John 3

John 3:16

CHRIST’S GOSPEL IN A John 3:16. IN thirty years’ pastorate in one church I have dared this text but once. This neglect is not from lack of appreciation, but, on the contrary, from a conviction that its understanding and interpretation are beyond me. It is the greatest text in the Bible; it is the loftiest peak in the range of Divine love; it is the clearest revelation of the Divine plan for the redemption of all people from the power of sin.It is a rare thing that we get even a suggestion from another as to the divisions of a sermon. We have found it more satisfactory, and even more easy, to work out our own outlines than to employ borrowed ones. But in this instance Matthew Henry’s suggestions are accepted with only slight changes, and we find in this text The Gospel Mystery Revealed, The Gospel Privilege Appointed, and The Gospel Benefits Promised.THE GOSPEL MYSTERY “For God so loved the world” (John 3:16). This love is the mystery of the ages. Writing to the Colossians Paul declares that he was“made a minister, according to the dispensation of God which was given me to you-ward, to fulfil the Word of God; “Even the mystery which hath been hid from all ages and generations: but now hath it been manifested to His saints, “To whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: “Whom we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ” (Colossians 1:25-28, R. V.). Permit two or three remarks regarding this mystery.First, Paul does not claim that he was alone in having it revealed to him, and considered himself the only minister of the Gentiles. On the other hand, he distinctly affirms that, although it had been hid for ages, in his day it had been manifested to God’s saints.In the second place, we must understand what is the meaning of the Biblical word, “mystery”. It has been defined by one of the greatest thinkers as “a truth undiscoverable except by revelation, never necessarily (as our popular use of the word suggests) a thing unintelligible or perplexing in itself. In Scripture a mystery may be a fact which, when revealed, we cannot understand in detail, though we can know it and act upon it. It is a thing only to be known when revealed.” Ruskin, in his “Modern Painters”, has truly said, “I know there is an evil mystery and a deathful dimness—the mystery of the great Babylon, the dimness of the sealed eye and soul; but do not let us confuse these with the glorious mystery of the things which the angels desire to look into, or with the dimness which, even before the clear eye and open soul, still rests on sealed pages of the eternal volume.”This mystery of love is clear. This one text strikes light through it from side to side.“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16, R.V.). This Divine love is the marvel of men. Jesus truly said, “No man hath greater love than this—that a man lay down his life for his friends”. Until He appeared, no man had ever conceived a God who would lay down His life for His enemies. The gods of the old mythology were gods of war and of reeking vengeance, and woe to those who crossed their path and then fell into their power. But, as John Watson says, “By revelation, the Prophet carved a white marble in picturing a God who was holy, and then accomplished the unspeakable thing of making Him tender, compassionate and fatherly.” Some one writing about this puts it thus, “Certain it is that the servants of God, who have best served their generation and most enriched their fellow servants, are they who have been in the habit of speaking with God not as a Force but as friend with Friend. When I say, ‘a Force’, I am somewhat at large and almost think I am lost, but when I say, ‘Father’, I am at home and all my heart grows still.”“I was in God’s nursery tonight as the evening was getting dim, And I sat with God’s children, and they were talking of Him; And another child was with them, though Him I could not see. They say that God has an elder Son, I think it was He. “‘Father’, He said, first of all; though I could not see for the gloom, Yet the instant He said it I felt some one else in the room; And the room itself must have grown in a very little space, For the child called to Father in Heaven, and Heaven is a far-away place. “But oh, what an echo was left by that one single sound; It crept into every corner and wandered round and round; The very air felt holy wherever the echo came; Cried the children, ‘Oh, that it were ever so. Hallowed be that Name’.” The magnitude of this love increases our marvel. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world”. “God so loved”. There was not a man in it so low, nor a woman so loathsome, that he or she must be ruled out of the Divine love. Some one has said that far up in the Cumberland hills of England there lies Thirlmere lake. Round it are the hills, and above and beyond these hills, in the mountain fastnesses springs leap out and rivulets take their courses to the lake. Ninety miles down country lies the big city of Manchester—big, busy, bustling and black. And yet, this beautiful lake sends through conduits and pipes its clear, limpid water to the last man and the last woman of the great metropolis.

It yields itself with equal willingness to the rich and to the poor, to the educated and to the ignorant, to the moral and to the debased. So in the high hills of God’s love springs the life-giving waters of salvation that flow past Gethsemane and Calvary and pour their beneficent streams through all the world, that wheresoever a soul thirsts and dies, it may drink and live. This is the Gospel mystery revealed.THE GOSPEL “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him” (John 3:16). To believe in the grace of God—what a privilege! Some speak of it as a duty. Matthew Henry has done so. It is not a duty; it is infinitely more than a duty, and infinitely better than any duty. It is a privilege to believe in the grace of God.A speaker at an anniversary meeting of the British Society, a wealthy and distinguished layman, told how, when his father came to London he was a poor lad with his fortune yet to be made. In passing a house one morning, he was attracted by a girl who was washing the stone steps.

