John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish… Here are three great testimonies like the three primary colours which make one white beam. I. LIGHT UPON THE CHARACTER OF GOD. 1. God loves. The Indian or Chinese will not let you say God loves. It is an impeachment of His dignity and argues need. In a profound sense, however, of yearning for protection, of appreciating the souls of men, of finding a necessity for seeing them blessed, in the sense of pity, mercy, self-effacement, God loves. Had we said this it would have been a marvellous testimony; much more so had Paul or John said it. But love on the lips of Christ has a thousandfold more meaning. 2. God loves the world, the unregenerate world, as a mother loves her wayward no less than her worthy child, though the love be broken-hearted grief. So God loves the rebellious. 3. God loves the world with a distributive affection reaching the "whosoerers." 4. God loves it with an affection so deep, self-effacing, self-sacrificing, as to give His only begotten Son. Love is ever giving, and the love of God says not of aught it possesses that it is its own. He keeps not His child. See, then, here in the first line of the Gospel that — (1) It reveals the heart of God. (2) His habit of sacrifice. (3) His compassion for every soul. (4) His desire to save all. II. LIGHT UPON CHRIST. What a problem has Christ been! The generations have never been able to forget Him. Men have never given Him a small name. The estimates of foes have betrayed their sense of His greatness, and the adoration of friends has lost itself in the endeavour to express it. Who is He? The ages have been a wrestling Jacob whose question has been, What is Thy name? Ask Himself. 1. The only begotten Son of God. The Son is of the nature of the Father — Divine in a sense no other being is. All the Divine fulness of the Godhead is in Him. And His life matches His name. 2. The gift of God: the property of each soul of man. There is no tie which has knit Him to our hearts that He has not knit. He takes our nature, conditions, duties, temptations, sorrows, curse, death. Ours — (1) By evident gift. (2) By obvious sympathies. (3) Ours so that all He has and is, the merits of His life, the atonement of His death, is ours. 3. The Saviour. Only Christ has borne this great name. Mohammed is prophet; Buddha is teacher only; Jesus is Saviour. A name (1) written on the consciousness of every redeemed soul, and (2) writ large in history. III. LIGHT ON MAN. Low views of God go together with low views of man. You cannot lose your faith in God without losing your faith in man. Here we see — 1. God loves each man, therefore each man is lovable; no heart without a beauty in it that charms the eye of God; no life without some possibility of glory in it which attracts His love. 2. We are capable of faith. There is a Divine dignity in man which lets him lift himself up to God and entrust himself into His arms, and put himself wholly under His guidance and in His power. 3. We are capable of everlasting life. Philosophy as we know it today is a theory of the graveyard only. If we cast away the Lord of life we have to believe in a destiny that is only a tomb. Christ has come that we might have everlasting life. (R. Glover.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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