John 18:28-19:16: Pilates at 6am

Presented to The Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministries, 24 March 2024 by Major Michael Ramsay. The original version was presented to the Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 03 Feb 2013

 

This is the BC 2024 version, You can view the original Saskatchewan 2013 version here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2013/02/john-1828-1916-pilates-at-6am.html 

 

I know it is Palm Sunday today but nonetheless I am going to start our time today with a Christmas story:

 

There is this boy. He starts out writing a letter to Santa but then realises that he will get better results if he writes directly to the Lord. So he writes: ‘Dear Santa (crossed out). ‘Dear Jesus, I have been good for six months; please give me what I want for Christmas.’ He thinks a minute. Crosses it out and writes, ‘Dear Jesus, I have been good for one month; please give me what I want for Christmas.’ He thinks a minute. Crosses it out and writes, ‘Dear Jesus, I have been good for a week; please give me what I want for Christmas.’ He thinks a minute. Crosses it out and writes, ‘Dear Jesus, I have been good for a whole day; please give me what I want for Christmas.’ He thinks a minute and as he is thinking, he spies a nativity scene. He walks over to it. He picks up the statue of Mary and he walks back over to his desk. He places her in front of him; he picks up his pen again and he writes, ‘Dear Jesus… if you ever want to see your mother again…give me what I want for Christmas.’

 

Today’s pericope (John 18:28-19:16) is also about violent and awkward situation. Here we have the Jewish leaders bringing Jesus before Governor Pontius Pilate to receive his death sentence.  We remember the historical setting and the political situation at this time of Palestine. The Romans are the superpower of the day and the Romans are occupying Judea. They conquered Israel by force and their forces are stationed all over the country. Just like in the nations that the US occupies today, some people are fine with it, conspiring with the occupiers to achieve and maintain position and privilege and some people are not: they are looking for an opportunity to revolt. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Priests and officers conspire with the Romans and they receive the power to exercise their authority by submitting to Rome. Others however do not. The Sicarii, the Zealots, they are like today’s suicide bombers. They are terrorists. They walk through the crowded marketplaces looking for Romans to stab with their short, concealed Sicarii knives. When our story today is taking place, there are a lot of crowds for people to walk through. It is Passover in Jerusalem and hundreds of thousands or even by some accounts millions of visitors are pouring into Jerusalem.

 

Governor Pontius Pilate, who is the leader of the Roman forces in Judea, does not normally reside in Jerusalem. He is usually posted in Caesarea Maritima but it is the Passover so many Jews are descending on Jerusalem for the Passover.

 

It would be like when the Olympics came to Vancouver. The city was seemingly completely full. In preparation for the event, they even flew people with criminal warrants back to the cities from which they came and the city imported police officers from all over the country to help with policing all of the visitors. Now imagine that the next Olympics are to be held in Kabul, Afghanistan; Baghdad, Iraq or some other US-occupied country; Imagine they are held in Palestine or Kiev. Think of all the extra security forces that would be needed. This is the situation in Jerusalem. Governor Pontius Pilate who usually resides in a fortress in a different city comes to oversee the crowd control. He and Rome are afraid of the potential for a Jewish revolt as all these people are converging on their ancient capital city.[2]

 

It is this situation that the Jewish leaders, the chief priests and officers, decide to capitalize on (cf. John 11:45-57). They want Jesus dead. Jesus has been making problems for them. Jesus has been attracting massive crowds. Jesus has been apparently challenging them at every possible opportunity. In the book of John here it is no secret that Jesus is the Messiah. The Messiah is the one to deliver his people. He is to deliver the people from their occupiers. The religious leaders are afraid that Jesus will start a rebellion that will not only cost them their privileges under the Romans but will also cost many innocent people their lives (cf. John 11:49-52). Jesus, in their eyes, is their adversary and this is the opportunity to get rid of him for good. They decide to bring Jesus to Governor Pontius Pilate, accuse him of treason and have the Romans kill him.

