John
3:17, For God did not
send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through
Him might be saved.
The
mission of the Son in His first Advent was not to condemn (Gk. krino, can
be trans. judge; cf. Jn 12:47) the world, to beat a dead horse, figuratively speaking.
That was not God the Father’s intent (Jn 3:16, gave). He was bringing to fruition that which was
begun back in Gn 3:21 (See Heb 9:12; 10:4, 10, 14; 1 Jn 2:2).
It
was the unmerited grace of God shown to the antediluvian civilization in
spite of His disapproval of their lifestyle (Gn 6:5-7) by having Noah preach righteousness to the world (cf. 2 Pet 2:5) for 120 years (Gn
6:3) before judgment came upon them. We see this same unmerited grace of God when you take in all of the accumulative preachings of
righteousness and warnings of judgment to come to the world from oral words and written
words based on special revelation (the Bible) that preceded and followed the
days of Jesus to the present day (cf. 2 Pet 3:9).
As with the
antediluvian civilization, watery judgment came, and a fiery judgment is coming upon the present
civilization following the rapture event of the Church. The vast majority
are still rejecting that same message of judgment to come, and they will die in their sins as did the civilization before the flood.
It
is not known exactly what Noah preached to the people by the largest pulpit
ever known to the world, the ark, but it is intimated to be about righteousness
and the destruction to come (cf. Gn 6:5; Lk 17:27; Heb 11:7; 1 Pet 3:20; 2 Pet
2:5). The cross at Calvary is our ark of safety from perishing. There is no
healing if we refuse to look up and live through faith in what all of that
lifted up business represented. An unusual love was behind it all for the sons
of Adam. God’s love for mankind was always associated with the cross not
condemnation (gave); remember the last
article? “There is not one scripture where God tries to prove His love for you
except those that relate to the cross” (cf. Jn 3:16; 1 Jn 4:10; Rom 5:8).
The
purpose and effectiveness of the gift of His Son as the Sacrifice for sin was that whoever believes
in Him [the
Son] should
not perish (v16),
and that
the world through Him [the Son] might be saved (v17). These are the wow factors on the Summit that we were
looking for. I purposely held off in v16 until we got to v17 to pick up on “the
double-wow” factor on this Summit!
Up
here on the Summit, we see a clearer delineation on what constitutes non-judgment
and judgment. We must ever keep in the forefront of our thinking of the love (agape)
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit had and continue to have
in providing a way for mankind to avoid perishing (Jn 3:16-17), as well as
the choice for all to believe or not to believe.
This
as beautiful truth as it gets, my friend! This divine love for the people of
earth is truly unfathomable and incomprehensible, but it is as real as you and
I am; we are recipients. Only in him (v16) and through Him (v17) do we have the victory over sin and the second
death! Selah.
John
3:18, He
who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe
is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the
only begotten Son of God (emphasis mine).
Believes…believe…believed
This
is as simple as it gets, but do not allow that simplicity to overshadow its profundity!
The
various forms of the verb believe (Gk., pisteuo) occurs 98 times in John’s Gospel
account in the NKJV: believe (59x), believes (15x), believed (22x), and believing (2x). It is also translated commit in Jn 2:24, a descriptive verb. It is the
keyword in John. In our coverage of John 3:1-21, this verb pisteuo occurs
7 times in vs. 11-21: believe (3x), believes (3x), believed (1x). It would be an understatement to say that pistueo
is concentrated in Jn 3:18. One might think John is making a point on the
importance of believing, yes?
It
means to believe (stating the obvious), but it goes beyond academic or
intellectual assent; there is an application to life. It means to place
faith in, an idea that includes trust and commitment in the object of belief in Him which would be faith in
Jesus, being born again. The verb pisteuo comes from pistis (the noun
form of faith) which is interestingly absent in John’s Gospel account! John
presents an active faith or faith in action. This believing is
fruit-producing; James, the Lord’s half-brother, would have loved John’s Gospel
account,
For
as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also (Jas 2:26).
