The Gospel of John-16 – So Loved

John 3:16–21

 

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” Amen.

 

The Love of God Contained in the Most Familiar Verse

The answer to what the most famous verse in the Bible is will vary from person to person. For example, someone like Martin Luther, who ignited the Reformation, would point to the verse in Romans 1, “The righteous will live by faith,” and I believe each of you also has a verse that you love and cherish. However, one of the verses that the vast majority of Christians know and love the most is undoubtedly today’s text, John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” This word, which records the wondrous love of God, is a famous verse so widely known that not only many believers but even those who do not believe have it memorized.

 

God’s Love That Transcends Our Convictions

However, in understanding this verse, not only non-believers but even believing saints sometimes misunderstand it. This is because they usually understand this word in this way: ‘God truly loved us, so He sent Jesus to this earth. Therefore, if we believe in Him, we obtain eternal life, and if we do not believe, we reach destruction.’ Because the sentence appears concise, it is often thought of simply like this. However, although we will meditate deeply on this verse several times in the future, there is one fact to point out first. This word is not a verse that places emphasis on a cause-and-effect relationship or human choice, such as ‘I obtained eternal life because I believed in God’s love, and you did not obtain it because you did not believe.’

 

The emphasis of the text is placed primarily on ‘what God’s love is.’ The word ‘faith’ can only be understood in its true meaning after fully understanding God’s love. Everyone, when we say we ‘believe,’ if we think about it wrongly, it is easy for it to become a subjective ‘conviction’ rather than faith. In other words, the Bible does not call faith how strongly one is convinced or how firmly one has set their mind. Therefore, please set aside for a moment the understanding that ‘it is enough as long as I just believe,’ as we commonly think. We wish to look more deeply into what kind of meaning that faith truly contains through the verses following John 3:16.

 

God’s Sovereignty Erasing the Conditions of Nicodemus

First, I want us to think together about who the subject of John 3:16 is. Who is the subject of this sentence? It is revealed at the very start of the word. As it is recorded in our Bibles, by declaring, “God so loved the world,” the subject is none other than ‘God.’ The fact that God is the subject carries a very important meaning. As we have watched while studying John 3 all along, a conversation between Nicodemus and Jesus is flowing here. However, if we look closely at this context, we can see that the subject of this sentence speaking of God’s love is not Nicodemus. The fact that Nicodemus is not the subject is the same as the fact that we, too, cannot be the subject.

 

In the fact that the subject is God, we discover a very important truth. In explaining God’s love, neither Nicodemus nor we can ever be the subject, and we can never be any kind of condition. In other words, God’s love does not take Nicodemus’s fame or noble character as its basis even in the slightest. Do you perhaps feel wronged? Even the honor and status we have gained in this world, and even the character we have diligently cultivated all this time, do not appear at all in the place of explaining God’s love. It is because God’s love—no, the Gospel—does not acknowledge any condition we put forward.

 

The Reality of Humans Equal in the Darkness

When God looks at you, He treats you exactly the same as the target of our indignation when we see a murderer on TV and say, “How can there be such a person?” Those whom we commonly call the ‘dregs of humanity’ and finger-point at, and we ourselves, are placed by the Bible on the same line. You might want to ask how that can be, but in the conditions for entering the Kingdom of God, the circumstances of robbers or murderers, or those people we despise, and the circumstances of you who have never been near a police station, let alone a prison, are not different at all. Everyone is simply equal before that solemn standard that one cannot see the Kingdom of God unless they are born again.

 

Everyone, remember the background of John 3 that we have looked at so far. Nicodemus had extraordinary skills and background. He was a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews, and an individual who possessed the courage and spiritual thirst to seek out Jesus late at night. However, even that brilliant background and skill do not exert any effect in the Kingdom of God. To borrow the expression of the elders, including my mother, this is like “fixing one’s makeup on a moonless night.” In the pitch-black darkness where there is not even moonlight, if one applies makeup, what difference does it make whether they are pretty or not? Even if Nicodemus is the highest-caliber human of the time equipped with a noble character, in God’s eyes, he is merely a being trapped in the darkness just like a murderer or a robber. No matter how much one tries to decorate themselves, it is a useless thing like fixing one’s face in the middle of a dark night, and everyone is the same in the point that they are in a state of not knowing the light.