 

Now this is interesting. We know from the scriptures that there are times when mobs of Judeans had picked up stones to kill Jesus (John 8:32, 10:59) and we know that one such mob would later kill Stephen (Acts 7:54–60); so, why did the Jewish leaders need the Romans to kill Jesus for them? We know this was needed to fulfill prophecy (Deuteronomy 21:23; John 3:14, 8:28, 12:32–33) but there were other reasons: One is that the Jewish leaders were afraid of the people. They were afraid of what would happen if they seized Jesus and executed him publicly so instead they grabbed him at night in the garden, held their trials for him and then first thing in the morning, as soon as the governor began work – which was probably before six o’clock in the morning by the way - still under the cover of darkness, they bring Jesus to the Romans.[3] This way if the Romans kill Jesus, the Jewish leaders can easily say to the people that it wasn’t them. And we must remember also that because Judea is an occupied territory, the Jewish authorities don’t really have the authority to execute anyone [4] Sometimes the Romans would turn a blind eye to their unauthorized executions in order to maintain order. But during the Passover, with so many forces stationed in Jerusalem, it probably wouldn’t be worth the risk and – like we said – with the Jewish leaders bringing Jesus to Pilate to be condemned, this way the Romans could take the blame for killing this popular leader so they can be both rid of Jesus and off the hook for his murder. This is the scene in the pericope before us today.

 

Now Verses 28-38 show some very interesting parts of Pilate’s interview of Jesus and his relationship with the Jews. At first it reads as if Pontius Pilate is annoyed by the Jews. Here they are arriving at his doorstep, at the beginning of his workday at 6am, at Passover season, which is the busiest time of the year for him. He interviews Jesus but doesn’t seem to have any patience with the Jews at all. After the interview, Verses 38-40: “…With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’? They shouted back, ‘No, not him! Give us Barabbas!’ Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.”

 

Here is an interesting tangent. Does anybody know any Aramaic? Do you know what the murderous revolutionary’s name Barabbas means? Break it into the two parts: part 2 is ‘Abba’; what does ‘Abba’ mean? ‘Abba’ means father. ‘Bar’ means ‘Son of’. Therefore, Barabbas means ‘son of the father’. So ironically, Jesus who is ‘the Son of the Father’ dies in place of Barabbas whose name means ‘son of the father’. But that is a side note; let us return to our story.

 

Pilate and the Jewish leaders are having a bit of a standoff. The Jews want Rome to execute Jesus and the leader of the Roman forces in Jerusalem is not really interested in this for two or three reasons. We know from Matthew’s account that Pilate’s wife has had a vision that would make him not want to kill Jesus (Matthew 27:19) and we know from non-Biblical historical documents that Pilate didn’t really like the Jews and he ruled with an iron fist.[5] Pilate, I think, knows what the Jewish leaders are up to; he doesn’t like them and he doesn’t want to be dictated to by a conquered and an occupied people. He is Roman. Rome is the Superpower of the first Century. They are the Americans of their day. They are not going to be dictated to by a subjugated people.

 

Chapter 19 begins with Pilate possibly thinking that he can just brush this whole thing aside still; he has just tried to release a convicted revolutionary in place of an accused revolutionary but to no avail. Now he resorts to having Jesus beaten. This beating can take place for one of two reasons. One, they did often beat people before crucifixion; or two, they would also beat people in place of crucifixion as a form of brutal humiliation. Given that Pilate ordered this beating and then humiliated him further by having Jesus dressed in a robe with a crown of thorns, this was probably an attempt to avoid signing Jesus’ death warrant and to get rid of these pesky Jewish leaders before they cause some real problems for Pilate.[6]

 

Now in the lines that follow, John 19:12ff., Pontius Pilate is still apparently trying to decide what to do and Jesus isn’t really helping any by refusing to answer certain questions. The Jewish leaders and their mob are getting anxious and no doubt impatient as time goes on. They need this done quickly before anyone might form a rival mob and come to Jesus’ aid; so they push Pilate’s buttons. They know how to get to the governor and they do.  They say to Governor Pilate, Verse 12, “... If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.” The implication here is not subtle; it is that if he does not order Jesus’ execution they will write to his boss, the Emperor in Rome, saying that Pilate let a revolutionary live who was trying to lead a revolt against Rome and as the Roman Emperor at this time seemed somewhat paranoid in general and was not afraid to act militarily at the first perceived threat, Verse 13, “When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha).”

