"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."

Message:
In our previous lessons, we have talked about THE GOD OF LOVE and the LOVE OF GOD.
When the Psalmist was contemplating about the GOD OF LOVE he penned these words:
"The Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities.

For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.
As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him."
(Psalms 103:6-13

When Paul, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, wrote about the LOVE OF GOD, this is what he penned:
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long: we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter."
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
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

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love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
THE GOD OF LOVE FOCUSED HIS LOVE ON FALLRN MANKIND. Our scripture text says: "For God so loved the world."

WORLD (kosmos) is often used in a pejorative way in John to speak of the realm of unbelief and is synonymous in such cases with "darkness." Jesus says in His prayer: "I have given them thy word; and the WORLD hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the WORLD." (John 17:14).

The term WORLD, as here used, must mean mankind which, though sin-laden, exposed to the judgment, and in need of salvation, is still the object of his care. God's image is still, to a degree, reflected in the children of men. Mankind is like a mirror. Originally this mirror was very beautiful, a work of art. But, through no fault of the Maker, it has become horribly blurred. Its creator, however, still recognizes His own work.

By reason of the context and other passages in which a similar thought is expressed, it is probable that also here in 3:16 the term indicates FALLEN MANKIND IN ITS INTERNATIONAL ASPECT: men from every tribe and nation; not only Jews but also Gentiles.

The WORLD is the description of men and women who are absorbed with and committed to the evil system and values of this present earth. John writes: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world."
(1 John 2:15,16)

Jesus said: "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt. 16:26)

James warns: "You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." (James 4:4)

Paul reminds the Christians at Ephesus: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience;

Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." (Ephesians 2:1-3)

Paul admonishes the Christians at Rome: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing

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of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." (Romans 12:1-2)

Paul gives us a description of the WORLD, the men and women who are under sin:
"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
Their feet are swift to shed blood;
Destruction and misery are in their ways: The way of peace have they not known, There is no fear of God before their eyes." (Romans 3:10-18)

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves:
Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature;
And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust, one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient: Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful; Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do

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the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." (Romans 1:18-32)

Please let me ask some questions and suggest some answers concerning man, his fallenness, and his spiritual condition.

In that God's love is directed toward us, His creatures, it is important to know what the Bible teaches about MAN.

First question!
WHY WAS MAN CREATED?
God did not need to create man, yet He created us for His own glory!
"Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him." (Isaiah 43:7)

"In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ." (Ephesians 1:11-12)

This fact guarantees that our lives are significant. When we first realize that God did not need to create us and does not need us for anything, we could conclude that our lives have no importance at all. But Scripture tells us we were created to glorify God, indicating that we are important to God Himself.

WHAT IS OUR PURPOSE IN LIFE?
Our purpose must be to fulfill the reason that God created us; to glorify Him! When we are speaking with respect to God Himself, that is a good summary of our purpose. But when we think of our own interests, we make the happy discovery that we are to enjoy God and take delight in Him and in our relationship to Him. Jesus says, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10). David tells God, "In your presence there is fullness of joy, in your right hand are pleasures for evermore." (Psalm 16:11)

Fullness of joy is found in knowing God and delighting in the excellence of His character. To be in His presence, to enjoy fellowship with Him, is a greater blessing than anything that can be imagined!

WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN THE BIBLE SAYS THAT WE WERE CREATED IN THE IMAGE OF GOD? The fact that man is in the image of God means that man is like God and represents God.

When God says, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26), the meaning is that God plans to make a creature similar to himself. Both the Hebrew word for "image" and "likeness" refer to something that is SIMILAR but not identical to the thing it represents or is an "IMAGE" of. The word IMAGE can also be used of something that REPRESENTS something else.

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Theologians have spent much time attempting to specify one characteristic of man, or a very few, in which the IMAGE of God is primarily seen. Some have thought that the IMAGE of God consists in man's intellectual ability, others in his power to make moral decisions and willing choices. Others have thought that the IMAGE of God referred to man's original moral purity, or his creation as male and female, or his dominion over the earth. As we have seen, these terms had quite clear meanings to the original readers. When we realize that the Hebrew words for IMAGE and LIKENESS simply informed the original readers that man was like God, and would in many ways represent God, much of the controversy over the meaning of "IMAGE OF GOD" is seen to be a search for too narrow and too specific a meaning. When Scripture reports that God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, it simply would have meant to the original readers, "Let us make man to be like us and to represent us."

Dr. J. Gresham Machen in his book entitled THE CHRISTIAN VIEW OF MAN says: "The "image of God" cannot well refer to man's body, because God is a spirit; it must therefore refer to man's soul. It is man's soul which is made in the image or likeness of God.

But what was there in man's soul, as he was created, which was like God? God is a person, or, rather, three persons in one God, and man is a person. In that man is like God.

What a stupendous mystery that is! Here is man, a finite creature, product of God's creative hand, walking here upon this earth in a body made of the dust of the ground. Yet this being, so contemptible as he might at first sight seem, possesses the strange and terrible gift of personal freedom, and is capable of personal companionship with the infinite and eternal God. That the Bible certainly means when it says that God created man in His own image.

Dr. Machen continues: "When the Bible tells us that man was created in the image of God, it means more than that man had personal freedom. That, indeed, is a necessary element in what the Bible means by the image of God; but that is not all that the Bible means by the image of God. The Bible means also that man as created was like God in that he was good. He was not, as created, morally neutral--indeed the whole notion of a morally neutral person is a monstrosity--but his nature was positively directed to the right and opposed to the wrong. Goodness was not something accidental, something that came in after man was created; but it was something that was stamped upon him in the very act of creation by the Creator's hand. About man as about all the rest of the creation the Bible says: "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."

