"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.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
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.
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.
For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.
But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."

Verse 16 is one of the great treasures of the Bible! Probably it would be true to say that more has been written and said of this verse than of any other in the Scriptures. With their distinctive styles, the commentators have indicated something similar to the following outline:

A GREAT LOVE. . . . . . . . . . . . . For God so loved the world,

A GREAT GIFT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . That He gave His only begotten Son,

A GREAT OPPORTUNITY. . . . . That Whosoever believeth in Him

A GREAT DELIVERANCE. . . . . should not perish,

A GREAT POSSESSION. . . . . . . but have everlasting life!

In the first century there were no devices such as inverted commas to show the precise limits of quoted speech. The result is that we are always left to the probabilities, and we must work out for ourselves where a speech or a quotation ends. In this passage Jesus begins to speak in verse 10, but John does not tell us where this speech ends. The dialogue form simply ceases. Most agree that somewhere we pass into the reflections of the Evangelist. Perhaps the dividing point comes at the end of verse 15. The sentence which ends there has a reference to "the Son of man", an expression used by Jesus only in all four Gospels. We are on fairly safe ground in maintaining that these are His words.

But in verse 16 the death on the cross appears to be spoken of as past, and there are stylistic indications that John is speaking for himself. It would seem that the Evangelist, as he records Jesus’ words about His death, is led to some reflections of his own on the same subject. That death is God's gift to deliver men from perishing. If, after all, they do perish, it is because they prefer darkness to light. They bring it upon themselves.

Just before Verse 16, Christ had just made mention of His death, and had affirmed that the Cross was an imperative necessity; it was not "the Son of man SHALL be lifted up, "but "the Son of man MUST be lifted up." There was no other alternative. If the claims of God's throne were to be met, if the demands of justice were to be satisfied, if the sin was to be put away, it could only be by some sinless One being punished in the stead of those who should be saved. The righteousness of God required this: the Son MUST BE LIFTED UP!

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Verse 16 takes us back to the very foundation of everything. The great SACRIFICE was provided by LOVE. Christ was God's love gift. This at once refutes an error that once obtained in certain quarters, namely, that Christ died in order that God might be induced to pity and save men. The very opposite is the truth. Christ died because God did love men, and was determined to save them that belief. The death of Christ was the supreme demonstration of God's love. It was impossible that there should be any discord among the Persons of the Godhead in reference to the salvation of men. The will of the Godhead is, and necessarily must be, one.

The Atonement was not the cause, but the effect, of God's love: "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. 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, 10). From what other source could have proceeded the giving of Christ to save men but from LOVE-- pure sovereign benignity!

It is commonplace in our day to say that God loves men and women. But many who say this fail to recognize that we know this is so only because of Jesus Christ.

How do we know that God loves us? Not because of creation certainly, for the evidence of creation is ambiguous. There are tidal waves and hurricanes as well as gorgeous sunsets. Not because we value love, for not all of us do. Not because love is wonderful or grand or because it makes the world go ground. We know that God loves us because He has given His Son to be crucified for us and thereby to bring us back into fellowship with Himself. Thus, if the love of God is one of God's greatest attributes, the gift of Christ is most certainly His greatest gift. For it is through Christ that we come to know God's love and love God.

THE LOVE OF GOD . . . . AH! WHAT A GLORIOUS SUBJECT!
"For God so loved...."
There are many passages in the Bible that have been chosen by some great person or other has a favorite text. John Wesley often said that his favorite verse was Zechariah 3:2: "Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?"

David Livingston preferred the last words of Matthew 28:20: "Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

John Newton said that his favorite verse was Romans 5:20: "But where sin increased, grace increased all the more."

Luther had Romans 1:17 as his life text: The righteous will live by faith.