 

This next part is the part that I want to focus on. It is where we can ask ourselves what is the author of John telling us in the text here and what is God doing here in this story?

 

We know that the Romans promoted, among other things, an Emperor cult.[7] The Emperor was worshiped as a god. These Jews have just let Pilate know that if he does not kill Jesus, they will report him as supporting a rebellion against his own god-king. Pilate’s response is as masterful as it is vengeful, as it is tragic for the Jews. Verses 14-18:

     It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon. “Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews.

     But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”

     “Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked.

     “We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered. Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

 

“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked. “We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered. Do you know what Pilate has just done here to the Jewish leaders? Do you know what the religious leaders have just done? They have just denied their God. In effect the Jewish leaders said to Pilate that if you do not give the orders crucify Jesus we will tell your god-king Caesar that you are disloyal to him; so Pilate responds by saying to these Jews that if you want me to crucify Jesus, you must first deny your God-King. When Governor Pilate got the Jewish religious leaders to confess that “We have no king but Caesar”, that is exactly what they were doing – denying YHWH, the LORD, God.

 

This is Passover. Every Passover the Jewish people concluded the great Hallel (Psalms. 113–118) with this prayer: ‘From everlasting to everlasting thou art God; beside thee we have no king, redeemer, or saviour; no liberator, deliverer, provider; none who takes pity in every time of distress or trouble. We have no king but thee.’[8] The Jewish leaders here are not only indirectly disowning God by rejecting Jesus but they are also openly and actively rejecting God in this scene by saying that they have no king by Caesar (cf. John 1:11).

 

The Chief Priests and Officers want this big problem of Jesus removed from their lives so much that they are willing to disavow God in order to do it. This is what the Jewish leaders have done. What profits a man to inherit the whole world and yet forfeit his soul (Matthew 16:26; Mark 8:36)? This is a tragedy of this story. He came to his own but they did not accept him (John 1:11). The Jewish leaders rejected God and we know that for many this rejection continued. God came to them in their time of need but they thought that they could deliver themselves from their suffering; so, rather than rely on God, they rejected him and suffered without Him. Did God leave them? No, they - the Jewish Chief Priests, Officers, et el. - left God and so they did not have Him.

 

The question for us today then is this: When life starts to get out of hand, when –like the Jewish leaders - there is nothing that we can humanly do; when tragedy strikes our life, do we turn to God and live or do we turn on God and die. Do we turn to God and live or do we turn on God -in our own anger, vengeance, self-pity or arrogance- and suffer the consequences?

 

I want to bring one more thing to our attention here. Immediately preceding the Jewish leaders’ denial of Christ in our story is Peter’s three-fold denial of Jesus (John 18). We are all familiar with that. As surely as the Jewish authorities here openly and publicly disavow God’s lordship, Peter, just prior to this episode denies Christ for a third time (John 18:27) – but Peter, after the resurrection, in a couple of chapters will be reinstated and Peter will not deny Christ again, he will follow him even unto death (John 21:9-19). Peter will confess his sin and Peter will be saved.

 

Today is Palm Sunday. Today is the day we celebrate people welcoming Jesus as King. Today we have the same opportunity, the same choice. As our life comes crashing down around us, as trials and tribulations mount, as enemies and adversaries seem to be raised up from every corner of our world, as our life becomes overwhelming, it is like we are in the courtyard with Jesus and we can either turn on him by indulging in and holding onto our anger, our rage, our righteous indignation, and our own self-pity or we can turn to him and live. So today when life is difficult, let us take courage and let us turn to him who is able, more than able to accomplish what concerns us today. Let us turn to him who is able, more than able to handle anything that comes our way. When life is difficult, let us turn to him who is able, more than able to do much more than we could ever dream. Let us turn to him who is able, more than able to make us what He wants us to be. He is able. Amen.

 

Let us pray.

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[2] Kruse, Colin G.: John: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2003 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 4), S. 351

[3] cf. William Hendricksen, John, New Testament Commentary, (Grand Rapids, Mi: Baker Academic, 2007), 400

[4] Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John, The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 9, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995),820.

