Bible Study Conversations
Over the years, I’ve had occasion to read through the Bible—in part or in whole—with several folks. And, especially for people who are new to it, one of the concerns they have is an understandable one: how can I understand this great big book? Christianity has been around for two thousand years, and people who claim to be Christian, and claim to value the Bible, disagree over all kinds of issues.
And I don’t want to minimize any of that—those disagreements are present, they are real, and sometimes they’re of a sort where even as Christians we functionally can’t worship in the same church.
The Plain Things Are the Main Things
Nonetheless, there is a profound level of agreement across Christianity on some really big issues. It’s worth considering here the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, etc.
But when it comes to simply reading your Bible at home and trying to understand what it’s saying, here is a simple maxim (not original to me): the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things.
When you’re looking at the Bible, yes, there are things that can be confusing, there are things that are hard to understand—and it all matters. God wouldn’t have recorded it for us if it didn't matter. But the most important things are really, really clear.
One such verse, that very plainly and very clearly captures the message of the Bible is John chapter 3 and verse 16. It says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
The Reality of God
I think one of the things that's most interesting to me is where this verse starts— it starts in the same place the whole Bible starts: the reality of God. It’s so easy in our thinking and the way that we perceive the world, even if we’re people who believe in God, to begin our thought process with our experiences. Our feelings. We start with the things that we think we know from our life and from what we have learned throughout the course of our life. But the Bible starts with the reality of God.
Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created in the heavens and the earth.” Before anything else exists, God exists. He is the ultimate defining reality that stands behind and over everything else that exists. The book of John itself is the same way. Speaking specifically of the second person of the Trinity, the Son, says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” And so God is the starting point of the whole Bible's message.
God is assumed as the Creator and the Maker and the Ruler of every one and every thing. And as such, he also is the Judge.
God's Love for the World
But here in our text, it says that he does something. It says, “For God so loved the world.” He loved the world. He loved the cosmos—the whole world, everyone and everything in it, the world itself, even the literal earth—dirt and rocks and trees and raindrops—is loved by God. And we know this again from the beginning of the Bible in Genesis chapter 1: God made the world and over and over again it says “and God saw that it was good.” And after he makes the man and the woman on day six of creation it says “and God saw that it was very good.” God loves his creation and he most of all loves the people, the human beings, who are the pinnacle of his creation.
But I still think it’s remarkable that it says he loved the world after Genesis 1. Sure, God made the world and it was very good. Two chapters later, though, man and woman are tempted by the serpent, and they sin. And in Adam’s fall, the old children’s reader tells us, we sinned all. The Apostle Paul says in the book of Romans that the wages of sin is death. So Adam and Eve were a death sentence—and we, as their descendants, are under a death sentence because of our sin. Further, even creation, the earth itself, is condemned by God because of human sin. Adam is told by God in Genesis 3 that “cursed is the ground because of you.” Romans 8 says that “all of creation groans under the weight of our curse.”
It would seem that God would be within his rights as Creator and Judge to look at the the sinful world and zap it and make it—and everyone on it—disappear. Yet it says he loved the world. Even in the Genesis narrative, there with Adam and Eve, he doesn't instantly give them death. Instead of instantly giving them death, he gives them temporary consequences that would lead up to death. There’s a pause, and with that pause there’s also a promise that One would come who would crush that serpent who had tempted them. One would come, who would take care of sin so that they could be reconciled to God. And the Bible’s story afterward is the story of God bringing reconciliation, bringing about a plan of reconciliation between sinful humanity and the Holy Creator God.
God Gave His Only Son
And here in this verse it tells us how that plan culminates. It says he so loved the world, in this way he loved the world—that he gave his only Son. His only Son.
As Christians, we believe in the God of Scripture who reveals himself as a Triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit. And God the Father sent the Son into the world. The eternal Word of the Father entered the world. John 1:14 says, “He took on flesh and dwelt among us.” Back in Genesis 3, God himself offered a sacrifice for human sin. He killed an animal and from its skin clothed the man and the woman to cover their shame, their nakedness, there in the garden after they had sinned. And all through the Old Testament there were animal sacrifices which God commanded for the people to offer as an expression of faith in his forgiveness. But while that blood symbolically covers their sins, the blood of those sacrifices—according to Hebrews 10:4—could never take away sin. God allowed it as a temporary covering, an expression of faith, a recognition that sin requires death.
But it couldn't actually solve the problem. For our sin to actually be atoned for someone who was actually human—and perfect—had to stand in our place. And so the eternal Son of God became Incarnate. He took on a human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary so that there would be a man, a human being who could stand in our place, who was also God and sufficient to stand not just in the place of one person, but in the place of everyone. So God sent his Son into the world so that when Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, went to the cross, he could be a fitting substitute as a man and a sufficient substitute as the God-man.
Salvation Through Faith
And he did this so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. And the next verse for 17 says, “God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” God desires to save the whole world, to save everyone who believes. This salvation is free and open to anyone. Though we deserve God's judgment, he judged his Son in our place so that if we trust in him, we could have life. And that’s the last piece here that we see: while Christ’s sacrifice is sufficient for everyone, it must be received by faith. You must believe in order to not perish, but instead have eternal life.
Friends, you must repent of your sins—agree with God about your fallen condition and willful rebellion against his ways—and humbly trust in the gift of grace he has given in Christ: Jesus bore the weight of your rebellion and sin, and freely offers life if you will trust in him. Place your life—your earthly life and eternal destiny—in the nail scarred hands of Jesus Christ.
The Central Message of Scripture
What is the plainest thing in all the Bible? Well, Jesus says in John chapter 5 that all of the Old Testament Scriptures—three -quarters of the Bible—is pointing to him. And then, in the gospels, we see four pictures of him coming. Jesus is the central point of the Book, and his work on the cross in our place is the central point of his coming. The central message of the Bible is that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
