THE first half of the verse is God’s side of it, the second half is yours. God’s love is for the world, but it is the “whosoever that believeth” that receives the blessing of it. You had no hand in moving God to love and to give, but everything depends for you whether you do or do not believe. That “whosoever” is a great word and wonderful; it stretches out its long arms of welcome to all men and would enfold them all in its embrace of love. It makes its appeal to the reader of this book, as it made its appeal once to the writer of it, in his case not in vain. It tells us that God is no respecter of persons, “but that the same Lord is rich unto all that call upon Him”; for there is no difference now, Jew and Gentile, bad and good, poor and rich, old and young may all come and believe and be saved, but every man must do it for himself.
The happy and believing “whosoevers” are being gathered out of all nations, for in these days the word of the Gospel is running with swift feet; it is traveling north, south, east, and west; and multitudes who have been bred in heathen darkness are hearing it with amazement and joy, and they shall sit down in the kingdom of God, for faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. It would be well if the men and women of these “Christian” lands awoke to the solemn fact that they are in danger of being shut out of the blessing forever because of their indifference and unbelief. “There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.”
It was by this “whosoever” of John 3:1616For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16) that light dawned upon the heart of Duncan Mathieson, the Scottish evangelist, who carried the Gospel to the suffering Britishers in the Crimean war, and did for their souls what Florence Nightingale did for their bodies. For many weary days he had searched for faith, which he thought was some mysterious thing that he would have to possess if ever he was to be saved from perdition and have peace with God. He often told the story of how the blessing came to him, and I will give it here in his own words: “I was standing at the end of my father’s house,” he said, “and meditating on that precious word that has brought peace to countless ones: ‘God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’ I saw that God loved me, for I was one of the world. I saw the proof of His love in the giving of His Son. I saw that ‘whosoever’ meant anybody and everybody, and, therefore, me, even me. I saw the result of believing, that I would not perish, but have everlasting life. I was enabled to take God at His word. I saw no one but Jesus only—all-in-all in redemption. My burden fell from my soul, and I was saved. Yes, saved! That hour angels rejoiced over one more sinner brought to the Saviour, and new songs rang through the courts of that city to which I had now got a title, and of which I had now become an heir. Bunyan describes his pilgrim as giving three leaps of joy as his burden rolled into the open sepulcher of Christ. I could not contain myself for joy. I sang the new song, ‘Salvation through the blood of the Lamb.’ The very heavens appeared as if covered with glory. I felt the calm of a pardoned sinner; yet I had no thought of my safety. I saw only the person of Jesus. I wept for my sins that had nailed Him to the Cross; but now it came freely as the tear that faith wept. I had passed from death unto life; old things had passed away, and all things had become new.
“I wondered that I had stumbled at the simplicity of the way. I saw everything so plain that I longed to go and tell all the world. I felt that if I had met a thousand Manassehs I could say, ‘Yet there is room.’ I went everywhere telling the glad story. Some even of the saints looked incredulous. Others, like the elder brother of the parable, did not like the music and the dancing. They had never left their Father’s dwelling; they had never been sin-sick, and knew not what it is to be healed; no fatted calf had been killed for them. These warned me against enthusiasm and exhorted me to be sober-minded. One old man told me that I was on the mount, but that I would soon be down again. Another said I needed great humility. But I went on singing my song. Prayer had given place to praise, and night and day I continued to thank God for ‘His unspeakable gift.’”
But though the words are so plain, thousands miss the meaning of them, or are so blinded by their own opinions, or it may be by the devil, that they treat them as of no value; they prefer their own way to God’s. They are acting as though the word was “whosoever worketh,” when it is “not of works”; or “whosoever does his best,” when “there is none that doeth good;” or “whosoever prayeth, or payeth, or does penance,” but it is none of these things but, “whosoever believeth.” It does not say whosoever loves God, it is God who has done the loving; or, whosoever giveth, it is God who has done the giving: but, whosoever believeth. But it is not whosoever believeth a text, even this greatest of all texts, or whosoever believeth in the Bible, or in the Christian faith, it is whosoever believeth in HIM; a living Person, the Son of God!
The text tells us about Him, the Bible tells us about Him. We should not, and could not, know anything about Him at all if we had not the text and the Bible; we who have believed, thank God for the Bible; it is a priceless treasure. We do not wonder that men who loved it in former days preferred to burn in the fires of Smithfield rather than give it up. It is God’s own Word to us and we value it as such. But you may have the Bible and remain unsaved; you may say that it is a good Book, and yet perish. It is JESUS alone that saves. The Bible holds Him up to us as the object of faith; it says, “Whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish”; in Him alone can you find everlasting life; “neither is there salvation in any other,” so the Bible tells us, and the Bible is true; it is the infallible Word of God.
That self-righteous old sinner in Yorkshire who told a friend of mine that he would go boldly up to the gates of Heaven, and show himself there, and expect to be welcomed, because he had done no harm to anybody, was as silly as he was proud, he was duped by the devil; but so also are all who hope to reach Heaven by any other way than this. The “whosoevers that believe” are those who have abandoned self-trust; they have thrown away their own self-righteousnesses as filthy rags. They have come to the Saviour as perishing sinners with:
“Naught to plead
But God’s great love
And their exceeding need.”
And they have got Christ instead of self; and through Him they have everlasting life, and shall not perish. Is not this what the Word of God tells us? It is, and happy is he who believes that sure Word. “Blessed is she that believed,” said the saintly Elizabeth of her young cousin Mary; “for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her of the Lord.”