[5] Gerard Sloyan, John, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, ed. James L. Mays, et. al. (Atlanta, Georgia: John Knox Press, 1988), 204, Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John, The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 9, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), 815

[6] Colin G. Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2003 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 4), S. 355

[7]Cf. N.T. Wright, 'Paul and Caesar: A New Reading of Romans', originally published in A Royal Priesthood: The Use of the Bible Ethically and Politically, ed. C. Bartholemew, 2002, Carlisle: Paternoster, 173–193. Reproduced by permission of the author. Available on-line at http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Paul_Caesar_Romans.htm

[8] Gail R. O’Day, The Gospel of John, The New Interpreter's Bible, Vol. 9, ed Leander E. Keck, et. al. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1995), 823; Colin G. Kruse, John: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 2003 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 4), S. 359, red 422.

 

John 3:16-21: Snake Clowns

Presented to the Alberni Valley Community during the Ministerial Lenten Service at Christian life Church, 10 March 2024 by Major Michael Ramsay

 

The following is allegedly from a Peace Corps Manual for volunteers working in the Amazon Jungle. It tells what to do in case an anaconda attacks you:

1. If you are attacked by an anaconda do not run. The snake is faster than you are.

2. Lie flat on the ground. Put your arms tight against your sides, your legs tight against one another.

3. Tuck your chin in.

4. The snake will come and begin to nudge and climb over your body.

5. Do not panic.

6. After the snake has examined you, it will begin to swallow you from your feet and always from the end. Permit the snake to swallow your feet and ankles. Do not panic.

7. The snake will now begin to swallow your legs into its body. You must lie perfectly still. This will take a long time.

8. When the snake has reached your knees, slowly and with as little movement as possible, reach down, take your knife and very gently slide it into the side of the snake’s mouth between the edge of its mouth and your leg, then suddenly rip upwards, severing the snake’s head.

9. Be sure you have your knife.

Our Gospel reading today is also about snakes. At least the first verses, John 3:14&15: “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

 

We know to what this is referring, right? Remember the Exodus? God delivers the Israelites; they began complaining and so suffer the natural consequences. In this case the consequences are snakes. Numbers 21:6-7:

6 Then the Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. 7 The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we spoke against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take the snakes away from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

 

Who here likes snakes? Who here likes big snakes and poisonous snakes? And there is even more. “The Hebrew phrase hannehashim hasserapim, [here means literally] ‘the burning snakes’ or ‘the snakes that produce burning’. The Lord sent these poisonous serpents among the Israelites and they bite them and they die - probably painfully.

So the Israelites then realize what they are doing by blaming God and rejecting the very life that He is providing for them. They realize their sin and they repent of it. God then tells Moses that He will yet again save these people. Vss 8-9:

“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’  So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.”

 

This is great and this is exciting. This deliverance from the serpents meant so much to the Israelites that they actually kept that bronze snake around for a long time to remember this miracle. They kept this symbol of what God had done with them their whole time in the desert. They kept this bronze snake with them throughout the whole life and leadership of Joshua, son of Nun during the conquest of Canaan. They kept the bronze snake safe and secure for generations. They kept it through the roughly 400 years of alternating oppression and liberation in the time of the Judges. They kept this bronze snake with them through the entire existence of the United Kingdom: through the reigns of Kings Saul, David, and Solomon. They kept this bronze serpent during the divided kingdoms, using it during worship, through many kings and political administrations, through many wars and trials and tribulations and throughout all these generations. They used this snake in worship for much longer a time period than Canada or the US has even existed. For hundreds of years they used this bronze snake as part of their worship and then, 1 Kings 18:1-4:

In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign… He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, just as his father David had done. He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)

 

To worship also means to adore. They had started to adore, to worship a symbol of their salvation instead of or as well as God. We know it is only Jesus - as John 3 reminds us – through whom our salvation actually comes.

 

A question for us here today then: do we commit the same sin? Is there anything in our life or our worship that needs to be smashed like Nehushtan? is there anything that we have used as an aid to worship God that now we may adore alongside God? Maybe a church practice – singing certain hymns? Maybe the way one dresses on Sunday, the church choir, the pipe organ – these are historical things that maybe have been broken from our worship?

