“There is a story sweet to hear,
I love to tell it too:
It fills my heart with hope and cheer,
‘Tis old, yet ever new.”
THE third chapter of the Gospel of John is a very great chapter indeed. Read it with care, and it will talk to you of profound truths and amazing facts in language of extreme simplicity. Some of its verses shine in the wide expanse of Scripture like stars of the first magnitude, which excite the admiration of the beholder by their brilliancy and beauty. Pre-emi-nent among these is verse 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.” On these words the Holy Spirit delights to place peculiar honor, and He is never weary of using them to touch and melt and subdue the hearts of men and to turn them to the living God. They are indeed wonderful words of life. Oh, that they were written in letters of gold across the face of the blue sky, so that every eye could see them!
In reading the chapter our attention is immediately arrested by the saying, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Much less can he enter into it. This is startling, and to Nicodemus it was an unfathomable mystery. How can these things be? he asked in sheer amazement. The proud heart of man still resents this faithful saying, even as he cannot understand it. But it is true, nevertheless, that there is a realm of life and blessing, of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, of which men know absolutely nothing unless they have been born again. It lies outside and beyond their environment, and they know no more about it than the untutored savage knows of the literature of ancient Greece or the Commentaries of Julius Cæsar.
And why is it that men need to be born again if they are to see and enter into the kingdom of God? It is because the springs of our nature have been poisoned at their very source. Sin is there, and sin has brought in darkness and moral death. Were it possible for one who had never been born again to enter heaven, it would be no home, no place of happiness to him. He would get out of it as soon as ever he could. And the reason is simple — he would find nothing there suited to his taste, no correspondence between himself and his surroundings. But when a man is born again, born of the Spirit, he receives a new life, divine in its origin, having a nature of its own. He is endowed with a capacity to know, to understand, to enjoy the things of God. This, the man of mere education, culture, and rich intellectual qualities does not possess — the new birth alone can give it.
In verse 7 of our chapter is one very emphatic “must.” In verse 14 there is another on which equal stress should be laid. Men must be born again if they are to see and enter into the kingdom of God, and the Son of Man must be lifted up if men are not to perish, but have everlasting life. We are not left in any doubt as to what is meant by the lifting up of the Son of Man, for in chapter 12, we find the same words and the Holy Spirit’s explanation of them. They signify the death He should die. To the Cross the Son of Man must go if any are to be saved from sin and its eternal consequences and receive life everlasting. Why was this? Could we not have been saved and blessed without the Cross? Is not God supreme, and who could resist His will? Such questions are often asked. But had He been pleased to do so, at what cost would it have been done! Where His authority? Where the maintenance of His justice against evil-doers?
If the great moral Governor of the universe takes no notice of the sins of men, or looks upon them as weaknesses for which no one shall be called to account, why should not earthly rulers do the same? Let us do away with prisons, with magistrates and judges of the land, and suffer men to do what they list without fear of punishment. And if any demur, it shall be enough to plead that we cannot go wrong if we follow the Divine Example. But men are wise enough to see that such a principle would never do. And they are right. Nor will it do for God. Sin cannot be passed over — these offenses against His government and throne. And this is why the Son of Man must be lifted up. Here, also, is the reason of that cry which otherwise could never be explained, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Forsaken He was while He made atonement for our sins in such a way and measure as satisfied the Eternal Throne, and made it manifest that God and sin could never be reconciled. And now if any man believes in Him he shall never perish. Nor is that all. For as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness that the dying might look and live, so Christ has been lifted up, that whosoever believes in Him should receive here and now the great gift of life everlasting.