Her face was bright and happy and she was singing snatches of religious hymns. Thereafter the lad walked that way, and almost every morning was rewarded by a vision of this happy face, and one day he made bold to ask her if she could direct him to a Christian church, explaining that he was a stranger in the city. “Certainly”, she answered, “come to my church.” The acquaintance thus begun grew into friendship and ripened into love and resulted in marriage. “But”, said he, “father never forgot the vision nor the spot where first he saw the object of his love.” Afterwards, when he made a great fortune, and was able to live in a mansion, he bought the house where the girl used to work as a servant.

He took up those stone steps bodily and wrought them into his new mansion that he might have there a permanent memorial of the beautiful young life that had won him by its attractive dignity and sweetness.But who can forget the service that Christ rendered us? Menial it was, and yet rendered willingly because of His love. And who can forget that the temple of all temples that He best appreciates now is the body in which we dwell; and inasmuch as His first service is the cleansing of the heart of stone, should we not inscribe it forever, in memory of His grace, with His new Name—“Jesus Christ”?To trust in the Word of the Lord. Men want to know the way of salvation. There is but one answer—Christ. He said, “I am the Way”.

Men want to know how to come to Christ. The Word of the Lord is our guide.

It contains His invitation, “Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden”. It; voices His promise, “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out”. It expresses His assurance, “My grace is sufficient for thee”. One of the difficulties about getting people saved, in these days, is in the profound ignorance of the Word of God. Preaching no longer has the power it once had when our ministers quoted copiously from the sacred Scriptures, and every auditor accepted the sentences as straight from the lips of an infinite Father. I know of no malady of the human heart for which the Word does not hold a full prescription.

But I know of sin-sick souls a multitude who are in utter ignorance of what God hath said. “The people perish from lack of knowledge”.Years ago a woman went to consult a famous New York physician about her health. She was a nervous wreck.

The least difficulty worried and excited and exasperated her to the point of desperation, and it seemed as though her very reason would reel from its throne. In answer to the doctor’s questions she enumerated a list of her symptoms and disabilities, and then looked up expecting advice or prescription. He included both in one sentence, “Madam, what you need is to read your Bible more. Go home and begin reading your Bible. Give an hour a day to it. Under no circumstances fail. And one month hence come back to me.” At first she was inclined to be angry, but reflecting upon the circumstance that the prescription, at least, was not an expensive one, and that the physician was a man of note, she decided to take the advice. In one month she went back to the office.

He looked at her full, round face and said, “I see you are an obedient patient and have taken my prescription faithfully. Do you feel now that you need any other medicine?” To which she answered, “No, Doctor, none whatever. I am another person. I am made anew.”The Word of the Lord can work wonders for the bodies of men and mightier marvels still for their souls. It is the panacea for every sin; it is the cordial for every weakness; it is the balm for every wound. To believe in the Word of the Lord—that is the Gospel privilege!To commit ourselves to the Son of God. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life”.

Carnegie Simpson, in “The Fact of Christ”, says truly, “The foundation of Christianity is Christ. There are not two Christs, on the one or the other of which we may build.

There is but one Christ. But He is found alike in outward history and in inward experience. And our Christianity must be built upon the complete Christ. ‘The Christian religion’, as Prof. Denney says, ‘depends not only upon what He was, but upon what He is. The fact depends, in other words, upon the Christ who is a fact alike of history and of experience’.”I am pleading now for the personal experience. No man will ever come into it until he commits himself to the Son of God. F. B.

Meyer once said, “The man who looks at the great ship in harbor, though he go not nigh her, may believe in her, but the man who buys his ticket and goes on board and starts for a far point on the other side of the world, has committed himself to her keeping and by that act has proven his confidence. Note the text, “Whosoever believeth on Him”.You have heard the story of how, when Muncakszy’s “Christ Before Pilate” was on exhibition at Toronto, one day, when there were but few visitors present, a rough looking man came to the place and purchased a ticket from the lady at the door and passed in. He was so unusual looking that the doorkeeper kept her eye on him. He had the shambling gait of an old sailor. He walked toward the picture in careless fashion as though he intended to glance at it and come away. But suddenly he stood full before it, his eyes upon the face of the Christ.

He had looked on it but a short time when he took off his hat. As the young woman watched him the hat fell from his nerveless grasp to the floor.

He moved a step and took a seat. He looked long and earnestly. By and by the woman saw him put his rough hand to his cheek, and lo, he was brushing away the tears. For a full hour he sat there and then made his way to the door. As he passed out he said to the young woman, “Madam, I am a rough, wicked sailor. I have never believed in Christ. I have only used His Name in oaths. But I have a Christian mother and she begged me today, before I went out to sea again, to come and look on this picture.

