The love of God has found the Savior for dying man. Where is that Savior? Teaching on earth? Thorn is no remedy in Christ on earth—His teaching—His example. Where is the remedy? The uplifted Christ—crucified Christ. A dying and a dead Christ, I was going to say. That is what He was on the cross. There is God’s remedy for sin and sinners— “That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Some years ago down here at a little place called L., where Brother F. B. lived, a poor tramp was trying to beat his way on the train and had fallen and was badly hurt. They brought him into the little station. L. was a very wicked place. Somehow they knew where to go. They went over to B’s house, and asked him to come over as they thought he was dying. He went and just whispered in his ear, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Who can tell whether that poor man in the power of God’s Spirit really looked, and lived. “It came to pass that whosoever looked, lived.” One man not as far gone as another, but both are dying.
How beautiful that is “God so loved the world,”! Look at that crucified Christ the Savior dying in order to be a Savior. What is the source? one asks again. The love of God. “God so loved.”
I often think (I find myself given a little too fault finding—too critical) but I sometimes think 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) is separated too much from John 3:1414And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: (John 3:14). You see in the 16th verse we have a wonderful thing—God’s remedy for sinners, and what is it? “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.” What precedes it? O there are the 14th and 15th verses: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Don’t forget, dear friends, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” It is in that only begotten Son lifted up on the cross the remedy is found. That is why I think the passage is “For” God so loved, etc.
“In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.” That is a great thing—the love of God. Not the Father’s love—that is for the children. Here we have God’s love for sinners. “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:9, 109In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9‑10)).
Then those opposites. One of these opposites must be ours. Either perish, or have everlasting life. We are either this moment, in the sight of God, dying—perishing—men and women; or we are those who have everlasting life, and will never perish. That is the way this world is divided into classes. You have the classes separated, and different degrees among them, but that is the way they are divided. Here is this class of those who believe in the Lord Jesus the Son of God. They believe that God sent Him, and that He was lifted up on the cross, and so on. It is a vast class. Some are quite aged, and some are only babes, but all are in the class.
Here is another class—they have not believed—some are aged and some are very young, but all are in the class. All depends upon which class you are in.
Another thing: “God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” God’s object is not simply the Jews—Israel, but the world.
“He that believeth on Him is not condemned; but He that believeth not is condemned already.” Why? One reason: “Because He has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” My sins do not in themselves stand in the way of my being saved. What does? Refusal to believe that God sent His Son to be my Savior. So He says, “This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” What a sweeping word that is, but how one feels the truth of it! Yes, man by nature is a sinner, and worse than that, though in one sense he cannot be worse, he loves his sins, but he does not want to have them exposed. He does not want to learn the truth, or do the truth. In doing truth he learns truth. “He that doeth truth cometh to the light.” What a mercy to come to the light, and the light is the truth of God.
Take the first chapter, to which our attention has been called, “The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehendeth it not” (Verses 4 to 10). Light has come, the truth as to God, as to His nature, what He is in His own being, “God is light, and God is love.”
Light has come, and it has come in Christ. “This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:33And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. (John 17:3)). “How ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven” (1 Thess. 1:9, 109For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; 10And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come. (1 Thessalonians 1:9‑10)).
(Continued from page 106)