But we are not to stay at this point, but go on to verse 16. And now we reach the source of the broad river of salvation and of endless blessing even the great love of God. In that love the river takes its rise and flows on through this stricken land. Wonderful that God should ever have loved the world at all. For what was there to stir up that love save the sins, the sorrows, the miseries of men, over whom death reigned supreme? Think of the world — think of its history from Eden to the Flood, and from the Flood to Bethlehem and Calvary. Turn over page after page of its dark and dismal story and you will find no reason why God should love the world at all. Numberless reasons why He should not. Why, then, did He not leave it to its fate? Why not let it run on its sad and evil course till it should be summoned, in the judgment day, to stand before the bar of God to answer for its sins? It was His love that led Him to intervene — a love broader and deeper than the sea. God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son. Mark that “so.” How emphatic it is! With what burning intensity it should be uttered. And then observe the greatness of the gift! The only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, He is the sent One of God. He has come into the world to make God known, to speak unto us words of eternal life, to die for us that we, believing in Him, might be saved from perishing and have life everlasting. Twice over is this said, to make it sure to us; twice over is it said, lest such tidings should be thought incredible by the very greatness and gladness of them. Herein is love which the tongues of angels and of men can never tell. It is too vast, too immense.
Observe also that “God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world.” On no such errand did He come. A mission of judgment might have been committed unto angels as in earlier days. But a work that had salvation in view could only be undertaken by the Son. He was scent that the world through Him might be saved. No greater proof of God’s love could we have or He give. And yet we are so slow to believe in the reality of it. We are prone to think of God only as a Judge, offended by our sins, from whose anger we are shielded by the blessed Saviour. And the very element of truth that this view contains will darken our vision of the gospel unless we are on our guard. It is true that our sins have turned God into a Judge; but it is also true that before the day of judgment comes He has sent His own Son to be the Saviour of sinful men — to take up the sin question and to settle it so that it may never again be raised for any who believe. Surely He was under no obligation to do this. We owe it to His love alone.
And it was to save the world that the Father sent the Son. The salvation of which He is the Author is not for one nation only. It is for all peoples who dwell on this round earth. For the millions of heathen lands as much as for those that are nearer home. Oh, let us make haste and go to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and tell them that the Dayspring from on high hath visited us. That God has so loved them that He has given His only begotten Son, that they, too, might have life eternal and be saved through Him with an everlasting salvation.
Notice also the directness with which our chapter speaks. “He that believeth on Him is not condemned.” Could anything be plainer than that? Could such a consoling fact be stated in fewer words? There is another fact of equal and possibly of greater blessedness stated with the same plainness in verse 36. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life.” How does the believer know that he is not condemned? How does he know that everlasting life is his? If any ask such questions, he is at no loss to answer them. He points the inquirer to verse 18 and 36 of our chapter as the warrant for his faith. He knows it because the Scriptures declare it to be so. And what better authority could he have? None whatever. Here I pause to ask whether you who read these lines know these things for yourself. If not, why is this? Have you not received the Saviour? Do you not believe in Him? If you reply, Yes, I do believe, but still I shrink from saying that everlasting life is mine and that there is no judgment for me, remember that He has said so first. Surely it cannot be either wrong or presumptuous to think as He thinks, and to receive what He says in the simple faith of a little child.
And what of those who do not believe? What of those who treat the story of God’s great love with chilling indifference and in whose thoughts and love and life Christ has no place? What of these? The same Scriptures shall tell us: “He that believeth not is condemned already.” Think of that. Think of it slowly, and weigh well the words. And if the one who believes not is “condemned already,” what, let me ask, is the ground of it? The answer is, “Because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” Nothing can be plainer, nor can anything be much more solemn. His judgment rests, not on the fact that he is a sinful man, but on this — that the Son of God has come — sent of the Father — sent not to judge, but to save. But the unbeliever rejects Him, despises Him, ignores Him. On such the wrath of God must ultimately fall.
Here, then, are some of the truths set forth in this great chapter. Ought we not to give earnest heed to them? It is true they have but little place in the popular preaching of the day. But the thoughts and theories of men are vanity. They shall perish and pass away. Not so the word of the Lord. It lives and abides forever. Happy the man who cleaves to God’s testimonies, for they are very sure.
W.B.