John 3:16-21
"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:
It is a distinctively Christian idea that God's love is wide enough to embrace all mankind. His love is not confined to any national group or any spiritual elite. It is a love which proceeds from the fact that He is love (1 John 4:8,16). It is His nature to love. He loves men and women because He is the kind of God He is.
John tells us that His love is shown in the gift of His Son. Of this gift, the Son is God's gift to the world, and, moreover, it is THE gift. There is no Divine gifts apart from or outside the one-born Son."

John uses the word "GAVE" in two senses. God gave the Son by sending Him into the world, but God also gave the Son on the cross. Notice that the cross is not said to show us the love of the Son, but that of the Father. The atonement proceeds from the loving heart of God. It is not something wrung from the Him. The Greek construction puts some stress on the actuality of the gift: it is not "God so loved so as to give", but "God so loved that He gave." His love is not a vaguely sentimental feeling, but a love that costs. God gave what was most dear to Him.

Christ was God's love-gift to fallen man!
"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)

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In our previous lessons, we have discussed in detail the God of love and the love of God. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son...." Last Sunday, we considered the meaning of the word "WORLD" and concluded that it referred to all mankind, fallen and totally depraved with no capacity to respond to nor appreciate spiritual things.

Today, let us consider the next phrase in our text: "that He gave His only begotten Son...."

Our text brings us face to face with Jesus Christ... His incarnation, His humiliation and His exaltation. Not only does the word "GAVE" suggest the sending of Christ to this sinful world, but it also includes the thought of His death upon the cross. When we speak of Christ's incarnation, we are referring to His pre-existence before coming to this world two thousand years ago as a babe in Bethlehem, and His taking on the form of man to identify with us in our humanness.

In the prayer of Jesus recorded in John 17, Jesus says: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You,
as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.

And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was."

Question!
WHAT WAS THAT GLORY WHICH HE HAD WITH THE FATHER IN HEAVEN BEFORE THE WORLD WAS?

Paul in Philippians 2 speaks of it this way:
"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the very nature God, did not consider EQUALITY with God something to be grasped." (Phil. 2: 5-6)

In this passage, two words are most carefully chosen to show the unchangeable Godhead of Jesus Christ. The word which the Authorized Version translates BEING is from the Greek verb HUPARCHEIN which is not the common Greek word for BEING. It describes that which a man is in his very essence and which cannot be changed. It describes that part of a man which, in any circumstances, remains the same. So Paul begins by saying that Jesus was essentially and unalterable God.

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He goes on to say that Jesus was in the FORM of God. There are two Greek words for FORM, which are MORPHE and SCHEMA. They must both be translated FORM, because there is no other English equivalent, but they do not mean the same thing. MORPHE is the essential form which never alters: SCHEMA is the outward form which changes from time to time and from circumstance to circumstance. For instance, the MORPHE of any being is humanity and this never changes; but his SCHEMA is continually changing. A baby, a child, a boy, a youth, a man of middle-age, an old man always have the MORPHE of humanity, but the outward SCHEMA changes all the time.

The MORPHE never alters; the SCHEMA continually does. The word Paul uses for Jesus being in the FORM OF GOD is MORPHE, that is to say, his unchangeable being is divine. However his outward SCHEMA might alter, he remained in essence divine.

Remember how the beginning verses of the Gospel of John began: "In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself.

He was present originally with God.
All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him was not even one thing made that has come into being." (John 1:1-3)
So to answer our question...what was the glory which Christ had with the Father before the world began...we can say that He was God in all His Majesty, glory and eternal splendor!

The Book of Hebrews begins with this description of Christ:
(Hebrews 1:1-4 Amplified Bible)
"In many separate revelations [each of which set forth a portion of the Truth] and in different ways God spoke of old to [our] forefathers in and by the prophets.
[But] in the last of these days, He has spoken to us in [the person of a] Son, Whom He appointed Heir and lawful Owner of all things, also by and through Whom He created the worlds and the reaches of space and the ages of time [He made, produced, built, operated, and arranged them in order].
He is the sole expression of the glory of God [the Light-being, the out-raying or radiance of the divine], and He is the perfect imprint and very image of [God's] nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power, When He had by offering Himself accomplished our cleansing of sins and riddance of guilt, He sat down at the right hand of the divine Majesty on high."

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Thus, the ‘only begotten Son' that God gave was none other than God in human form!
John Wesley in his great hymn...AND CAN IT BE...expressed this truth with these words:
"And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? Died He for me, who caused His pain? For me, who Him to death pursued? Amazing love! How can it be THAT THOU MY GOD shouldest die for me?

