This is another post on the love of God. Today, I am writing about John 3:16, a verse which has been called “the gospel in a nutshell”.
In confirmation classes, generations before me had to know many texts by heart. We did not. But what our pastor wanted us to learn was John 3:16:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (KJV).
For one year of my school time, we had Religious Instruction classes taught by a pastor. The unusual thing was that one of the pastor’s sons was one of us.
We all came to know this pastor as a teacher. Yet our classmate, the pastor’s son, was far more intimate with the pastor than all of us. He knew him as his father. He could have told us many things about his father that we would not have known.
God has sent His own Son into this world. Through Him, we can learn more about God’s love than through anyone else.
God gave his only begotten Son
Mankind had estranged itself from God since the days of Adam and Eve. Men had done many things that were evil in God’s eyes ever since.
God had chosen the people of Israel to reveal Himself to them. Yet all too often, they would rather serve other gods. God had sent prophets to them. Some would heed the prophetic messages. Others did not. Some prophets were even killed because they faithfully preached the word of God.
Keep this in mind to understand that God’s sending His only Son into the world – from God’s perspective – was not a very pleasant thing. God sent His Son as a mere human being. Men would have the power to harm the Son of God.
God Had A Plan
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:14+15 KJV).
Jesus was raised on the cross of Calvary. We are invited to look upon Him with faith and to be saved.
The Gospel of John here compares this divine plan to an event many centuries earlier in the wilderness. Under the leadership of Moses, God had delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Then God led them through the desert. Life in the desert was not easy.
At a time when the people of Israel were particularly low in morals, they spoke up against God and against Moses. They said they would rather have stayed in Egypt than wander through these inhospitable areas.
Suddenly, there were many poisonous snakes. The Israelites got bitten. Many of them died.
Facing this perilous situation, the Israelites came to Moses. They said that speaking against God and Moses had been a sin. They asked Moses to pray for them so they might be delivered from these snakes.
“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’ So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.” (Numbers 21:8+9 NIV).
As Moses raised this snake in the wilderness, so Christ was raised on the cross of Calvary. The Israelites had confessed their sin to Moses and had asked God to save them.
The Israelites were to look at this snake to be saved from perilous danger. Similarly, as we confess our sins and ask God to save us, we receive salvation by looking upon Jesus at the cross.
God gave His only Son, and He even gave Him to suffer death on the cross of Calvary. Really, we should have died because of our sins.
As we look to Jesus, confessing our sin and believing in him, God will deliver us from eternal judgment. One day God will judge all men. Those who have believed in Jesus will be saved from the “second death”. He who believes in Jesus will be reckoned as righteous because Jesus has led a sinless life.
Isn’t it wonderful that God has provided this sign to help us believe? We are not to look at a brazen serpent but at the Son of God raised on the cross at Calvary!
(The images in this post have been created with WordPress.com AI.)
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