Each of these verses has spoken to some man in his own particular condition and has become for him the greatest text in the Bible. But I believe that it can be truthfully declared that John 3:16 is the favorite text of vast multitudes of Christians in every age. In the early 1960s, the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth was in this country for a series of lectures. At one of the discussion groups, someone in his audience asked this question: "Dr. Barth, What is the greatest thought that has ever passed through your mind?" Barth paused for quite a long time as he obviously thought about his answer. Then he raised his head and said with grace and childlike simplicity: "JESUS LOVES ME, THIS I KNOW, FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO." This is a truth that Christians in all ages have acknowledged, and the more that they have discovered the person of Jesus Christ in the Bible, the more they have realized it.

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THE LOVE OF GOD!

The first verses that I would like to call to your attention which states so beautifully, the truth of the love of God, are found in Ephesians 2:4-5:
"But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved."

GREAT LOVE! John 3:16 was the verse through which D.L. Moody learned to appreciate the greatness of God's love. Moody had been Britain in the early days of his ministry and there he met a young English preacher named Henry Moorhouse. One day Moorhouse said to Moody, "I am thinking of going to America."
"Well," said Moody, "if you should ever get to Chicago, come down to my church and I will give you a chance to preach."
Moody did not mean to be hypocritical when he said this, of course. He was merely being polite. Nevertheless, he was saying to himself that he hoped Moorhouse would not come, for Moody had not heard him preach and had no idea of what he would say should he come to Chicago.
Sometime later, after Moody had returned home, the evangelist received a telegram that said, "Have just arrived in New York. Will be in Chicago on Sunday. Morehouse."
Moody was perplexed about what he should do, and to complicate matters, he was just about to leave for a series of meetings elsewhere. "Oh, my" he thought, "here I am about to be gone on Sunday, Moorhouse is coming, and I have promised to let him preach."

Finally he said to his wife into the leaders of the church, "I think that I should let him preach once. So let him preach once; then if the people enjoy him, put him on again."
Moody was gone for a week. When he returned he said to his wife, "How did the young preacher do?"
"Oh, he is a better preacher then you are," his wife said. "He is telling sinners that God loves them." "That is not right," said Moody. "God does not love sinners."
"Well," she said, "you go and hear him."
"What?" Said Moody. "Do you mean to tell me that he is still preaching?"
"Yes, he has been preaching all week, and he has only had one verse for a text. It is John 3:16."
Moody went to the meeting. Morehouse got up and began by saying, "I have been hunting for a text all week, and I have not been able to find a better text than John 3:16. So I think we will just talk about it once more."
He did! Afterward Moody said it was on that night that he first clearly understood the greatness of God's love.

I think there is no other hymn which puts this truth so beautifully than that which was written by Frederick M. Lehman. The final stanza was added to the song afterward, when it was found written on the wall of a room of an asylum by a man who, before he died, had obviously come to know the immeasurable extent of God's love.

"The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell,
It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care, God gave His Son to win:
His erring child He reconciled, and pardoned from his sin.
Could we with ink the ocean fill and were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stock on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry,

(Continued on next page)

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Nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky.

Chorus:
"O love of God, how rich and pure! How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure--the saints’ and angels’ song!

This thought is expressed in Paul's prayer recorded in Ephesians 3:14-19:
"For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name.

I pray that out of His glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ made dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, they have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpassed knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

GOD'S LOVE MEANS THAT GOD ETERNALLY GIVES HIMSELF TO OTHERS. This attribute of God shows that it is part of his nature to give Himself in order to bring about blessing and good for others.

John tells us that "God is love" (1 John 4:8). We see evidence that this attribute of God was active even before the creation of the world among the members of the Trinity. Jesus speaks to His Father of "my glory which you have given in your love for me before the foundation of the world" (John 17:24), thus indicating that there was love and a giving of honor from the Father to the Son from all eternity. It continues at the present time, for we read, "The Father loves the Son, and has given all things into His hand." (John 3:35)

The self-giving love that characterizes the Trinity finds clear expression in God's relationship to mankind. "In this 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 4:10). Paul writes, "God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Paul also speaks of "the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:20), thus showing an awareness of the directly personal application of Christ's love to individual sinners.

It should cause us great joy to know that it is the purpose of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to give themselves to us to bring us true joy and happiness. It is God's nature to act that way toward those upon whom He has set His love, and he will continue to act that way toward us for all eternity.