The Christ of glory came to this earth and took upon Himself human form...this is known as His INCARNATION. Although the word does not explicitly occur in Scripture, the church has used the term INCARNATION to refer to the fact that Jesus was God in human flesh. The INCARNATION was the act of God the Son whereby he took to himself a human nature. The scriptural proof for the deity of Christ is very extensive in the New Testament. Again, referring to the great passage in Philippians 2, Paul expressed the INCARNATION with these words: (Amplified Bible)

"Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God [possessing the fullness of the attributes which make God God], did not think this equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained.

But stripped Himself [of all privileges and rightful dignity], so as to assume the guise of a servant (slave), in that He became like men and was born a human being."

With this description of HIS INCARNATION, the question can be asked, DID JESUS GIVE UP SOME OF HIS DIVINE ATTRIBUTES WHILE ON EARTH? Beginning with this text, several theologians in German (from about 1860-1880) and in England (from about 1890-1910) advocated a view of the INCARNATION that has not been advocated before in the history of the Church. This new view was called the "Kenosis theory," and the overall position it represented was called "kenotic theology." THE KENOSIS THEORY HOLDS THAT CHRIST GAVE UP SOME OF DIVINE ATTRIBUTES WHILE HE WAS ON EARTH AS A MAN. According to the theory Christ "emptied himself" of some of his divine attributes, such as omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence, while he was on earth as a man.

Let us keep in mind that no recognized teacher in the first 1800 years of church history, including those who were native speakers of Greek, thought that "emptied himself" in Philippians 2:7 meant that the Son of God gave up some of his divine attributes!

Observation!
The text does describe what Jesus did in this "emptying": he did not do it by giving up any of his attributes but rather by "taking

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the form of a servant," that is, by coming to live as a man, and "being found in human form He humbled himself and became obedient and to death, even the death on a cross" (Phil. 2:8). Thus, the context itself interprets this "emptying" as equivalent to "humbling himself" and the taking on the lowly status and position. THE EMPTYING INCLUDES CHANGE OF ROLE AND STATUS, NOT ESSENTIAL ATTRIBUTES OR NATURE.

In this Philippians passage, Paul has a purpose. It was to persuade the Philippians that they should "do nothing from selfishness or conceit, but in humility count others better than yourselves" (Phil. 2:3), and he continues by telling them, "Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others" (Phil. 2:4).

Now in holding up Christ as an example, he wants the Philippians to imitate Christ. And because that is his goal, it fits the context to understand that he is using Christ as the supreme example of one who did just that; he put the interests of others first and he was willing to give up some of the privilege and status that was his as God! Speaking once again in reference to the "kenosis theory," if it were true (and this is a foundational objection against it), then we would no longer affirm Jesus was fully God while he was here on earth! If it were true that such a momentous event as this happened, that the eternal Son of God ceased for a time to have all the attributes of God-ceased, for a time, to be omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, for example-then we would expect that such an incredible event would be taught clearly and repeatedly in the New Testament, not found in the very doubtful interpretation of one word in one epistle. But we find the opposite of that: we do not find it stated anywhere else that the Son of God ceased to have some of the attributes of God that he had possessed from eternity.

In the New Testament, in hundreds of explicit verses that call Jesus "GOD" and Lord" and use a number of other titles of deity to refer to him, and in many passages that attribute actions or words to him that could only be true of God himself, affirms again and again the full, absolute deity of Jesus Christ. In him ALL THE FULLNESS OF GOD was pleased to dwell" (Col. 1:19), and "in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Col. 2:9). We conclude that he was truly and fully God...He is Emmanuel " or "God with us". (Matt. 1:23)

I think it would be beneficial to refer to one of the great creeds of Church history to state in exact and specific words, the nature and person of Christ as taught for centuries in the Christian Church. It is called the CHALCEDONIAN CREED. It has been taken as the standard, orthodox, definition of the biblical teaching on the person of Christ.

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The CHALCEDONIAN CREED was written in 451 A.D. please let me quote it in its entirety:
"We then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood: truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; CONSUBSTANTIAL [COESSENTIAL] with the Father according to the Godhead, and CONSUBSTANTIAL WITH US ACCORDING TO THE MANHOOD; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these later days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person, and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and same Son, and only begotten, God, the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the Holy Fathers has been handed down to us."