Believing
is instrumental; it is key and a pivotal action word, spelling the difference
between spiritual life and spiritual death. It is only related to judgment by
the lack of it in life. There is no penalty in believing, but there is an
austere penalty for not believing, a failure to trust or commit in Jesus
Christ, God the Father’s provision for salvation. To step out into eternity
without Christ is truly the greatest, most devastating tragedy known to man,
forever darkness rather than forever light. At that point, to be clear, there
is no remediation other than paying for the penalty of sin for all eternity.
Let
me repeat v17-18, bolding condemn(ed),
John
3:17, For God did not
send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world
through Him might be saved.
John
3:18, He who
believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned
already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of
God (emphasis
mine).
In
other words, He who is believing is not judged in contrast to those who
do not believe,
but
he who does not believe [not believing, present active participle] is condemned already [judged already, even
now]
Already
(Gk., ede,
now, [even] now)
The
present spiritual state of every non-believer is condemnation as it was with me
as long as I remained in a state of unbelief. That eternally changed for me on
1.19.1976. Waiting for me in my unbelief was judgment or damnation because the
penalty of sin had not been atoned for in my life. We really understand this
being part of the light now, but we need to remember that we were once in
darkness under the same condemnation or judgment prior to trusting in Jesus
Christ as our Savior, spiritually blinded by willful unbelief (2 Cor. 4:4).
What
made the difference was the grace of God who spared us of the second death
through faith in the death of His Son. The only differences between the non-judged
and the judged are (1) the grace of God, and (2) the Holy Spirit living within
the heart. This helps tone down the “high and mighty” self-righteous
propensities of “holier than thou” or “better than you” believers.
The
spiritual reality is we are saved sinners though we are sons of God, and the judged
are lost sinners (spiritual sons of Cain). Sinners deserve hell, but for the
grace of God, go we. If the unsaved sinners do not avail themselves of the
grace of God, the lake of fire is their confinement for all eternity. Granted,
it sounds surreal, but according to the Scriptures, real enough to avoid, yes?
Those
who are in a present state of condemnation due to unbelief can actually be
referred to as the walking dead, not like the series: kaaaaahh! They walk in darkness
and breathe, but they are dead people given their spiritual condition. This is how
believers should look at anyone who is under condemnation through unbelief;
they are all walking dead people, needing a Savior, no matter their station in life.
How
about this graphic imagery? To God, leprosy is a type of sin, having the look
and smell of putrid, foul-smelling flesh. Now imagine the most outwardly
beautiful male or female that you know who doesn’t know the Lord. If you could
peel off that thin veil of skin, that is what you would see spiritually
speaking, the look and smell of leprosy. To be changed from inside out they
need to be born again (Jn 3:3).
I
was part of the walking dead community for nearly a quarter of a century, a
spiritual leper before the eyes of God! Rather macabre? Indeed! But the grim
reality of being eternally separated from God is a horrifying way to spend
eternity. The walking living need to be a witness to the walking dead!
I
became spiritually alive (literally, undead, raised to walk in newness of life, Rom 6:4) because some person unknown pointed me in the right direction to a solution to my spiritual
malady of which I was unaware that was fundamentally and irrevocably
determining the quality of my eternity once I physically died. God knows who
s(he) is. I will know in heaven who through a simple act posted a poster on a
college bulletin board, inviting people to see a religious movie at a local
church.
Think
of this condemnation or judgment in another way. Recall that during the first
Passover in Egypt, to protect the life of the firstborn, Moses instructed the
people to take the blood of an unblemished lamb or goat (Ex 12:5) and brush it
on the doorposts and the lintel (the horizontal beam over the door). If God
approached a house where the blood was applied, He would pass over it, and the
firstborn was not judged.
Now,
whatever household did not apply the blood to the doorposts and the lintel by faith,
Yahweh would not pass over but enter into that household and take the life of
the firstborn. Pharaoh lost his firstborn and finally agreed to let Moses and
his people leave the land of Egypt. For Pharoah, it was the straw that
proverbially broke the camel’s back. He volunteered for that straw in his
hardened heart of unbelief and rebellion against the God of the Jews, by the
way.
