God’s plan for the salvation of the world

Sermon for the week of Pentecost

John 3:16-21

When I was growing up, practically every Christian could quote John 3:16—and even many non-Christians were familiar with it. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Do you still know it by heart? You should. Every Christian should. Because it summarizes the Gospel so well, in one simple verse.

God loved the world “so,” in the following way: that He gave His only-begotten Son. That’s how He loved the world. When did this love begin? It began in eternity, before the foundations of the world were laid. Knowing that mankind would rebel against Him and sin against Him and earn for itself His eternal condemnation, He loved the world. He devoted Himself to the world. To the whole world—every human being who would ever come into existence. He loved it in such a way that He made a plan to give His only-begotten Son, the Word, who was in the beginning with God and who was God. To give Him into human flesh, so that He could live under the Law for us and die under the Law for us, to redeem us all from sin, death, and the devil. God’s plan was the salvation of the world, through His Son.

That whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. So the plan was the salvation of the world through His Son, through faith. God did not intend the salvation of only a few. He didn’t intend for the road to life to be narrow, where only few people find it. He didn’t intend for the road to hell to be broad, with many people walking on it. No, God intended for all men to repent and believe in His only-begotten Son, so that all men might be saved. God the Father gave His Son into death for all men, so that literally all men might come to repent of their sins and to believe in Jesus, and so be made children of God and heirs of everlasting life. That’s how good God is. That’s how big His plan was.

He who believes in Him is not condemned. “Not condemned” is the same thing as saying “justified, declared innocent in the courtroom of God’s divine justice.” Through the Gospel, the Holy Spirit calls out to the whole world, “You’re all condemned by nature because you’re all sinners by nature! But God loved you in such a way that He gave His only-begotten Son into death for your sins! Repent and believe! All who believe are justified! No one who believes is condemned!” As Paul says in Romans 8, There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

He who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. Even though God intended for all men to be saved through faith in Christ, He knew that not all men would believe. The only way to escape the condemnation is to believe in the only-begotten Son, to use Him as your Mediator before the righteous Father, to plead His merits, His works, His record of obedience before the Father’s throne. Of course, that requires humility. It requires owning your own sinful record, being horrified at your own sins, and also recognizing that even your good works fall short. And so you have to thrust them all aside, both your sins and your works, and claim only Christ, clinging to Him in faith. That’s how to escape condemnation. But where a person doesn’t do that, where a person comes before God with his own record, his sins and his works, condemnation is the only possible result.

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. If God truly made a plan of salvation that encompassed the whole world, if He truly punished His Son for the sins of all sinners, if He has truly shined the light of Christ into the darkness of the world through the Gospel, that all men might see the path to God, then what a tragedy it is, what an affront to God it is that men don’t want Him for a Savior, don’t want Him for a light. And why don’t they? Because their deeds are evil.

For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. No one wants to get caught doing something shameful. And so they do it in the dark, in secret, hidden from the public eye. They hate the light, because the light exposes their shame.

Now, everyone does evil things, by nature. Man’s inclination is only to evil all the time, as God says back in Genesis. But to “practice evil” here, as in John’s epistles, is more than that. “Practicing evil” is choosing to continue doing what is evil, to be committed to it, to embrace it, to not want to be cleansed of it or forgiven for it. Even when such people hear that God is ready to forgive them for Jesus’ sake, they choose to remain in darkness, because they love their sin, and they don’t love the God who loved the world. No, those who practice evil hate the God who loved them. Those who practice evil reject His Law, and His Gospel, and His only-begotten Son.

But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. The one who “does the truth” is the one who admits the truth that he has done evil, but who also believes the truth that is Jesus, and trusts that He will wipe away all the shame and disgrace of his sins. That one is born again, as Jesus just got done telling Nicodemus at the beginning of John chapter 3. That one is given the gift of the Holy Spirit. That one strives to walk according to the Spirit. The works he does as a believer “have been done in God,” in connection with His Spirit who works in you to will and to act for His good pleasure. Such works are acceptable in God’s sight, able to be exposed to the light without shame, because God Himself is responsible for them.

God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Know that verse. Know it, believe it, and cling to it. Praise the God who loved the world and planned its salvation, and praise His Holy Spirit for calling you through the Gospel to believe in the Father’s only-begotten Son, that you should not perish, but have everlasting life. Amen.