GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD

“God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  John 3:16

hat love cannot be fully explained; but He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son for it.  Now mark you, God did not give His Son to do something whereby His anger and wrath should be appeased and His love flow forth to those who would avail themselves of the provision He had made.  Not that.  But, “God so loved the world, that He gave.”  His love preceded His give.

                                “God beheld the world undone,

Loved the world and gave His Son.”

What world is this?  A world within a world.  God’s world surrounded by the devil’s world.  There are many worlds mentioned in God’s Word; but the world he loves is that saved by His Son.  See John 3:17, 4:42.  The world loved by the Father and saved by the Son is identical with that of chapter 16: And when He is come, He will reprove (convince) the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.”   Often we hear of the Holy Ghost convincing of a judgment to come.  Nonsense.  There is not an allusion here to the judgment to come; but to the judgment past.  See!  It is, “because the prince of this world is judged.”  In the sufferings and death of Christ, judgment was passed upon Satan, sin, and self, so that all  the elect and redeemed world stands free from condemnation, justified, and accepted in the Beloved.  Every elect and favored sinner in God’s world enjoys all spiritual blessings as the free gifts of a loving Father in Christ Jesus.  Look at that precious declaration in Rom. 8:32; “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Amongst these all things He has given that glorious and gracious Person who carries on our spiritual education, and who secures our safe conduct to eternal glory, even God the ever-blessed Spirit. 

THOMAS BRADBURY, 1877