Word of Salvation – Vol.06 No.49 – December 1960
God So Loved The World
Sermon by Rev. Prof. K. Runia on John 3:16
Scripture Reading: 1John 4:7-21
Hymns: 350; 380:1,2,3; 348:1,2,3; 340; 363:3
Translated by John Westendorp with some AI help from Google.
Translator’s note: early editions of ‘Word of Salvation’ still had some sermons in Dutch for the migrant communities that then made up the Reformed Churches of Australia.
Brothers and Sisters, Boys and Girls,
This morning’s (afternoon’s) text is one of the most well-known and beloved texts in the entire Bible. And that is no wonder, because it is one of the richest texts in the Bible. Here we are standing right at the heart of salvation. Our entire salvation is summed up here in a single sentence.
Is this not indeed all: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Is that not all inclusive? Here you have Christmas and Golgotha summarized as one great whole. Yes, even more than Christmas and Golgotha. Here also the secret that lies behind it is revealed: God’s eternal love. It all comes up from the depths of the Father’s heart.
All this is so rich that you are actually astonished by it. This one sentence is so powerful and so loaded, that you actually do not know where to begin. I want to be honest with you: until now I have never dared to preach on this text. I have thought about it, but then I always felt so completely inadequate. That was also the case in the week in which I prepared this sermon. On the one hand, there was a feeling of intense joy. How incredibly rich we are, that we know this Gospel, that we know this God – that we may know: He gave His Son for me too. But at the same time, there was also that feeling of inadequacy. ΑΙl your words and thoughts fall short here.
Yet this word is also in the Bible to be preached. And we can hardly find a better occasion to preach about it than precisely on Christmas Day. After all, it is precisely in this text that we see Christmas in its full richness and meaning. For our text speaks of:
GOD’S IMMEASURABLE LOVE, REVEALED IN
THE GIVING OF HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON.
The text begins in Greek with the word: ‘so’. In our translation it begins with the word ‘for’, but it’s not possible to put that first in Greek, because there the word ‘because/for’ is always the second word of a sentence). The word ‘so’ is therefore emphatically at the front. SO loved God the world.
‘So sweet…’, that is to say: what follows now is the highest love that is possible. ‘So sweet…’, there is no limit to it, there is nothing that is higher, this is the very, very highest.
Here this one little word ‘so’ is more than an indication of the magnitude of this Divine love. There is also a strong element of amazement, of wonder. In this ‘so’ there is an exclamation: how is it possible that this love exists with God? How is it possible that God has loved the world so!
This second element is at least as important as the first. We would like to say it like this: Only those who know this amazement, only they can also understand something of this immense love of God.
Without this amazement, God’s love becomes a pale shadow. This love becomes something self-evident. And, unfortunately, for too many this is the case. That other word of John… that mighty word: “God is love”, is still being abused. It is being abused because it is isolated, because it is taken out of its context and made into a general statement. It then comes to mean something like: It is God’s job to love; God cannot do anything else but love; that is just the way He is. And so this word then functions as a pillow to lull one’s own conscience to sleep.
It is clear that all wonder has disappeared here. Here God’s love has become completely flat. It is really nothing more than sweetness, indulgence that turns a blind eye to everything. It becomes a cheap love, a love that costs nothing.
But then we say it again today: all this has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the Gospel. In the Gospel there is nothing self-evident. The Gospel is all miracle. It is the miracle of the ‘thus’. Thus God loved…!
And this miracle is shown in two ways in our text, which brings us to the heart of the Gospel.
a) By the object of this love.
Who is that object? Our text says: For God so loved the WORLD…! What an incredibly sharp contrast lies here in our text.
On the one hand there is God, the Creator of heaven and earth, the Almighty, the eternally resting in Himself, the Holy One, who is pure and clean through and through. On the other hand there is the world. From the context it is clear that this is primarily about the human world, for what follows is: “…all who believe.” That cannot apply to the animals or the plants, and even less to inanimate nature. No, it is the world of people. And then we must go a step further: not the world, as it was created by God and of which He declared in His holy judgment that it was ‘very good’, but THIS human world, this sinful human world, which has deviated from God, which has rebelled against Him.
Let us make it a little more concrete. It is the world, to which you and I belong. Of which we are each in our own way ‘a type’. Yes, let us stay very close to home. Who are we in ourselves? Are we not all by nature rebels against God, sinners who go their own way, who are thoroughly selfish, who are thoroughly insincere, etc. etc.?