Let
me inquire of you; has the blood been applied figuratively to the doorposts and
lintel of your heart through faith in Jesus Christ alone, God’s only acceptable
Sacrifice for the penalty of sin? If not, God will not pass over your
condemnation should you die at any time in that spiritual condition, and you will experience the second death. Those to whom the blood is applied through belief,
there is no judgment, no second death, only life in Christ for all eternity in
heaven!
Barring the rapture, when
we die, all believers will pass over from this life to the next and see and
experience the kingdom of God. Those who are under condemnation will die, never
seeing glory, but find themselves in the bottomless pit, awaiting the final
sentencing to be consigned to the lake of fire at the great white throne
judgment. That doesn’t sound like heaven to me! Who would be that crazy to pick
that future scenario? The walking dead, those who are spiritually blind by
unbelief; that’s who. Could there be any legitimate excuse, some exception to the rule? No.
John
15:22, If
I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no
excuse for their sin.
He did not mean that if He had not come, they
would have been sinless. But, His coming incited the severest and most deadly
sin, that of rejecting and rebelling against God and His truth. It was the
decisive sin of rejection, the deliberate and fatal choice of darkness over
light and death over life of which He spoke. He had done so many miracles and
spoken innumerable words to prove He was Messiah and Son of God, but they were
belligerent in their love of sin and rejection of the Savior (MacArthur).
Romans
1:20, For
since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly
seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal
power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
God holds all people responsible for their
refusal to acknowledge what He has shown them of Himself in His creation. Even
those who have never had an opportunity to hear the gospel have received a
clear witness about the existence and character of God—and have suppressed it. If a person will respond to the
revelation he has, even if it is solely natural revelation, God will provide
some means for that person to hear the gospel (MacArthur).
If
you wind up there in that very bad place because of your unbelief, you only
have yourself to blame (cf. Jn 5:40). There is wonderworking power in the blood
of God’s spotless Lamb, the Lifted Up One. Again, believing in Him is critical
to biblical salvation. Any other way to get around that is pit-prone and
hellbound rather than heaven bound. Read it for yourself how you end up in the
pit,
John
3:18, because
he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
In the name of the only begotten Son of God
His
name is Yeshua (Mt 1:21; Lk 19:10;
Acts 4:12)
I became aware of my condemnation
hanging over me for the very first time two months shy of turning 24. After
learning of the severe ramifications, if I should die in that spiritual state
is precisely what led me to Christ. Frankly speaking, I was on my way to hell
while in that spiritual condition, and that was not the place I wanted to be if
I died.
(2
Cor 4:3) But
even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,
(2
Cor 4:4)
whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest
the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should
shine on them [emphasis
mine].
The
devil jumps on unbelief like a tick on a hound desiring to suck the life out of
anyone in spiritual darkness. This next verse (v19) is very disturbing to me because
unbelief is not an innocent mistake, a miscalculation, but willful defiance to
God and loving it! Some are offended by the simple nature of the Gospel and treat it with
contempt because they cannot fathom that salvation is anything other than works, religiously pursuing the
do’s and the don’ts, as the only way to see the kingdom of God like Nicodemus thought (contrast Jn 14:6). It reveals a chilling fact about those who do not believe.
All
of this dark matter is fixing to get darker still. There are different shades
of shadows, but what is coming up is pitch black. Unbelief is not merely an
intellectual opinion, some innocuous academic exercise to accept or reject a proposition;
unbelief is evil and darker than you and I can imagine. It leads to bad places and spiritually unhealthy localities. It represents the
constant spiritual state of being in defiance of God.
Another
description of an unbeliever may be somewhat of a surprise if your eyes have not been opened to
the truth. Those in unbelief are enemies of God (cf. Rom 5:10; Php 3:18; Col 1:21). I
certainly didn’t know that before salvation! Unbelief is very dangerous and can
prove to be lethal to the soul. How simple it is to be saved! How simple it is to be lost (do nothing, continue as is)! Jesus wants us to see unbelief for what it
really is from the perspective of the Summit. <><
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