Yet man fell! How great a fall was that? It was not merely the loss of a gift nor part of man's original being, but it was the loss of something

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that belonged from the beginning to the very image of God in man. How sadly was God's image marred!"

In Colossians 3:10, Paul speaks of his readers as having put off the old man and as having "put on the new man which is renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him." Thus, the "image of God", as the Bible means it includes KNOWLEDGE. But that word knowledge is unquestionably a very rich term. The knowledge of which Paul is speaking, and which he here says to be part of the image of God in man, is not merely intellectual knowledge like that which the demons have when they tremble before God, but it includes also a true apprehension of God such as only they possess who stand in communion with Him. Such knowledge therefore must have been part also of the image of God in which man was first created according to the Book of Genesis.

In Ephesians 4:24, Paul writes: "And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." Here, as in the Colossians passage Paul is speaking of the new creation, by which men become Christians, and not directly of the first creation of man narrated in the Book of Genesis. But here as in the Colossians passage there is a clear allusion to that first creation of man and clear light is shed upon it. The words which the English Bible translates "AFTER GOD" clearly mean "ACCORDING TO GOD," "with God as a model." Thus the passage clearly teaches that a man who is created "with God as a model," or--to express exactly the same idea with other words---who is created after the image of God, necessarily possesses righteousness and holiness. Thus when the Book of Genesis says that God created man in His own image that is shown to mean--if we may interpret Scripture by the aid of Scripture--that God created man in righteousness and holiness.

When the Bible speaks of being like God as the high ideal for man--as Jesus, for example, said. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,"---it is thinking primarily of moral likeness. So moral likeness is certainly not excluded when the first book of the Bible tells us that God created man in His own image.

The Shorter Catechism, then, is entirely right when it says, in answer to the question, "How did God create man?: "God created man male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures."

AFTER GOD CREATED MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE, HE ENTERED INTO A COVENANT OF LIFE WITH HIM. Genesis 2:15-17 says: "And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

You will note that I used the term, COVENANT OF LIFE. In essence, God said: "Don't eat and you will live....eat and you will surely die."

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I mean by "A Covenant" or in more modern language a "CONTRACT," an arrangement which either party is free to enter into or not as it pleases. The Bible does not mean such an ordinary covenant or contract when it uses the term to designate an arrangement between God and man.

The reason is that man though one of the parties has no choice whatever as to whether he will enter into the arrangement or not. At least, he certainly has no freedom of proposing any other arrangement to put into its place. God remains absolutely sovereign, in His covenants as in everything else He does. Man does not contract with Him anything in the remotest degree resembling equality. The covenant is an expression of God's will not man's, and man must listen to its terms, trust God that they are holy and just and good, and order his life accordingly.

What, then, were the terms of that "covenant of life" into which God entered with man? The terms of it were very simple indeed. If man kept perfectly the commands of God, God would give him life! The question then arises what is meant by "life", and what is meant by "death", which was to be the punishment of disobedience? Although physical death was included in the death that was the penalty of sin, and although physical life was included in the life that was to follow upon obedience, yet physical life and physical death do not by any means exhaust the meaning of the life and the death that are here in view.

MAN MADE THE CHOICE TO TURN AGAINST THE COMMANDS OF ALMIGHTY GOD. The forbidden fruit was tasted....and the results have been the substance of the history of fallen man! One thing is very clear. Man had no excuse when he fell. He was guilty in the sight of God. Being left to the freedom of his own will he fell from the estate wherein he was created by sinning against God.

THAT BRINGS US TO AN EXCEEDINGLY IMPORTANT QUESTION---the question, "WHAT IS SIN?
Remember, God had said: 'And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

It has been observed that no reason is said to have been given to Adam to tell him why he should not eat of that tree, and it has been said that that fact is perhaps significant. Eating of the tree was not in itself obviously wrong; the command not to eat of it was not reinforced by any instinct in man's nature. It appeared therefore all the more clearly as a sheer test of obedience.

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(Page Eight)

What is sin? Sin, according to the Bible, is not just conduct that is contrary to the accumulated experience of the race; it is not just antisocial conduct; but it is an offence primarily against God!

"Sin is any want of conformity unto~ or transgression of~ the law of God. The law of God runs all through the Bible. It is not found just in the passage concerning Adam and Eve's act of rebellion, but it is the background of everything~ that the Bible says regarding the relations between God and man. Ail through the Old Testament there is held up a great central thought--God the lawgiver, man owing obedience to Him. In the New Testament, Paul~ in the Book of Romans~ insists upon the universality of the law of God. Even the Gentiles, though they do not know that clear manifestation of God's law which was found in the Old Testament, have God's law written upon their hearts and are without excuse when they disobey. Christians, in particular, Paul insists, are far indeed from being emancipated from the duty of obedience to God's commands. The Apostle regards any such notion as the deadliest of errors. "Now the works of the flesh," says Paul, "are manifest, which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5:19-21)

Consider the majesty of the law of God! One law over all --valid for Christians, valid for non-Christians, valid now and valid to all eternity. The law of God that thundered from Mr. Sinai to the solemn teachings of Jesus--these are the commands of God and to violate them is Sin.

We all are sinners! "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." "Ail we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way." "There is none righteous, no, not one." "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." (Romans 5:12)

Just as we as human parents love our children because the bear our image, so God continues to love us even though, in our rebellion and transgressions, we have marred deeply His image. We are that "WORLD" that He so loved the He sent His Son to redeem! "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:6-8) WE ARE THAT WORLD THAT GOD SO LOVED!