Now, what else could this world have expected than to be cast out by the Holy God, to be consumed by the fire of his holiness, to be driven from his presence forever? – Look, that is the only thing that is self-evident. Not a sweet: “God is love”, but an inexorable one: God is holy, God is a consuming fire!
And what does the Gospel say now? The Gospel says: despite all this, God still loves this world. Yes , indeed, God still loves that world with an unspeakable love. SO loves God this world. SO! It is completely incomprehensible. There is nothing in that world itself that can arouse that love. There is nothing in you or me that would make us worthy of that love. It is certainly not because we humans, if you look closely, are still a bit better than expected, or because there is still a good core hidden somewhere deep within us. On the contrary, we are corrupt through and through, affected to the core of our existence.
There is only one reason: God Himself. He does not let us go. He continues to see His own work in this world, despite sin . Here a human heart can only fill itself with wonder. How is it possible that God still loves this world of people? How is it possible that He does not throw them away? Indeed, it is a miracle, a pure miracle.
b) But we have not seen everything yet . The wonder is much greater. For what DOES God now do for this world? Our text says: God so loved the world that HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON.
This is where one becomes completely dazed. God gives His Son for this world. To save this world from eternal destruction, God gives His Son. The text says: His ONLY BEGOTTEN Son. This name is always used in the Bible to express the unique relationship between this Son and God. This Son is not just a creature. God does not send a saviour, who is esspecially created for the situation. In itself that would be great. We should be amazed at that for eternity. But in reality God does much more. He sends His only begotten Son, His Divine Son, Him, of whom the church later confessed, that He is of the same essence with the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.
Isn’t it incredible? Isn’t God’s love truly endless? After all, God could give no more. This was the highest. It is precisely this gift that reveals the infinite greatness of God’s love.
And this is what we may celebrate today: that Son comes into the world. This is the miracle of Christmas: God’s Son, the Only Begotten, comes into the world.
I’m afraid that we church people often fall short here too. We ‘re already so used to the miracle. We have heard and celebrated it so often. Then the danger becomes so great that the shine of wonder fades. But then I hope with all my heart that this text wants to show us that again today. What we commemorate today is the most incredible thing possible: God sends His Son, His Only Begotten into the world. And He does not do that to destroy us and the whole world with us, but to save us, to save us forever.
For what does God do with his Son? Our text says: He GIVES Him. It does not use the neutral expression: He sends Him. No, He gives Him. We may also read: He hands him OVER.
And do you know what that means? That means the CROSS. Just think of the comparison with the bronze serpent in verse 15. That was, in its exaltation, an image of the exaltation of Christ on the cross. And immediately after that follows the ‘giving’ of our text. This giving can only mean the CROSS. Yes , that is also part of it. That is also part of it today. Bethlehem and Golgotha are inseparable. Bethlehem is the beginning of Golgotha. Golgotha is the end of Bethlehem. God’s love is nothing other and nothing less than the love of the cross. It is the love of the great divine sacrifice, in which the Father offers his Son and the Son lets himself be offered by the Father.
Not without reason, various commentators have connected this text with the history of Genesis 22: the sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham. In Gen.22:2 we read that God says to Abraham: “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love.” In it God asks the highest sacrifice possible. Isaac is the richest thing that Abraham possesses. He is the son of his old age. Much more: he is the son of the promise.
But may God ask that? Isn’t this too much? The answer is: No! …and again: No! God may ask this, because… God does this himself. He Himself brings this sacrifice. He Himself takes His Son, His Only One, whom He loves,
By the way, with Abraham it is nothing more than a test. God himself knew that it would not happen. Soon Isaac will be released, and another sacrifice will be offered: that of the ram, which was stuck in the thicket by its horns. But God knew that even that ram was only temporary. One day the great sacrifice would take place. The offeror is God Himself. The lamb is his only begotten Son. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son…..!”
Brothers and sisters, here a person can no longer find words to express the wonder of it all. Here all our thinking and imagination stops. What love! All human love, however great, pales in comparison. This is infinite, endless love in its entirety. God himself gives: his Son.
God gives his Son in the sacrifice of Golgotha.
God gives His Son in sacrifice to this world, to you and me, to save this world, you and me.
Yes , God does this TO SAVE: It is clearly stated: that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Here again there is an incredibly fierce CONTRAST.