 

One of the Good things that came out of the Protestant Reformation was the smashing of many ceremonial Nehushtans. Sadly they possibly took up some new ones.

 

What about us today? Are there practices that maybe we have used as part of worship for hundreds of years that may need to be smashed because we adore them too much? What about our sermons? Do we worship those? Do we say we are not a church if we don’t have a 15-to-45-minute sermon? (I was actually scolded once for have too short of a sermon, believe it or not?) What about our ceremonies? Do we worship ceremonies alongside or instead of Jesus? What about something as important – or not as important – as baptism? Do we say that if you don’t baptise people the ‘right way’… immersion, as an infant, as an adult believer, by sprinkling, or by some other means… Do we say that if you don’t utter the correct words when you baptise people… or if you don’t offer them communion in the right way then God can’t, won’t or didn’t save them? Our ceremonies, our traditions, or anything else that has been ordained to help us worship God – they are a benefit as long as they bring us closer to the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. As soon as we worship them alongside God even if we have practiced them for millennia, they need to be smashed like Nehushtan.

 

Now our relationship with God is corporate but it is also individual so if there is anything in our lives: a person, place, or thing, that is a rival for God in our hearts – someone or something we adore more than or as much as Him. That is a Nehushtan and needs to be destroyed.

 

I think it is significant that God and the Bible placed this reminder right here in our text and our story, right before one of the most memorized verses in the Bible. God reminds us here that our salvation is only through Jesus and adding anything to that is idolatry. It is only Jesus through whom our salvation comes. And that brings us to John 3:16.

 

John 3:16 is one of the verses in the Bible that almost everyone knows. If people memorize no other verse in the Bible, they usually memorize this one. Let me hear you all say John 3:16 together: “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son that whosever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life, John 3:16.”

The fact that we pretty much all know it is neat because here today, we have people of many different ages from many different parts of the country who were brought up in many different traditions and yet we all know John 3:16 by heart. I think that points to its importance. Martin Luther said the words of John 3:16  are “able to make the sad happy, [and] the dead alive if only the heart believes them firmly”[1]  John 3:16 has long been my favourite verse in the Bible.

 

Now maybe I am dating myself a bit. Any of you who are at least my age and who are or used to be sports fans do you remember back in the 1980s when it seemed that you couldn’t turn on a sporting event even without seeing someone hold up a sign that said ‘John 3:16’ on it? Do you know the story about how that got started? (The following is based on the account by Dr. David Wendel)

In 1976, hoping to gain some attention, Rollen Stewart had the idea to become famous by popping up in the background of TV sporting events… It didn’t work – not at first.

Then in his depression after the 1980 Super Bowl, he had a conversion experience while watching a preacher on TV. he then began showing up at sporting events holding the soon to be very famous sign which read, "John 3:16". Later accompanied by his second wife, he spent his time traveling to sporting events around the United States, living in his car, existing on just savings and donations. All in all, he figures he was seen on TV and in person at more than a thousand sporting events causing many people to open their Bibles and read, starting with John 3:16, the Gospel of Salvation…. Until… his wife left him… because he choked her for holding up a sign in the wrong location… his car was totalled by a drunk driver… his money ran out, and he wound up homeless in L.A.
Feeling harassed and convinced that the end was near, he then set off a string of bombs in a church, a Christian bookstore, a newspaper office, and other locations. He sent out letters warning of the end time and compiled a hit list of preachers. On September 22, 1992, Rollen, the man who brought the gospel in John 3:16 to the North American sports fan, believing in the Rapture, that it was only six days away, and wanting to make a big media splash; he took a maid and two other workers hostage in an LA airport, and demanded a three-hour press conference. Instead, the police threw in a grenade, kicked down the door, and Rollen was sentenced to three life-sentences. [2]

As Paul Harvey would say…now you know the REST of the story.

