“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”. That’s John 3, John 3:16.
Whoever believes in Jesus will not perish, but will have everlasting life.
I’d like to explore the meaning and the nature of belief, of faith. by looking at some passages of Scripture which illustrate that meaning. First of all, Martha’s conversation with the Lord Jesus after her brother Lazarus died. You find that in John 11:21 onwards. We’ll read it together.
“Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you. Jesus said to her, Your brother will rise again. Martha said to him, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection, on the last day. Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this? She said to him, Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
Martha anchored her faith in the person of Jesus Christ. She believed on him because she had heard and seen what he said and did. No doubt she had heard from first hand witnesses, the disciples, who all testified to the truth of what they had seen him do and say. Her faith was not placed in some abstract idea, based on a blind acceptance of what he said, it was based on evidence. Here standing before her was the one who had given sight to a man born blind. Here was a man who had fed five thousand men plus women and children with five loaves and two fish. Here was the man who healed a paralysed man who lay at the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem for thirty eight years. This man had spoken truth to power and refuted every attempt by the Pharisees to discredit his claim to deity. He had proved beyond all doubt that he was indeed the Messiah who had come into the world from above.
Jesus said, “If you don’t believe what I say, believe my works.”
The miracles of healing and divine power prove beyond all shadow of doubt that Jesus is the co-equal, co-eternal Son of God. He was David’s son, and he was David’s Lord, the promised Saviour of both Jew and Gentile, whose coming was foretold by the Hebrew prophets centuries before he was born in Bethlehem.
Those Hebrew prophets foretold that he was to be the Saviour not only of Jews but of Gentiles also.
Isaiah 49:6, it says
“It’s too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give you for a light to the Gentiles. that you may be my salvation to the end of the earth.”
They spoke of his divine nature, just as the angel Gabriel came to tell Mary that the Son that would be born to her would “be great, and shall be called the Son of the Most High.” And in saying that he reiterated What Isaiah had foretold in Isaiah 9 :
“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. Of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with judgment and with righteousness from henceforth even for ever.”
And the Hebrew prophet Micah foretold the place of his birth. He said,
“But you, Bethlehem Ephratha, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of you shall come one come forth to me that is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting.” (Micah 5:2)
This was an eternal person who came into this world. And Martha knew the Hebrew prophets and the prophecies concerning the Messiah. And so coupling that with the evidence of his deeds and his words, when Jesus said to her,
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live And every one who lives and believes in me shall never die”.
He said to her, ‘Do you believe this’? And she said, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe”. “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God”.
The scripture says about Abraham that
“Abraham believed God and IT was counted to him for righteousness.”
His faith in God was counted for righteousness. “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness”. The emphasis is not on the quantity or the quality of Abraham’s faith, but on the person in whom he trusted. Abraham’s faith was measured in terms of his trust in God. The person in whom he trusted, on whose word he trusted, was the all-important thing.
And Jesus measured faith in terms of its presence or its absence. When the disciples in Matthew 17 were unable to cast out a demon from a little boy, it says that “Jesus rebuked the demon” and the demon: “the devil went out from him and the boy was cured from that hour. And then the disciples came to Jesus. (separately) “apart, and they said, Why could we not cast it out? And he said to them, Because of your little faith.” And the Greek word for little faith there, apistia means unbelief, or faithlessness, or lack of faith.
Jesus said to them, “For verily I say to you, if you have faith as a grain a grain of mustard seed You’ll say to this mountain, remove hence to yonder place, and it shall remove, and nothing shall be impossible to you.”
So in effect he was saying, So long as your faith is placed in the source of life, the source of power, of absolute power, so long as your faith is placed in God, it doesn’t matter how much how small or how fragile it may be, because God sees what’s in your heart - or not.
And the Lord Jesus saw the lack of faith in his disciples’ hearts, the failure to look to God who is all-powerful, to whom nothing is impossible.
By contrast, in Abraham’s case, God saw that despite the lack of human evidence, the barrenness of Sarah’s womb, and his own old age. Abraham’s trust in the promise of God was steadfast. It says in Romans 4 that
“Abraham did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead, since he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised”.
That is why, as it says in Romans 4, his faith was “counted to him as righteousness”. He believed that God would be true to his promise; he believed God was able, had the power, to fulfil that promise, even if the fulfilment of that promise depended on the exercise of supernatural power: raising Isaac from the dead. And because Abraham trusted fully and completely in God’s power and promise, God credited Abraham with righteousness. not a righteousness of his own, but an imputed righteousness - the vindication that came from his trust in God being proven to be completely justified.
The scripture says, “He that believes on him should not perish”.
“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. “
Romans 10, it says,
“Belief comes of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”
And earlier in the same chapter from verse 8, we’ll just read it. It says there,
“the word, (that is, the word of God) is near you, in your mouth, and in your heart. That is the word of faith which we preach because if you shall confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and shall believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes to righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Whosoever believes on him shall not be put to shame’. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek,” (or Jew and Gentile ) “for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
So faith, in what or in whom?
Faith in the Word of God. Faith in the person upon whose word we trust. If a man’s word is his bond, then how much more reliable is the word of God, who does not and cannot lie. So it can’t possibly be blind faith because it’s based on something substantial.
And what could be more substantial than the beautiful creation that God has made? Just look around at the beautiful world in which we live. A world so complex and interdependent it could never have come about by chance, by the thousands of millions of supposed happy accidents that those who put blind faith in the preposterous theory of evolution must believe in.
Creation requires a creator. A work of art requires an artist. A design requires a designer.
And if we say that faith is based on truth, well how do we know if what they say is true? Well, Jesus said - and he has his deeds and his words to back him up - He said, “I am the way “ said to Thomas the doubter, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.”
Romans 10: “belief comes of hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”
“Whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
This is no exclusive invitation to a select few. Whosoever - whoever - means anyone, it means all, because all - all of us, each one of us - have sinned and fallen short of the grace of God and the glory of God, it says in Romans 6. “There’s none”, (or Romans 3), “there’s none righteous, no, not one”.
Isaiah again says, “All we like sheep have gone astray”, all of us. “We’ve turned every one to his own way. and God has laid on him,” on his only begotten Son, “the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53). All. Christ died for all. Therefore the invitation is open to all.
“Whosoever, - (whoever )- believes on him should not perish, but have everlasting life”.
Jesus said to Martha,
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. and every one who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
Do you believe this?
That question comes to you now. Do you believe that Jesus is the resurrection and the life? Do you believe that he’ll be true to his word when he promised, everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die?
So I put his question to you, “Do you believe this?” And I hope you will answer with Martha:
“Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God.” I believe you died on the cross to redeem me from eternal destruction. I believe you’ll keep your promise and give me eternal life.
“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.“ (John 3:16)
May God bless His Word to you.
