THESE are the words of our God: “God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved.” (John 3:1717For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:17).) Wonderful words they are — wonderful purpose, grace, and love do they unfold to us.
NOT TO CONDEMN —
not to cast out poor hell-deserving sinners— not to banish them eternally from His presence — not to detect, expose, convict, prove guilty, and then assign to merited judgment, did God, Who is light, send His Son into the world. Not to prove to man his vileness and his baseness, his hypocrisy and his sin, and then to reward him according to his works, did the Son, Who is the Light of men, the Light of the world, shine here — no, not to condemn the world was He sent.
How awful do our sins appear to us when viewed in the light of divine truth; how utterly vile do we become in our own eyes when we see, ever so feebly, by the work of the Holy Spirit of God, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. But what we are in ourselves, what our sins are, God alone knows. Yet He sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world.
As the Lord walked on this earth, the sins of men, and the hardness of their hearts, were present to Him; but His mission from heaven to earth was mercy. “Who made Me a judge or a ruler over you?” “Neither do I condemn thee; go, sin no more,” are words of His we well remember. He saw the unrighteousness of men, He saw their sin as none but He could see — He beheld the actual evil as God sees it; for the Son is God, even as God who sent Him. But He came not to condemn.
The thief, who hung at His side upon the cross, and whose last hours were spent in casting curses into His teeth, in his dying moments justified the Saviour, and then cried, “Lord, remember me.” Jesus did not condemn him; He pardoned, saved, assured him, and filled the poor man’s soul with comfort and with joy — “To day shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.” He did not come to condemn — He came to save. Mary Magdalene, though possessed with seven devils, He cast not out, but He freed her from her master and tormentor, and made her for time and for eternity a grateful, loving disciple of Himself. Lepers, types of sinners in their sins; the palsied, types of sinners in their helplessness; the blind, types of sinners in their darkness of heart, He cast not out; He had mercy on all — none sought His face in vain Out of His own love, God, Who is love, sent His Son into the world not to condemn the world, but that through Him the world might be saved. He gave His Son, His eternal Son, His only begotten Son, to come into this world of ours to die for the guilty and the lost, and the Son of Man has been lifted up, He has bled and died upon the cross, the Just One for the unjust. God, Who is light, made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin. Jehovah laid upon Him the iniquity of us all — of all His people. Jesus has been wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace has been laid upon Him. No, not to condemn was He sent, but that the world through Him might be saved.
Here again are His own words: “He that believeth on Him is not condemned.”