 

This anecdote actually brings us quite nicely to John 3:17. John 3:17  always reminds me of Jolene. Jolene was a young lady in a youth group we led when Susan and I first came to a Salvation Army as young marrieds many, many years ago. Jolene and her family are wonderful, faithful people. John 3:17 was her favourite verse. John 3:17 records that Jesus did not come to condemn the world but rather He came so that the world may be saved through Him.

 

Many years after we met them, after we became ordained, after we moved far away and back again to the Island and after we had grown children of our own, we were alerted - Jolene’s mom was looking for her on Vancouver’s DTES. Addiction had wrapped its hands around her and clenched Jolene tight in it’s grasp. She – like so many of our friends through our life and ministry - had been struggling against addiction for so long; for so long it had been seeking destroy her mind, body, and soul and drag her through all the circumstances, environments and choices through which addiction drags us and she suffered the same brutality that many suffer when addiction grabs hold. She was found, PTL. And I hope, I really hope that she always remembered and remembers – even in her darkest days, even when it seemed and seems that there is no hope, even when it seemed and seems what she has done or has had done to her is so horrible that there is no recovery, I hope she always remembers that verse God gave her as a young child, to help her live out her salvation, to help her grow in holiness, to help her get through everything that life throws our way, John 3:17 – For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world would be saved through him.

 

The other week I had three friends overdose and two die. Tragically, this is not uncommon anymore. The enemy seeks to destroy. A friend of mine here in Port Alberni just lost her 28-year-old son to addiction and everything else that the Enemy throws at people who are suffering in addiction’s grasp.

 

We have many friends whom the Enemy has trapped by some other really horrible choices, events, and circumstances. People who have lost loved ones. People who have killed loved ones by accident or design. Many friends of ours have been captured by sins of assault, robbery, theft and other things. I have had one person tell me in tears that they can’t be saved because of the things they have done. I disagree. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him. We can all be transformed!

 

My first sermon as an ordained minister was to my friends in Stony Mountain Penitentiary. On my first day of freedom from seminary after being ordained as a minister of the Gospel, I walked into Stony Mountain penitentiary to see my friends as I had done every week for almost the whole time we lived in Winnipeg. Many of them are in the Kingdom today. Many of them have probably tripped and stumbled along the way. Many of them were released; some of them probably returned to prison and are still slowly be conformed to the likeness of Christ and many of our friends  -those free or caged- are living with Christ for now and forever.

 

John 3:18 tells us that any of us – no matter our past, no matter our circumstance - who actually believe in Jesus are not condemned but saved.  It is interesting that John 3:16 says that Jesus died for the whole world. The Greek word for world here is ‘Kosmos’.[3] It refers to all civilization, all humankind. He died for us all so that we can now all live life abundantly and freely follow God’s will (cf. TSA d. 6). There is no need for any to perish but yet some people do.

John 3:18 “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” This is particularly sad because we know that God loves us. He loves us so much that He laid down His life for us (John 15). God loves us so much that He sent His only begotten, his only natural, his only sired Son to die so that we may live. I can’t imagine how much this must hurt God that some of us do actually perish. I have met people who have rejected God’s love and salvation. It breaks my heart. I am a parent. I think of my friend who just lost her son to addiction. God is our heavenly father think about how he must feel if a child perishes. Think of how He must feel if you and I have the opportunity to tell our brothers and sisters about Him, to point them to salvation – and we don’t. It must break his heart. I truly believe what John 3:14-21 here says: God raised Jesus, any of us who look to him will live – there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus and as we serve Him, we will be conformed into His likeness. Like 1 Thessalonians 5:24 says, “The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.” He will lead us to walk into the light and away from the darkness.

Jesus is the light, Jesus is from the beginning. Jesus is God incarnate. He lived, He died and Jesus raised from the dead and all who look to him, like those who looked to the bronze serpent in the desert, are saved. John 3:18: “Those who believe in Him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already…” because 3:19, “people loved darkness rather than light.”

But there is hope even for those still walking in darkness and that is the good news of John 3:16-17 which is this: as long as we are still breathing, we still have the opportunity to walk in the Light that is Jesus; through whose death and resurrection God made it possible for us each to walk from certain death to certain life today for, John 3:17-16, “Indeed, God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him”, “For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”