 

Perfect Love Flowing from the Attributes of God

Since it is of no use no matter how much Nicodemus tries to cultivate himself, the protagonist of this story is not Nicodemus but God. God loves. In other words, this love is a love in which God becomes the subject and acts. The characteristic of the love God performs is in the point that it is a love flowing out from God’s attributes. It means it is not a love originating from our nature, nor is it a love of a dimension that we can understand and explain with human intellect.

 

Everyone, what are the attributes of God? There are many things even among those we know well. When praying together in church or praying alone, we often confess God who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. God is the eternal one, the unchanging Lord who never changes, and He is the Almighty who can perform all things. These attributes precisely represent the ‘whatness’ of God. And His love flows out from these very holy attributes. Why is this fact so important? It is because when it comes to love, you and I are also beings who have our own things to say.

 

Human Helplessness and the Limits of Bruised Love

Everyone, don’t we also love? We also have quite a lot that we vaguely know about love. When we see a young man and woman whose passion is burning as they have just started meeting, we are pleased, saying, “It looks so good, that’s what love is, now winter has passed and spring is coming.” However, regardless of time or place, one of the most desperate definitions of love will be the saying, “Love is a seed of tears.” There is no one who is only comfortable while loving. A hard process of having to endure while crying and laughing follows.

 

And why is married life so difficult? Why does the other person not know my heart so well? As I try to practice love, pain and ache follow. No matter how hard one tries to do well, there is no person who can do well enough to fully satisfy the other’s heart, and we also do not have that ability. Therefore, hoping and hoping again toward the other person and finally having one’s heart bruised is our love. When having a couple’s fight, wives often say this: “Do you even know how much you’ve made my heart rot? If I were to open up my heart, perhaps sea-water with dark blue bruises would flow.” It is probably a lament that one’s heart was bruised dark blue in such distressing years. Then husbands also do not stay still. They fight back, saying, “What about my heart? Mine is a sea of blood!”

 

Do you know the reason why love is so difficult like this? It is because we have the concept of love and know how to say how it should be done, but decisively, we do not have the ‘ability.’ We can start love, but we do not have the ability to protect that love to the end. We make countless attempts, but the strength to carry it out continuously is lacking. Therefore, in some ways, love is like a nuisance. We know it is something good and we strive to give and receive it, but the ability to actually handle it is lacking in us.

 

The Omnipotent Love That Only God Can Perform

When I ask those who have been married for a long time about their lives, they often say, “Now we just live by affection (Jeong).” In the back of those words, the meaning is implied that they already know everything about how to respond when the other person picks a fight. Before reaching that level of mastery, by about my age, one comes to know instinctively what words to throw to turn the other person’s heart upside down. So even when fighting, they do not lay it out long-windedly, but sometimes end the situation with just one decisive word that touches the other’s pride. However, as time passes and you age, this confession becomes contained in that one word: the lament, “We truly do not know love, but we are also beings who do not even have the ability to love.”

 

However, God is different from us. As I said before, God loves us from God’s attributes. He is the powerful God. That He is powerful means that once He starts love, there is nothing that can make that love stop. Nothing in this world can hinder or block God’s love. This is precisely God’s way of loving us based on omnipotence. The writer of John expresses how omnipotently God is loving us like this: “God so loved the world.”

 

Unconditional Pity Toward the Opposing World

Everyone, the word 'world' here does not simply point to all people existing in this world as we commonly think. In other words, it is not a numerical concept meaning many people as if counting heads. John does not enjoy using such numerical expressions when mentioning the world. Or, since the following verse said, "whoever believes obtains eternal life," if we ask if the word 'loving the world' means 'loving those who believe,' that is also not it. The Bible does not express that God chooses and loves only those who believe, but clearly records that He loved the 'world.'

 

Here, 'world' is a concept that often appears in the Gospel of John and the Epistles of John, and it carries a meaning opposite to God. That is, the state of opposing God, having come away from Him, and not only appearing to have no relationship with Him but rather hating Him instead of loving Him is expressed as 'the world.' Regarding this, John recorded, "The light came to the darkness, but the darkness did not realize it." To put it another way, the world now is in a state of darkness, and that darkness means the ignorance of not knowing God.