One of the great classics of our day is a book by J. I. Packer...KNOWING GOD. In chapter twelve of this wonderful book, Dr. Packer tells about the love of God. Let me quote from his book:
"To know God's love is indeed heaven on earth. And the New Testament sets forth this knowledge, not as the privilege of a favored few, that as a normal part of ordinary Christian experience, something to which only the spiritually unhealthy or malformed will be strangers..

When Paul says, "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us (Romans 5:5), he means not love for God, as Augustine thought, but knowledge of God's love for us. And though he had never met the Roman Christians to whom he was writing, Paul took it for granted that the statement would be as true of them as it was of him. Three points in Paul's words deserve comment. First, notice the verb SHED ABROAD. It means literally POURED or DUMPED OUT. It is the word used of the OUTPOURING of the Spirit himself in Acts 2:17-18, 33. It suggests a free flow and large quantity--in fact, an inundation. Hence the rendering of the NEB, "God's love has FLOODED our inmost heart." Paul is not talking of faint or fitful impressions, but of deep and

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overwhelming ones.

Then, second, notice the tense of the verb. It is in the perfect, which implies a settled state consequent upon a completed action.
The thought is that knowledge of the love of God, having flooded our hearts, FILLS THEM NOW, just as a valley once flooded remains full of water. Paul assumes that all his readers, like himself, will be living in the enjoyment of a strong and abiding sense of God's love for them.

Third, notice that the instilling of this knowledge is described as part of the REGULAR MINISTRY OF THE SPIRIT to those who receive him, to all, that is, who are born again, all who are true believers. One could wish that this aspect of his ministry was prized more highly than it is at the present time.

With a perversity as pathetic as it is impoverishing, we have become preoccupied today with the extraordinary, sporadic, nonuniversal ministries of the Spirit to the neglect of the ordinary, general ones. Thus, we show a great deal more interest in the gifts of healing and tongues--gifts of which, as Paul pointed out, not all Christians are meant to partake anyway (1 Cor. 12:28-30)--than in the Spirit's ordinary work of giving peace, joy, hope and love, through the shedding abroad in our hearts of knowledge of the love of God.

"GOD'S LOVE IS AN EXERCISE OF HIS GOODNESS TOWARD INDIVIDUAL SINNERS WHEREBY, HAVING IDENTIFIED HIMSELF WITH THEIR WELFARE, HE HAS GIVEN HIS SON TO BE THEIR SAVIOR, AND NOW BRINGS THEM TO KNOW AND ENJOY HIM IN A COVENANT RELATIONSHIP." (Packer)

Dr. Packer goes on to explain his definition of God's love as noted above.
"GOD'S LOVE IS AN EXERCISE OF HIS GOODNESS." The Bible means by God's goodness his cosmic generosity. Goodness in God, writes Berkhof, is "that perfection in God which prompts him to deal bountifully and kindly with all His creatures. It is the affection which the Creator feels towards His sentient creatures as such. (Psa. 145:9, 15-16, Luke 6:35; Acts 14:17).

Of this goodness God's love is the supreme and most glorious manifestation.
"Love, generally," wrote James Orr, "is that principle which leads one moral being to desire and delight in another, and reaches its highest form in that personal fellowship in which each lives in the life of the other, and finds his joy in imparting himself to the other, and in receiving back the outflow of that other’s affection unto himself. Such is the love of God!

GOD'S LOVE IS AN EXERCISE OF HIS GOODNESS TOWARD SINNERS. As such, it has the nature of GRACE and MERCY. It is an outgoing of God in kindness which not merely is underserved, but is actually contrary to desert; for the objects of God's love are rational creatures who have broken God's law, whose nature is corrupt in God's sight, and who merit only condemnation and final banishment from his presence.

It is staggering that God should love sinners; yet it is true! God loves creatures who have become unlovely and (one would have thought) unlovable. There was nothing whatever in the objects of his love to call it forth; nothing in us could attract or prompt it. Love among persons is awakened by something in the beloved, but the love of God is free, spontaneous, unevoked, uncaused.

