We associate the cross with Easter. We may not, however, immediately think of John 3: 16 as an Easter verse. This daily devotional shows how God’s love is the foundation of the cross.
Nuggets
- God’s character is love.
- God does not discriminate on who He loves.
Devotions in the Love Led to the Cross series
We use the word love in many different ways. Unfortunately, that can make the meaning ambiguous sometimes.
We never have to question God’s usage of the word. It describes His character and is unchangeable.
There are some verses in Scriptures that give us the gospel in a nutshell. John 3: 16 is one of them.
To me, the verse talks about two things: God’s love and Jesus’ cross. If not for the cross and Jesus shedding His blood for us, God’s love wouldn’t have an outlet.
This Easter season, we are going to look at John 3: 16 through the lens of the cross. I can’t wait.
God So Loved
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (Jn. 3: 16 ESV)
God’s character is love.
God knew before He created us that we were going to disobey Him. He created us anyway because He loves us.
But God didn’t stop there. Even before He created us, He designed the Plan of Salvation. We’re going to get into what that is in the next devotion. We are going to stick with the why here.
Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from evil and the consequences of sins to replace them with good and eternal life. The consequences of sin are spiritual death and physical separation from God. Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin. The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God. Eternal life is the promise of living eternally – even if we have died in this life – because we have admitted our sins, believed Jesus as Savior and Redeemer, and confessed God as Sovereign Lord.
Glossary
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
Think about it a second. From forever, God knew that the proof of His love for us was going to be the cross.
That means nothing has changed. God’s plan of action has always stayed with Plan A.
Barnes pointed out that that means God hasn’t changed either. He wrote, “No change has been wrought in His character by the plan of salvation.”
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Mankind did what God saw he would do. Adam and Eve chose to disobey God.
As Daniell said, mankind was no longer perfect. The perfected state indicates the combination of the graces which, when all are present, form spiritual wholeness or completeness. We were no longer the beings created in His image who were very good.
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Nothing that mankind could do could pay the penalty for our sin. We are corrupt, so we wouldn’t be eligible to be a substitute.
But God didn’t even wait for us to ask for forgiveness and salvation. He put into place the remedy before we were even sorry.
Designing the a plan of Salvation for us tells us of the character of God. Glover wrote that “It reveals the heart of God” and “His habit of sacrifice.”
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Newton pointed out that God designed the Plan of Salvation without us even asking Him to fix our disobedience. He said it was unsolicited — probably even undesired.
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Yeah, we may think we don’t want salvation — but we need it.
God So Loved the Whosoevers
“For God so loved the world … that whoever believes in him …” (Jn. 3: 16 ESV)
God does not discriminate on who He loves.
All of Scripture documents God’s love for all of mankind. God’s call for salvation is to all. “For God does not show favoritism” (Rom. 2: 11 NIV).
This is the foundation for redemption. Redemption is where something is used in exchange for something else to gain or regain something. Jesus is our Redeemer because He was born of a virgin, making Him 100% God and 100% man; gave His life on the cross for us so that His blood could pay the price for our sins; and because of God’s great might and power, rose from the grave, conquering death and paying the price for our sins. Redemption allows us to receive forgiveness for our sins.
Glover wrote about “His compassion for every soul” and “His desire to save all.” He loves us individually — personally.
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God loves us — even though by His standards — He should have deemed us unlovable. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5: 8 NIV). He will forgive us where we are.
We don’t have to clean up our acts before we can come to God for forgiveness. Eadie wrote, “Yet without any change in our claims or character He loved us.”
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Be careful here, though. God loves the sinner; God does not love the sin.
Eadie described it this way. He wrote, “Man’s sin is not his misfortune, but his fault. And the marvel is there is nothing God hates so much as sin, and yet no one He loved so much as the sinner.” Barnes wrote, “God was originally so full of mercy that He was willing to stoop to any sacrifice except that of truth and justice in order to save man.”
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Why can’t God love the sin if He can love us? “For the LORD is righteous, he loves justice; the upright will see his face” (Ps. 11: 7 NIV).
Righteousness is the result of a solid relationship with God built by a sincere life of conscientious obedience to God’s laws and commandments. Justice is order in creation.
To worldview people, it may seem as if God is tolerating the sin. They could argue, “Where is the judgment?”
The judgment is coming. It will be a final judgment. But it isn’t going to be a judgment on whether we are liars or murderers. It will be a judgment on whether we have admitted that mankind was separated from God after the original sin, making us sinners; believed Jesus paid the penalty for those sins to become our Savior and Redeemer; confessed God as Sovereign God; and demonstrated that commitment by submitting to living our lives following His laws and commandments.
God is waiting for everyone who will accept His gift of salvation to do so. He is leading with love and mercy instead of justice at the present time.
Making the Connections
Why does God love us so much? His grace. Grace is a free and unmerited gift from Heavenly Father given through His Son, Jesus Christ that enables salvation and spiritual healing to believers by the work of the Holy Spirit.
But what does God get out of the Plan of Salvation? Barnes said it was to “… save the name, character, and government of God.”
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Morris said something that struck me. He wrote, “The love of God was practical in the most costly way. The test of love is sacrifice; the criterion of its strength is the measure of the sacrifice. The Cross was the self-denial of God.”
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Generally, if we think something is costly, we don’t associate that with practical.
Love and it’s strength is tested by sacrifice.
Manton reminded us that Satan tries desperately to get us to believe God does not love us. Satan wants us to think we cannot be loved and that God’s mercy does not extend that far. God’s mercy is the unexpected way God responds in love to our needs.
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Satan would be wrong.
Just as an aside — we’ve been taking a break from our Finding Our Center series on the attributes of God. Beith said that God’s attributes are refinements and expressions of His love.
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How Do We Apply This?
According to Manton, we need to realize:
- God doesn’t have to love us. He chooses to do so.
- The gift He gave is so great because of His love, not because it is a great gift.
- There is nothing we did or will ever do to deserve the gift God bestows on us.
Manton also said we need to meet God’s love with our love. But that is just a start. We have to seek God and grow in our love and knowledge of Him (II Pet. 3: 18).
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Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17).
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3).
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16).
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11).
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2).
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11).
We need to follow God’s example. No, most of us aren’t going to be asked to sacrifice a son or daughter.
We may be called upon to sacrifice an opinion. Maybe even a dream.
We will have to love God enough to say, “God, You know best. I give it up to further Your kingdom.”
Morris said that “Love is as deeds, not words, desires, or feelings.” If we hook that with the two greatest commandments, we set service. Service is an act based on belief in God that comes from a response of worship by acknowledging His power through our submission.
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That means obeying God and witnessing to and discipline others.
The cross shows us an example of God’s love. It has a specific purpose, which we will discuss in the next devotion.
Loving Heavenly Father. Your character is love. Because of Your love, You were not willing to allow our disobedience to alienate us from You for eternity. To rectify that, You designed the Plan of Salvation to include the horror of the cross. We are humbled that You loved us so much. Help us to search for You and seek You. Amen.
What do you think?
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