It was only to grant her wish that I promised. I did not think that anybody really believed in Jesus, but as I have looked at that form and that face, I have thought that some man must have believed in Him, and I now believe in Him too, and am going out from this place to try and serve Him,”But yet againTHE GOSPEL BENEFIT “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16, R. V.). That is a great sentence—“Should not perish”.It looks to release from the power of sin. These are days when men are disputing the character of sin. They are calling it “error in thinking”, “mistake in conduct”, “defeat in our outreach for the perfect”, etc. But the power of sin is not in dispute. The drunkards are all about us. The lecherous are being multiplied. The gambler, the highway man, the murderer—these make their appearance every morning in the press reports. Sin holds a multitude in its awful grasp.

Men may strive to the utmost to whitewash its character, but its hellish spirit can never be questioned while crime stalks the land, while dastardly deeds multiply, and while lust and murder reign, and disease and death are everywhere in evidence.John Wesley’s mother once said of sin, “Would you judge of the lawfulness or the unlawfulness of a pleasure, take this rule, ‘Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the nerves, or takes off the relish for spiritual things; whatever increases the authority of body over your mind, that thing to you is sin’.”Pastor Stalker tells of having stopped in Ramack, England, with an old farmer who was a kind of chief man in the congregation. His appearance was that of a typical grand old Highlander, strong and forceful. He had been preaching on “Sin” and on the way home the old farmer was talking it over, and his remark was, “Aye, sin! sin! I wish we had another name for that because the word has become so common that the thing no longer pierces our consciousness.” We make a jest of sin. God never did! Listen to His descriptions of it.

In Genesis (Genesis 18:20) He calls it “very grievous”. In Isaiah (Isaiah 59:2) He declares that it compels God to “hide His face from man”.

In Proverbs (Proverbs 5:22) He insists that men are “holden” with its cords. In Psalm (Psalms 17:12) He likens it to a “crouching beast” waiting to spring upon his victim and destroy him. In Nehemiah (Nehemiah 9:37) He pictures it as an idol before which its devotees bow to their own debasement and comes into cruel bondage. The Psalmist speaks of it as something in his bones making it impossible for him to rest. Jeremiah affirms that it is that which makes the good things of life impossible to him. Micah declares sickness and desolation are its results. Solomon says it overthrows the sinner himself. Leprosy is its symbol, and eternal death is its fruit.

Oh, to have release from the power of it! Is not that a privilege?It is proffered here. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish” (John 3:16).But the end is not yet. There is aGOSPEL BENEFIT namely,Salvation through all eternity. “But hath eternal life”. I do not know how to speak to you of eternal life. I do know that there are some high and holy moments in this present human life. I am compelled to believe that those are only a faint hint of what God has in store for those that love Him; and to prolong them even, for all eternity, what blessing in that thought!You know that far to the North you reach a point where for solid months the sun never sets. But with the limitations of weariness of the flesh, that would hardly be to us one long day of inexplicable joy. Remove those limitations; make those weaknesses impossible; breathe upon men life in excelsis; create a new heaven and a new earth wherein God shall dwell in the midst of His people, wiping away every tear, dispensing forever with mourning, moving the last occasion for crying and pain, announcing once for all, “Death shall be no more”; then prolong that day from the markings of time to the unlimited eternity, and you have an expression of the Gospel benefit bestowed in Christ.Oh, wondrous provisions of grace!

Oh, wondrous thought of love! How can we continue to sin when such infinite happiness is prepared in our behalf, and proffered us?

Men, women, are our hearts so dead within us that we do not respond to this? Has sin so deep a hold upon us that we will not give it up even for eternal salvation? I am loathe to believe it. General Booth’s daughter spoke once in my auditorium and told the story of how, at one time, night after night in a crowded room in Paris, she had attempted to speak and the multitude mocked and jeered her, for it was the multitude from the moral sewers. At last one night, with breaking heart, she came down from the platform and walked through the hissing crowd to a poor fallen girl who sat in the rear seat, and folding her arms about her, kissed her and said, “My dear, oh, would to God I could love you to Christ!” Pure lips like those had not touched her cheek for many years. She started to her feet, started quickly down to the front, and that night she gave herself to Christ, and was afterwards a worker in the Salvation Army.What was it that led her to forsake her sin and turn to Christ?

Love! She would have said, “I was loved out of my sin and into the kingdom of grace.” Isaiah declares, “Thou hast in mercy taken my soul from the pit.” J.

Wilbur Chapman once called attention to the marginal reading, “Thou hast in mercy loved up my soul from the pit.” Oh, man! oh, my sister! that is what God wants to do for you to-night. Will you let Him?