God loves people because he has chosen to love them--as Charles Wesley put it, "he hath loved us, he hath loved us, because he would love love" (an echo of Deut. 7:7-8)--and no reason for his love can be given except his own sovereign good pleasure!

The Greek and Roman world of New Testament times had never dreamed of such love; its gods were often credited with lusting after women, but never with loving sinners; and the New Testament writers had to introduce what was virtually a new Greek word, AGAPE, to express the love of God as they knew it.

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"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son...."

No wonder Paul speaks of God's love as great and as passing knowledge! (See Eph. 2:4; 3:19). Was there ever such costly munificence? Paul agrees that this supreme gift is itself the guarantee of every other; "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:32).

In St. Paul's Cathedral, London is a life-size, marble statue of Christ writhing in anguish on the cross. The statute is inscribed: "THIS IS HOW GOD LOVED THE WORLD."

Luther called John 3:16 "the heart of the Bible--the Gospel in miniature." It's so simple a child can understand it; yet it condenses the deep and marvelous truth of redemption into these few pungent words:

God..............................the greatest Lover

so loved........................the greatest degree

the world.......................the greatest number

That He gave.................the greatest act

His only begotten Son....the greatest gift

That whosoever.............the greatest invitation

"Believeth".....................the greatest simplicity

"In Him"........................the greatest person

Should not perish..........the greatest deliverance

"But"............................the greatest difference

"Have".........................the greatest certainty

"Everlasting life"............the greatest possession.

There is one other aspect of the love of God which I would like to call to your attention...namely, that His love never changes!
"For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,
nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).

The heart of the matter is that God loves in such a way that nothing you or I have done or will do will alter it.
This is a point made by one of the greatest stories in the Bible, the story of Hosea and his unfaithful wife, Gomer.

Hosea was a preacher. One day the Lord came to him and said, "Hosea, I want you to marry a woman who is going to prove unfaithful to you. You are going to love her, but she is going to turn from your love. Nevertheless, the more faithless she becomes, the more faithful and loving you will be. I want you to do this because I want to give Israel an illustration of how I love them. Your marriage will be a pageant. You will play God. The woman will play the part of Israel. For I love Israel with an unchangeable love, and she runs from me and takes other gods for lovers."

Hosea did as God had told him to do. So the Book of Hosea tells us, "When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him. "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord." So he married Gomer daughter of Didlaim, and she conceived and bore him a son" (Hosea 1:2-3).

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At this point in this story God intervened, for he had said that he was going to order each stage of the relationship between Hosea and Gomer. God intervened to give a name to this son. "Call his name Jezreel," God said. Jezreel means "scattered," for God was going to scatter the people of Israel all over the face of the earth. After a time Gomer conceived again and bore a daughter. "Call her Lo-Ruhamah," God said. Lo-Ruhamah means "not pitied." God was saying that the time would come when he would "no longer showed love to the house of Israel" (v. 6). Finally, another son was born and Hosea was told to call him Lo-Ammi. Lo-Ammi means "not my people." "For," said God, "you are not my people, and I am not your God."

If the story stopped at this point the ending would be exceedingly dismal, and the pageant would be illustrating the opposite of the unchangeable love of God. But it does not stop here! God intervenes again to tell how the story will end. "I am going to change the names of those children one day," God promised. "I am going to change Jezreel to Jezreel." It is the same word but with a second meaning, a change from "scattered" to "planted," because in the ancient world the same gesture by which a man would throw something away was that by which he would plant grain. God was promising to plant the people once again in their own land, as he has done in our own generation. Moreover, said God, "I am going to change Lo-Ruhamah to Ruhamah and Lo-Ammi to Ammi because the time is coming when I will again have pity upon those who will have again become my children. The Bible says, "Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, "You are not my people," they will be called "sons of the living God" (v. 10). The time came in the marriage when the events that God had foretold happened. Gomer looked around and caught the eye of a stranger. Before long she had left with him, and Hosea was alone. The time came when her lover could no longer take care of her, and she became hungry.

