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“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16

When you read the Bible, you can reach varying conclusions about who God is. You could say he is the Creator of the world and that would be true as it is what you find in the opening chapters of Genesis. You could say God is powerful and that would be true – his power is on display right through Scripture. You could say he is holy and that would be true for he has himself said many times, “Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” If you think of him as “a consuming fire” that would be entirely true based on the written word.

Love Is the Essence of God

A character of his that stands out for all to see and is the motive behind his actions is LOVE. The Apostle John says, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). Love is not some external character that he possesses from time to time or is spurred by to act on certain occasions. Love is his essence – God is love. It is why “whoever does not love does not know God.” If anyone knows him, the same person must love “because God is love.” If God is the person you claim to know, then you must love because love is essentially who God is; there is no knowing God without loving. While it took the Apostle John to come up with the words “God is love” towards the end of the canonized Scriptures, this truth had been lying in plain sight all through Scripture. It was there when the world was created and all things needed for man’s existence were put in place before he was made. Love was behind the making of a woman to meet the man’s need for companionship. When Adam and Eve sinned, it was immediately on display in the making of garments of skin to clothe them. In the midst of the curse for sin was a display of love – a promise that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. That promise would many centuries later, find fulfilment in the death of Jesus on the cross.

Love is his essence – God is love. It is why “whoever does not love does not know God.” If anyone knows him, the same person must love “because God is love.”

Love’s Greatest Manifestation

When the time had fully come, God put away the snippets and displayed the main thing. In our main text, perhaps the most popular verse in all of Scripture, Jesus himself, the personification of the promise and of love, declared, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

God so loved the world. The two-letter word ‘so’ brings home to us the great extent or degree to which God loved (and still loves) the world – his creation. That degree of love could not be hidden but had to be expressed in a way that the beloved could see and experience.

That he gave his one and only Son. What is love without expression? It is like divine wisdom thought of the best and greatest way to express love and the answer was to send the only begotten, his one and only. There is no greater expression of love. If God so loved the world and there was a better way to show it, he would have. But finding no greater way, he showed his love in the greatest way possible – giving his one and only Son. The precious One was given so that others so loved would be brought into the love of the Father. God didn’t just send his Son to be a peacemaker between us and him, he gave him. He gave him up to whatever it was that would bring us into his love in reconciliation; he gave him up to suffer and die as the great sacrifice for sin. Even when Jesus was not yet crucified, in the determinate counsel of God he was given up. All that salvation entails, God has given up Jesus to be that for us. Let me remind you that when the angels fell, God allowed them to be lost forever; but when man fell, God, who so loved man, gave his only Son, to restore man to himself. This love is so vast that it couldn’t be only for the Jews, much as they thought the Messiah to be for their nation. The love of God was for the world and the giving of his Son was also not just for the Jews but for the world. Hallelujah! The songwriter Charles Wesley sang,

Amazing love how can it be

That thou my God shouldst die for me? …

‘Tis mystery all the immortal dies

Who can explore his strange design? …

Emptied himself of all but love

And bled for Adam’s helpless race

It is indeed strange that the immortal should die, but he did for love. This was not something done out of compulsion, for he is sovereign and omnipotent and experiences no force of compulsion. Rather, it was done out of pleasure which stemmed from his love. Isaiah 51:10 says “It pleased the LORD to bruise him”. The Son gave himself willingly: “No one takes my life away from me. I give it up of my own free will. I have the right to give it up, and I have the right to take it back” (John 10:18). All because of love.

The time he sent him is a further testament to his great love. Paul said, “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase in The Message says “God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him”. Love didn’t wait until we had something to offer that it could benefit from, it came for us while we were of no use whatever. The offering of Christ was God proving the extent of his love. Hosanna in the highest!

That whoever believes in him. This love is so vast, so great, so generous, and so free. It puts no unsurmountable heights before the penitent but declares, “Whoever believes in him”. Faith – belief in him – is the handle with which you can take possession of this love. This offer is open to whoever, whatever your race or status.

Faith – belief in him – is the handle with which you can take possession of this love.

Shall not perish but have eternal life. Anyone who believes in this gift of love will not perish. They are delivered from the agony of hell. The death that their sins deserved is taken away; the curse is reversed. Jesus told Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26). If this love had stopped at a pardon for our sins, it would already be so much for sinners deserving of death. It went further – those who believe have eternal life. For “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11-12). The guilty sinner is not only pardoned but they are made the treasure of God. They become children and heirs of God, co-heirs with Christ, God’s beloved in whom he is well pleased. God becomes pleased with them as well and they enter into the joys of life everlasting in the presence of the lover of their souls. They have an eternity to experience this love.

Celebrate This Love This Christmas, and Always

If the eyes of your understanding are enlightened to behold what manner of love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God, your Christmas will take on a new meaning. New clothes or not, plenty to eat and drink or not, resources to travel or not, you will rejoice because you have cause to. The season will not be for you a mere so-called ‘holiday season’ but a celebration of the greatest manifestation of love there has ever been or is possible to be.

Whatever your economic or other situation might be, celebrate Christ, God’s gift of love and the reason for the season. Rejoice and be glad all your days because you are loved. To be numbered among those who have heard the good news of this love and have been gifted with faith to believe and receive it is cause for celebration. To not do so because you do not have the temporary things of this life is to display your ignorance of the love of God.

And don’t celebrate as the world does. To get caught up with licentiousness is also to display your ignorance of the kind of love given by God – saving love. To not accept this love by refusing to believe is to display your blindness to the glory of this love.

If you will believe in him, God’s love gift, Jesus, you will not perish but have eternal life. Your joy will abound not only in this Christmas season but super-abound even into eternity.