he has a dual nature, a divine, eternal, holy nature, and yet a human nature, because he has a body of flesh and blood.
The prophet Isaiah, as I said, foretold the coming of this Almighty person. He said, “For unto us a child is born” (Isaiah 9:6).
"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
This person is no other than God in human form. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” - “In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God … The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
“We beheld His glory," says John. “Glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth … Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ”. That’s the person we’re talking about.
Jesus identified Himself as God. As Neville was saying in prayer earlier, Jesus said before Abraham was, “I AM.” And he used the very same words that God used about Himself when He spoke to Moses at the burning bush. “I AM that I AM” (Exodus 3:14). And the Jews knew exactly what Jesus was saying. John 8, let’s read it. John 8:57:
“The Jews therefore said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Verily, verily,’ [or truly, truly], ‘I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.’ They took up stones therefore to cast at him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.”
Why did they take up stones to stone him? Because they believed that he was blaspheming by saying before Abraham was, “I AM.” Later they had another confrontation with the Lord Jesus where they explicitly stated that reason why they were again ready to stone him. John 10:27. Just over the page.
“My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. And I give to them eternal life and they shall never perish and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father which has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one. The Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, ‘Many good works have I showed you from the Father. For which of those works do you stone me?’ The Jews answered him, ‘For a good work we stone you not, but for blasphemy and because that you being a man makes yourself God.’”
“I and the Father are one” Jesus said.
So in summary, the Bible, which is the inspired word of God, makes it crystal clear that Jesus Christ is the physical embodiment of the Almighty, eternal Creator. He is none other than God in human form and Jesus himself explicitly said that this is who he was. "I and the Father are one." He said, "The Father is in me and I in the Father." So this makes it imperative that we find out more about the purpose of his coming to this world that he had made.
And for now I want to just sum up what I've been trying to communicate about God and his love in these wonderful words that Jesus spoke to Nicodemus in John 3:16.
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Jesus is talking about the love that God the Father has for this world, for you, for me. He so loved you, he so loved me that he gave his Son to be my Saviour, to be your Saviour. God gave his only Son, his only begotten Son.
Norma and I know what it was like to lose a son. Joel died very suddenly in front of us as we were having supper just a year and a half ago. And we were completely powerless to prevent his soul departing from the body. Nothing that we or our neighbour or the paramedics did to try and resuscitate him could bring him back. It didn't make any difference. And believe me, we did everything in our power to try and save him.
But that’s enough about us. We didn’t give our son’s life for the life of another. And certainly not for the life of a guilty person. And certainly not for the life of a guilty world.
But “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” - his only Son. For this world of guilty, rebellious, self-centred, proud sinners like you and me, He gave his only begotten Son for us.
That’s a love that goes far beyond the pale imitation that passes for love in our society today. That's what the Bible calls ‘agape’ love. The Greek word agape is the word that the Bible uses to describe the self-sacrificing love that God has shown to us when he gave his only begotten Son. It means making a deliberate choice to love, even when there's no love in return.
One of our hymns says,
"What was it, O our God, led you to give your Son,
To give your well-beloved for us by sin undone,
'twas love unbounded led you thus
To give your well-beloved for us."
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.”