 

Severed Existence and the Identity of the Sinner

Everyone, we usually do not like words like “You are sinners” or “This world is full of sin.” When we hear such words, we usually think of murder, conflict, or news of war appearing on TV and agree that the world is full of sin. However, when the Bible says the world is full of sin, it contains a much deeper meaning than the phenomenon that there are many visible and terrible events. It means the fundamental severance where humans have moved away from God and have come to have no relationship with Him.

 

God is the supreme good. Because we have fallen away from the source of that good, humans no longer have the ability to perform the supreme good. The reason the Bible calls us sinners is right here. A being who tries to live in this world only by their own strength regardless of God—that is the reality of a sinner. Please do not listen to these words only unpleasantly and try to look back once at how we are living. Are we truly living in close connection with God? If we ask ourselves how many times even we who believe think of God a 일 (day), what would the circumstances of those who do not believe be like?

 

Ultimately, the expression 'sinner' shows our spiritual existence severed from God. Even if one is a sinner, they can do good works as spoken of in the world. However, because they are a sinner who has left God, even in that good-looking act, their own greed or a foul motive they want to hide from others is bound to be mixed. It is because even if they do a noble thing, there are so many cases where they do it to reveal themselves or to establish their own righteousness.

 

God's Stubborn Will Beyond Emotion

Ultimately, if the state of being severed from God is called sin, we witness countless products of sin derived from that severance. Look at how ignorant we are of God. Even though God came right beside us and personally said, "I am the God who teaches you," we did not recognize Him. Rather, we tried to kill Him. That is the very event of Jesus Christ and the true appearance of 'the world' that the Bible speaks of. The very scene where they opposed God and went so far as to try to murder God is the world, yet the Bible declares that God loved that very world.

 

The target God loved was that very world. It is not because we did an act worthy of being loved before God, or because He saw the sincerity we offer as we come to the place of worship and loved us. It means it is not because you strove not to be late for worship time and kept your piety by reading the Bible. The word that God loves us means He loves us despite us having no conditions, and if we must find a condition, it means He loves us even though we rather hated and opposed God.

 

A deep meaning is contained in this love. God’s love does not stay in a simple surging ‘emotion.’ It does not only mean He loves because His emotion is abundant, such as wanting to embrace and stroke you whenever He sees you. Of course, it does not mean God does not have such a heart, but fundamentally, a determined ‘will’ is contained in this love. The will to love us by all means, that stubborn will to surely keep the promise made with us is precisely God’s love.

 

The Sacrifice of the Lamb Prepared from Before the Creation

When Jesus died hanging on the cross, would God have clapped and been happy, saying, “Well done”? No. He would have felt a heart-rending pain. When that Son, whom He loved the most and who also loved God the most, was dying, how could God’s heart be peaceful? Nevertheless, God did not bend His determined will to surely accomplish that work.

 

Remember. Originally, you and I did not know God. It was not even a stage to discuss faith or love. We never even requested God to save us; rather, we were those who fled and avoided Him because He was hateful or because He was feared. Then finally, we were those who made and served the gods we wanted ourselves. Sometimes that was myself, or it became money, power, or this world. That was our reality.

 

But toward such people as us, God’s unbending stubbornness, that tenacious love that never gives up started. The person who appeared in the completed form of that love on this earth is Jesus Christ. We can find a verse showing how powerful this stubbornness of God’s love is in Revelation 13:8. “All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.”

 

The Bible testifies that the names of God’s people have all been recorded in the book of life since the creation. However, what is noteworthy is that the owner of that book is described as the ‘Lamb who was slain.’ Who is the slain Lamb? It is Jesus. We know that Jesus came to this earth 2,000 years ago and bore the cross. However, the Bible says that the names of God’s people have been written since the creation in the book of the slain Lamb. This implies that Jesus’ death is not just an event of 2,000 years ago, but in God’s appointment, it is a work already accomplished since the creation. It is a mysterious concept of time that we cannot fully understand.

 

Confirmed Love Transcending Human Conditions

Everyone, it is not easy for us to fully understand this concept of God’s time. However, one certain fact is that Jesus Christ’s death is not an event that stays only at the historical point of 2,000 years ago. It is clear that the sacrifice is an eternal event possessing a meaning beyond what we understand as history. Just as that efficacy was applied to the people at the time of creation, even if 2,000, 4,000, or 10,000 years pass hereafter, it is an event applied identically to all God’s people who will appear after the creation until the end of the world. As we know, the cross is not limited to a historical event that occurred in one era.