"Now," said God to Hosea, "I want you to go and see that she gets the things she needs, because I take care of the people of Israel even when they are running away from me." Hosea went and bought her the groceries. He gave them to the man who was living with his wife, but he said that Gomer did not even know he had bought them. This story tells us, "Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said. "I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink."....She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine, and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold" (Hosea 2:5-8).

Does God love like that? Yes, he does! Have you ever run away from God? Of course, you have! What happened? God paid your bills! If you have been running away from God, do you realize that it is God who gives you the strength to run? Here is a girl who says, "I don't care if God called me into Christian work. I'm going to turn away and marry this young man. But you cannot run away from God's love successfully. You can run, but God pursues you. He steps before you and says, "My child, I am the One who has been providing for you all the time. Won't you stop running and allow me to take you to myself?"

Back to our story of Hosea and Gomer. The final act of the drama was approaching. The time came when Gomer sank so low that she was sold as a slave in the city of Jerusalem, and God told Hosea to go and buy her. Slaves were always sold naked. Thus, when a beautiful girl was on sale, the men bid freely and the bidding always went high.

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Here was Gomer. Her clothes were taken off. The bidding began. One man bid three pieces of silver. Another said five...ten...twelve...thirteen. The low bidders dropped out when Hosea said, "Fifteen pieces of silver." A voice from the back of the crowd said, "Fifteen pieces of silver and a bushel of barley." "Fifteen pieces of silver and a bushel and a half of barley," said Hosea. The auctioneer looked around for a higher bid. Seeing none he declared, "This slave is sold to Hosea for fifteen pieces of silver and a bushel and a half of barley." So Hosea took his wife (whom he now owned), put her clothes on her, and led her away into the anonymity of the crowd.

You say, "Is that a true picture of God's love? Yes, it is! That is how God loves you. Listen to what the Bible says about it. "The Lord said to me. "Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adultress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.’ So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and lethek of barley. Then I told her, "You are to live with me many days, you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you" (Hosea 3:1-3).

OH, THE GREATNESS OF THE UNCHANGEABLE LOVE OF ALMIGHTY GOD! God loves you and me like that! We are the slave sold under the bondage of sin. We are the one placed upon the world's auction block. The bidding of the world goes higher and higher. "What am I bid for this person's soul?" At this point Jesus Christ, the faithful bridegroom, enters the slave market of sin and bids the price of his blood! "Sold to Jesus Christ for the price of his blood! Says Almighty God. So he bought you. He clothed you in his righteousness. And he led you away with himself, saying, "You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you." Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the penalty of our sins...to set us free from the bondage of sin and its guilt...to place His Spirit within us...to fill us with His peace and joy...and eternally, to make a place for us to live with Him for all eternity!

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son...."

GOD'S LOVE TO SINNERS REACHES ITS OBJECTIVE AS IT BRINGS THEM TO KNOW AND ENJOY HIM IN A COVENANT RELATIONSHIP. A covenant relationship is one in which two parties are permanently pledged to each other in mutual service and dependence (example: marriage as depicted in our story of Hosea and Gomer). A covenant promise is one by which a covenant relation is set up (example: marriage vows). Biblical religion has the form of a covenant relation with God. The first occasion on which the terms of the relation were made plain was when God showed himself to Abraham as EL SHADDAI (God Almighty, God All-Sufficient) and formally gave him the covenant promise, "to be your God and the God to your descendants after you" (Genesis 17:1-7)

Here is what God was saying: "You shall have as true an interest in all my attributes for your good, as they are mine for my own glory...My grace, saith God, shall be yours to pardon you, and my power shall be yours to protect you, and my wisdom shall be yours to direct you, and my goodness shall be yours to relieve you, and my mercy shall be yours to supply you, and my glory shall be yours to crown you. This is the comprehensive promise, for God to be our God: in includes all."

THE ETERNAL, ALMIGHTY GOD IN LOVE, revealed the extent of that LOVE at the cross of Jesus Christ. Thus faith in Christ introduces us into a relation bid with incalculable blessing, both now and for eternity!