On the one hand: TO BE LOST. That is what we deserve: to be lost. That is: hell . No, indeed, there is nothing sugary about this. To put it bluntly: the world deserves hell. The world deserves to be driven from God’s face forever… to be forever without his grace, to stand forever in the fire of his wrath. And it is from that hell that the Son delivers us. Nothing less than that hell. In my Frisian culture we have a saying about something that you can only get someone to do with the greatest difficulty: “You have to get it from the doors of hell.” Well, that is what was literally done by the Son.
And what does He do next? He gives ETERNAL LIFE. That is another incomprehensible word. Who can grasp it? You can only stammer about it. Eternal life in fellowship with God. Enjoying His favour forever. A life of endless joy. A life so full of God that it has no end.
And again we must say: Is it not incredible? Is it not dizzying? Is it not sinking away in eternal adoration?
From the eternity of God goes forth His love. That love goes forth into this sinful world. That love comes in the person of God’s only begotten Son. He comes into this world in all helplessness and powerlessness. Like a child. Like a helpless child in a stable. And from that stable He goes up to the cross. His whole life is one long preparation for this cross. On that cross He dies as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Here we can only sing along with the old Dutch song:
Come, marvel here people,
See, how that you love God.
See, fulfilled the soul’s desires,
See this newborn child.
See, who is the Word, without speaking,
See, who is Prince, without splendour.
See, who is everything, yet is lacking;
See, who is the light, in the night.
See, who is the good, that is so sweet,
Is rejected, is despised,
There you have it again: Bethlehem and Golgotha in one breath. And immediately you have the secret here too: See how that you love God.
Yet we must not end here. There are still a few more words in our text, words that we absolutely must not skip. They are these words: EVERYONE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM.
Indeed, God loves the world. We may also say: God saves the world. In verse 17 we read: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.”
But this does not mean that everything happens automatically, just like that. Then we would, via a detour, end up back at the worldly ‘God is love’.
No, God gives His love only IN THE WAY OF FAITH. Of course, that word ‘faith’ may not be understood here purely intellectually or purely historically. It is a thoroughly personal matter. ‘He who believes in Him, it says. In Greek, the word ‘in’ is preceded by a word that means: towards Him, so that one surrenders oneself to Him. All this wealth can only be received in personal, childlike faith in Jesus Christ.
All this does not mean that the beauty is suddenly gone. That it finally all depends on us again. After all, where then is the joy and the certainty?
But that is certainly not the intention here. The Bible clearly states that faith itself is also a gift of God. Yes , thank God, faith is also His gift. It all depends on Him . For us, faith is only THE WAY BY WHICH we receive it. Faith is being open to Him. Faith is the empty hand in which He places His gifts. But such an empty hand is also really necessary. A closed hand or a full hand can no longer contain anything else. Only where man has become completely empty can the Lord release His fullness.
Woe to the man who refuses to believe. Who refuses to become so completely empty. Such a man IS LOST.
Yes , we must say that, also at Christmas. We repeat it again: God’s love is not a sugar-coated treat. God’s love is surrounded by the dark edge of judgment. Woe to the man who despises God’s love. It would be better for such a man that a millstone were tied around his neck and that he were cast into the sea. For what is worse than to despise this love?
My brother and my sister, do you believe? Do you really believe in the Lord Jesus? Do you really believe in God’s love? Or is it just a cold formality with you? Is it just a tagging along and going through a routine?
Oh, then repent. The sun of God’s love still shines. For you too. He calls you. He says to you today too: I so loved the world, that I gave my only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,
Do you hear well, what the Lord God says? EVERYONE. God is not narrow-minded. He does not just leave the door ajar, but He has made it wide open.
Oh brothers and sisters, boys and girls, let us believe. Then, then all that wealth is also for us! Then all that love of God is for us! Yes, God’s children may appropriate this.
I can imagine that some do not dare. Is this all for me..? That is not possible? Humanly speaking that is true. It is impossible. But today we do not listen to a human message, but to GOD’S message. And then we must say: it is possible. Yes, it is really for everyone who believes. God HAS given His Son. That is reality. The highest and most glorious reality. And we, we are allowed to live out of it… every day again.
Yes , we may experience it every day as the greatest miracle, the miracle of all miracles, the miracle of God’s pure grace.
So… – so loved God the world, that He gave His own Son – for that fallen world – to utter shame and scorn. Yes, while we were yet sinners, the One who had mercy on us gave us grace. His Son died on Golgotha, died for us, who were sinners, God is love; Oh angel’s voice, human tongue, glorify Him!
Amen.