John 3:16-21 - God's One & Only Son

God sent His Son that the world may be saved through Him

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Gospels: Week 4 - Kingdom Teaching and Parables

John 3:16–21 (NASB95)

¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 

¹⁷ “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. 

¹⁸ “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 

¹⁹ “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. 

²⁰ “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 

²¹ “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.”

Canons of Dordt

Point II

Article 2: The Satisfaction Made by Christ

Since we ourselves cannot give this satisfaction or deliver ourselves from God’s anger, God in his boundless mercy has given us as a guarantee his only begotten Son, who was made to be sin and a curse for us, in our place, on the cross, in order that he might give satisfaction for us.

Article 5: The Mandate to Proclaim the Gospel to All

Moreover, it is the promise of the gospel that whoever believes in Christ crucified shall not perish but have eternal life. This promise, together with the command to repent and believe, ought to be announced and declared without differentiation or discrimination to all nations and people, to whom God in his good pleasure sends the gospel.

Summary

John 3:16 is one of the most beloved verses of the Bible. Not only are the words of John 3:16 reassuring, they also eloquently lay out the key themes of the Gospel. Because of God’s great love for us, he gave his only Son in order that we would be saved from our sin and have eternal life. Verse 17 further clarifies that the Son’s reason for coming into the world was not to condemn, but to save.

Jesus is described here as God’s only begotten Son. This term alludes to the fact that although Jesus was human, there was something more to him. While He took on human flesh, Jesus still retained His divine nature.

While we are considered children of God, adopted through faith in Christ, Jesus is described as God’s one and only Son. Some translations, like the one we read from today, use the phrase “only begotten Son”, which speaks to Jesus being “of the same substance” as the Father.

  Dig Deeper  

The Son came into the world to save sinners. Out of God’s great love for you, Jesus, the only one capable of paying the penalty of your sin, did exactly that. No sinful human could pay the penalty for another. Jesus, the only one not stained by original sin, took on a human nature with the intent of paying that penalty on your behalf.

The Son coming into the world speaks to more than Jesus being born. Coming into the world also included leaving His place on high. The Son, the second person of the Trinity, existed before the incarnation. And the Son, being divine, has always had this divine nature, even before the creation of the world. The divinity of the Son is not something given to Him, but a matter of who He is.

This divine nature is eternal, without a beginning or an end. The Son of God took upon himself a human nature, which did not corrupt nor inhibit his divine nature. And as verse 17 teaches, all this was done so that the world might be saved through him.

AAA Prayer (About)

• ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life;

• ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that you will live in the light of Jesus, the eternal Son of God;

• ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:

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