 

If these words feel somewhat difficult, I want us to understand it more clearly through the word of Romans 5. Paul declares this apocalyptic and symbolic expression more clearly in Romans 5:8. "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

 

Looking at it temporally, when we were still sinners, that is, when we were still the 'world' opposing God, Christ died for us. That the love was already accomplished when the world was in the midst of evil means that no condition of ours was involved in this holy work. The fact that Jesus died before the creation and names were recorded in the book of life is the same. It is not the conditions we possessed that determined this salvation. The fact that God found us first regardless of our state or qualification—this part is precisely the mystery of grace difficult to understand with human reason.

 

The Paradox of Grace Going Against Religious Nature

Once, a comparative religion conference was held in England. Many scholars gathered and held a heated debate over what exactly the essential characteristic that differentiates Christianity from other religions is. When someone suggested, “Wouldn't the Incarnation be the uniqueness of Christianity?” others refuted it. They said that in Roman mythology or other mythologies, stories of a god wearing a human body and appearing can be found quite often. Then another person said, “Then wouldn't the resurrection of Christ be the decisive difference?” but this also fell into a labyrinth as other religious cases having a resurrection narrative were presented.

 

The reason concepts such as the Incarnation, Resurrection, or Virgin Birth—the core events of Christianity—exist similarly in other religions or myths is that they are elements that correspond to human nature. When humans suppose a god, we usually draw a great target that we cannot reach. Because we are beings who have no choice but to die, we admire a god who does not die, and because we are weak, we try to create a strong god. In this way, within the religious framework based on human nature, it was not easy to find the unique value of Christianity.

 

When the scholars were in deep thought, Professor C.S. Lewis, who happened to be passing by that hallway, entered the discussion room. When he asked what they were agonizing so much over, the scholars replied that they were having trouble finding the unique essence possessed only by Christianity. Then Professor Lewis threw one word clearly and left the room. “Why do you agonize over something so easy? It is none other than ‘grace.’”

 

The scholars began to chew over the meaning of those words. What is grace? It is the concept that God gives everything to humans for free without any price or condition. This is a principle exactly opposite to human nature. Human nature believes there is a result only when there is a cause. This is because the law of cause and effect—getting as much as one strived and being treated as much as one is qualified—is the logic of our nature.

 

The Pursuit of God Starting from the Beginning

Human nature weighs the relationship of cause and effect, but God says He bestows blessing and pity upon us even though there is no cause in us. I used the expression 'blessing' (chuk-bok) earlier, but strictly speaking, this is 'blessing' (bok), 'love,' and 'pity' that God gives us for free. Ultimately, I have seen a record that even those scholars, after deep discussion, could not reach any other conclusion to explain Christianity besides ‘grace.’ That is right. The Gospel is the news that God found us first, who have no qualification, regardless of the conditions we equipped on this earth or the merit worthy to put forward before God. That He started love, and that He holds onto us until the end without ever severing or giving up that love—that is precisely the essence of grace and the Gospel.

 

The reason the Bible recorded "so loved the world" is right here. Here, it is easy to understand the expression 'so' (i-cheo-reom) as a demonstrative representing the degree of the previous sentence, but in fact, this word is closer to an exclamation of emphasis representing a magnitude that cannot be compared. Like the expression in the English Bible "so loved," it means He loved immensely. It is a declaration that He loved extremely to the point that nothing can be compared or matched with it.

 

This word showing how deeply God loved the world does not just receive the previous verse, but encompasses the entire context that has continued from John 1:1. From the declaration "In the beginning was the Word," God's pursuit toward you started. God's gaze toward us who are living today already started from the beginning. Piercing through all kinds of adversity, human stubborn refusal, and the world's mockery, that song and touch of love are reaching you at this very hour today from the beginning.

 

An Unstoppable Stubbornness Proven by the Cross

God sent His only Son Jesus Christ to this earth. That He sent the Son means, as we looked at last week, that He must be lifted high on a pole like the bronze serpent of the wilderness. In other words, it means Jesus received the curse instead of us. This amazing fact we will deal with more deeply next week and thereafter, and today I want us to focus on the ‘cross,’ the way God revealed Himself.

 

If we were to meet God directly, with what kind of great power and authority would we expect Him to appear? It is human nature to wish for Him to come in a magnificent, great, and overwhelming appearance befitting the one who created the universe. However, the Bible testifies how Jesus Christ revealed Himself like this. He showed God upon the ‘cross.’ Like a lamb being led to the slaughterhouse, He hung on the cross without a single word of excuse. In your eyes, was that appearance the appearance of one with authority or power? No. But the Lord came that way, and He died that way.

