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GOLDEN TEXT OF THE BIBLE

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. — John 3:16

Where is the able expositor who would dare think he can lift all the riches from the treasures of this wonderful verse? Surely, this verse will ever stand as a Mt. Everest of challenge to those who are gifted with homiletical skill.  

This verse expresses simply and clearly God’s love.  In John 3:16 we see the heart of God moving out to rescue rebellious sinners with tender hands of redemption. Martin Luther called this sixteenth verse in John three, “the little gospel.”  Someone else referred to it as “the comfortable word.” Look at this blessed verse in detail with your heart and mind yielded to the Holy Spirit. Glean from it some spiritual fruit to strengthen you in the Lord’s service. 

FOR: An affirmation and conclusion denoting truly, therefore, verily, as the case stands, this word opens the door of God’s redemption.  It enables God to establish a beachhead upon the shore of humanity. 

GOD:  God the Father shows Himself as the greatest Giver from whose loving heart flows the mighty river of salvation!

SO: So (degree, manner, in this manner, thus so) is one of the biggest little words in all the English language, for in its two letters are packed the far-reaching love of God.  

LOVED: God’s love goes back into the timelessness of eternity and yet, His loving mercies are new every morning.  This word for love expresses the highest form of love (agape), God’s love for sinful man. 

THE WORLD: Mankind. (2 Cor. 5:19). 

THAT:  God put His love into action—so that (consequence or result—a word of love and a deed of love.

HE GAVE: God did not withhold anything from man.  “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things” (Rom. 8:32). 

HIS ONLY SON:  Only begotten son attests to our Lord’s eternal deity as God’s unique Son. The early church father expressed the truth of Christ’s deity by saying that the Son proceeds from the Father by eternal generation in a birth that never took place because always was. 

THAT: In order that speaks if purpose in God’s redemption plan. 

WHOEVER: Christ tasted death for every man, all, everyone.

BELIEVES: The word “believe” means “to place trust in, to rely upon, to cling to” has the thought of taking ourselves out of our own keeping and placing ourselves into God’s keeping. 

IN HIM: Lit., into Him, the object of saving faith is the Lord Jesus, not baptism, not good works, not the church—but Christ! 

SHOULD NOT PERISH: God’s guarantee that the believer will not come to ruin, be lost, miss the purpose for which God made us.  How terrible the torment of the sinner in hell who will say, “Christ died for me; yet, I am lost.  I could have been saved.”  Hell was for the devil and his angels. Man goes to that awful place by refusing to believe in Christ as Savior. 

BUT HAVE: The blessing of Salvation is not put in the far-distant future but is a current possession (Rom. 8:1). 

EVERLASTING LIFE:  Our salvation cannot end and is forever anchored in the faultless integrity of God (Heb. 13:5). God’s life is the highest kind of life, forever enduring, imperishable, is a life death cannot destroy.

Translation: “Truly, God the Father, in this manner of an increasing love, loved the entire human race, and as a result, withholding nothing, He gave His unique and eternal Son so that all who rely upon Him will not be lost but have a present possession of an imperishable life.”


 
 
 

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