Thus far in our lessons today, we have considered the eternal deity of Christ and His incarnation...becoming man in coming into our world two thousand years ago at Bethlehem.
But He came for an eternally important purpose...and that was to die upon a cross! This is called His HUMILIATION. Back to our Philippian passage in chapter two:

"And after He had appeared in human form, He abased and humbled Himself [still further] and carried His obedience to the extreme of death, even the death of the cross!" (Phil. 2:8 Amplified Bible). Verses 6 through 8 of this Philippian passage for a very short portion of Scripture, but there is no passage in the New Testament which so movingly sets out the utter reality of the godhead and the manhood of Jesus and makes so vivid the sacrifice that he made when he laid aside his godhead and took manhood upon him. How it happened, we cannot tell, but it is the mystery of a love so great that, although we can never fully understand it, we can blessedly experience it and adore it.

It is always to be remembered that when Paul thought and spoke about Jesus, his interest and his intention were never primarily intellectual and speculative; they were always practical. To him theology and action were always bound together. Any system of thought must necessarily become a way of life.

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So, then, Paul says of Jesus that he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of a cross. The great characteristics of Jesus’ life were humility, obedience, and self-renunciation. He did not desire to dominate men but only to serve them; he did not desire his own way but only God's way; he did not desire to exalt himself but only to renounce all his glory for the sake of men. If humility, obedience, and self-renunciation were the supreme characteristics of the life of Jesus, they must also be the hallmarks of the Christian.

"FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON."

Question!
Was there any other way for God to save human beings than by sending his Son to die in our place?

The love of God as a cause of the atonement (The atonement is the work Christ did in his life and death to earn our salvation.) is seen in the verse we have been studying in John 3:16, but the justice of God also required that God find a way that the penalty due to us for our sins would be paid (for he could not accept as into fellowship with himself unless the penalty was paid.) And that penalty was declared by God to be death! Paul, in Romans 3, states that if God were to be righteous, and still save people, he had to send Christ to pay the penalty for sins: "It was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus" (Romans 3:26)

Hebrews 2:14-18 says: "Since, therefore, [these His] children share in flesh and blood [in the physical nature of human beings], He Himself is a similar manner partook of the same [nature], that by going through death He might bring to nought and make of no effect him who had the power of death-that is, the devil-
And also that He might deliver and completely set free all those who through the [haunting] fear of death were held in bondage throughout the whole course of their lives.
For, as we all know, He [Christ] did not take hold of angels [the fallen angels, to give them a helping and delivering hand], but He did take hold of [the fallen] descendants of Abraham [to reach out to them a helping and delivering hand].

So it is evident that it was essential that He be made like His brethren in every respect, in order that He might become a merciful (sympathetic) and faithful High Priest in the things related to God, to make atonement and propitiation for the people's sins. For because He Himself [in His humanity] has suffered in being

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TEMPTED (tested and tried), He is able [immediately] to run to the cry of (assist, relieve) those who are being tempted and tested and tried [and who therefore are being exposed to suffering.]

1. We deserve to DIE as the penalty for sin.

2. We deserve to BEAR GOD'S WRATH against sin.

3. We are SEPARATED from God by our sin.

4. We are in BONDAGE TO SIN and to the kingdom of Satan.

(1) SACRIFICE) To pay the penalty of death that we deserved because of our sins, Christ died as a sacrifice for us. "He has appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself" (Hebrews 9:26).

(2) PROPITIATION) To remove us from the wrath of God that we deserved, Christ died as a propitiation for our sins. "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).

(3) RECONCILIATION) To overcome our separation from God, we needed someone to provide reconciliation and thereby bring us back into fellowship with God. Paul says that God "through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself" (2 Cor. 5:18-19)

(4) REDEMPTION) Because we as sinners are in bondage to sin and to Satan, we need someone to provide redemption and thereby "redeem" us out of that bondage. A ransom is the price paid to redeem someone from bondage or captivity. Jesus said of himself: "For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life AS A RANSOM FOR MANY" (Mark 10:45)

We were redeemed from bondage to Satan because "the whole world is in the power of the evil one" (1 John 5:19), and when Christ came he died to "deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage" (Hebrews 2:15), In fact, God the Father "has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son" (Col. 1:13)

FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON. There is a story in the Old Testament that, in many ways, illustrates the sending of Jesus Christ to die in our stead at Calvary. It is found in Genesis 22 where Abraham was instructed by God to take his only son and offer him in sacrifice as a burnt offering. In that story, God stopped the hand of Abraham from taking his son's life and provided a ram as a substitute. In the story of the cross, the total sacrifice was made...Jesus died! But His death is the reason why we have the promise of forgiveness and eternal life!