 

What would be the reason for that? We pushed Him away, and we found His existence bothersome. We even mocked Him, saying, “If God loves me, show me the evidence.” Even today, there are many people who find God’s interference uncomfortable and say, “Just leave me alone. I will offer the Sunday worship, so do not involve Yourself in my life outside the world.” Some even say they are scared that if they believe in Jesus deeply, God will intervene in every single thing in their life. One sister even confessed the honest fear, “I want to believe in God, but I cannot readily believe because I’m afraid He might tell me to go as a missionary to Africa.” That can certainly happen. Sometimes such refusal and fear coexist in our hearts.

 

Love Treasuring You More Than the Life of the Son

We have opposed and avoided God. Even without going back to the history of the Israelites, we ourselves are those who always ran away to a path other than the one God wants, hated Him, and even tried to kill Him. However, God did not lay out clumsy excuses or try to explain the situation toward us. He just silently hung on the cross and said, "It is finished."

 

Why did He do that? The reason is only one: because He loves you. Because He loves you more than God’s own heart, and treasures you more than His only Son. That is why He gave over the Son to the cross without any excuse. Even though you are shaking off that touch, opposing Him, and living as you please, God never withdraws the touch He has caught. He constantly speaks and calls you to look at Him.

 

We turn back and ask. "God, why do You follow me to this extent? Why do You track my life so tenaciously?" The answer is still one. "Because I love you. Because I love you more than the life of My Son." In that way, the Lord has tracked us. Exactly until when does His touch and tracking continue? The text says it is until we obtain 'eternal life.' Then what is eternal life? Does it simply mean living forever? I guarantee you, everyone lives forever. Whether one believes in Jesus or not, because we are spiritual beings, we come to exist eternally. Therefore, the eternal life the Bible speaks of does not only mean living forever temporally, nor does it only mean a state of not going to hell.

 

Until God's Satisfaction Becomes Our Glory

Eternal life does not only mean not going to hell or temporal eternity. The eternal life the Bible speaks of is that we also enjoy that amazing blessing, life, and unspeakable glory that God is enjoying now. God is never satisfied until we enjoy together all that abundance He enjoys. Until we participate in that place of glory, God does not stop even for a single moment. That is precisely God's love.

 

Everyone, knowing the cross and resurrection and accepting Jesus is not the end of faith. That is not the entirety of salvation. True salvation is God holding onto our lives until He is satisfied. And finally, until the sincere confession of love bursts out from our lips, “God, I am truly happy. I am now satisfied. The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing,” the Lord will never rest and will track our lives.

 

If there is anyone who does not yet know Jesus Christ personally, please listen to this earnest voice of the Lord's love. Also, saints who already confess to know Jesus, feel and learn with all your heart that love He constantly pours out upon you until the Lord is satisfied, and enjoy and be happy to your heart's content. I earnestly hope that you will be blessed saints who live following the Lord's voice and overcoming the world today as this great love becomes your power.

 

The Holy Tenacity Calling from Beyond the Mountains of Suffering

Every time you turn your head, there will be times you want to ask, “God, I am so tired. Why did You leave me like this? Why?” Why would He? Because He loves you. Because He loves you, He also gives you thorns, leaves the mountains of life before you, and allows you difficulties that are hard to speak of. Why? Because He loves you. Because He loves you, He showed a figure of loving you more than the life of the Son, so what would God spare and what would He withdraw? Dearly beloved, please do not forget and calculate your life and your living before that tenacious love of God’s stubbornness who does not rest until this love, this God’s glory, and this God’s holiness are accomplished in your life.

 

Let us pray.

Loving Lord, You loved us so. Lord, if we knew that, if we knew that, why would we hate? We did not know, Lord, we know too little. We still do not realize how God loves us and how much He loves us. Lord, if we realized, why would we fight, hate, and be upset like this, and hurt others for the sake of my pride? Lord, we know too little. Let us know that love. Let us know it more deeply. Every moment that amazing love already accomplished is realized in our lives, let us be touched by that love so that our hearts become warm before that love of God, let us think of our neighbors, and let us be those who rejoice in God.

 

In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.