Volume 26, Issue 1
WisconsinChristianNews.com
Page 13
A Closer Look At John 3:16 (Part 1)
By Marion Sailing April 2025
loves some, it doesn’t necessarily mean He loves everyone. Romans 9:13, “As it is written, Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated.” And it is NOT translated “Jacob have I loved and Esau have I loved less,” (As modernists like to translate it.) Let them study the original and the word is “hated.” Go to Malachi 1:2-3. These things in itself would be enough to refute the interpretation of this verse but we have so many prejudiced people, so let us go further. Many church- going people have sons and daugh-
His Son? Naturally, it is very clear, “His love!” But those who talk about His love might be a total stranger to it. God’s divine love is no sign of His weakness, nor that He is a sort of good natured, jolly old fellow, or that He is over indulgent or a highly emo- tional type of a character. But what saith the Scriptures? The Bible informs us that God is three things: God is a Spirit, God is light, God is love. God is love — not just that God loves. God’s love is uninfluenced by sympathy, pity, passion, pressure, praise, power,
Romans 9:17, “For the Scripture saith unto Pharaoh, ‘Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up that I might show My power in thee, and that My name might be declared throughout all the earth.’” Read carefully again and you will see for what purpose Pharaoh was put on the earth. Hard to believe, yes, I agree, but TRUTH. Then read Romans 9:9, 22, “What if God willing to shew His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.” Is God unfair? No! We are all sinners and deserve hell. None of us merit eter- nal life. We have nothing to boast of but filthy rags of “righteousness.” If God sent everyone of us to hell He would be just in doing so. But thank God for His grace upon those whom He did choose. Now back to Romans 9:22, Pharaoh was a vessel of wrath and God certainly didn’t love him. God certainly didn’t love Esau! Did God love the Amalekites? No. Read Ex- odus 17:14, “Write this for a memo- rial in a book and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.” Those are strong and powerful words coming from a holy, just God. Did God love the Canaanite whom He commanded to be exterminated without mercy? (Deuteronomy 20:16). Did God love the Am- monites, Moahbites whom He com- manded not to enter into the congregation of the Lord? (Deuteronomy 23:3). Doesn’t the Lord say He hates all the workers of iniquity? (Psalm 5:5). Notice it: “workers themselves” not just their evil works. This goes contrary to the old worn out reli- gious (so called) statement, “God loves all sinners, He just hates their sin.” Nonsense! A sinner without the Lord Jesus Christ or new birth is full of iniquity. You can’t separate the sin from the unsaved sinner. To say God hates the sin but loves their lost soul, again, can one while on this earth separate soul or body? The believer doesn’t practice sin, but rather, is sorrowful over his sin, does all to separate himself from sinners. We, as believers, are sinners saved by grace.
Today, most people have learned this verse (John 3:16) — at least most church-going people. This along with I Timothy 5:23, “A little wine for thy stomach’s sake” and Psalm 23 are often all they know of the Bible, sad to say. John 3:16 is often called “the gospel in a nutshell.” I know of one child evangelism teacher who makes each child learn it and must say it before entering her house. Some even stand outside on her steps learning it before entering. It is a popular verse and has given much assurance of eternal life to both young and old. Most people know so little of God’s Word, so I can say it really is the most misunderstood and misinter- preted verse. Now, if you were asked to explain this verse in your own words, I am sure you would answer something like this, “for God so loved everybody in the whole wide world that He gave His only beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to come into the world, that whosoever says they be- lieve on Him and His words that everybody in the whole world that does just that shall have everlasting life in heaven.” But let’s check it out. John 3:16 actually reads that “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that believers (not unbelievers) might not perish.” One of the popular beliefs today is the “God loves everybody teaching.” The very fact it is so popular should arouse some suspicions of those who do read their Bibles. Notice the smile buttons: “Smile, God loves you,” or the bumper sticker, “Honk, if you love Jesus,” or the “love, love, love” doctrine of “Jesus Freaks?” This teaching is a favorite among the Unitarians, Christian Scientist, Modernists, Liberals, One Worlders, Ecumenical movement, the charis- matics and the Cults of all types, just to name a few. A man may live in actual rebellion and open sin, no concern for his soul’s eternal state, deny God’s deity, even dying per- haps with an oath on his lips. But he was taught that “God loves every- body” dogma so he is sure to enter heaven. Go to a funeral and hear the aver- age modern day preacher and he says it over and over to comfort the mourners. Oh, how people mishan- dle the truth of God’s Word. The heart which is far away from God no matter how big a cross he might wear around his neck or how often he attends church or no matter who he is, can never expect God’s love upon him if he is not in the right re- lationship to his Creator. This mod- ern belief that God loves everyone must be a stench in the nostrils of the almighty God. The writings of the early Church, Puritans or Re- formers never taught such lies. Now let’s take another look at John 3:16. The principal subject of John 3:16 is Christ as the “Gift of God.” Let me ask, what moved God to give His only Son? And why did God give
ters who have made professions (including aunts, uncles, wives, hus- bands, sisters, brothers, cousins, grandma and grandpa, etc). So mom and dad have taught their Suzy and Johnny John 3:16 and claim that verse as a promise from God so they hold to that false hope. But if Suzy and Johnny are not living as the Bible says, Mommy and Daddy will have a great surprise some day along with Sue and John. Now let’s go on and take some more looks at John 3:16. If it means God loves everybody, what about John 3:36? “He that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.” My, oh my, how did that verse ever get into that chapter? It is the same chapter, 20 verses away. It is very important that one always reads the verses before and the verses after every verse. We must never pull a verse out of context. If we take a modernist’s extreme, we will say, “God is too loving to punish anybody or send them to hell.” He will not deal with men ac- cording to any set, rigid rules or standards of justice regardless of their desserts.” Oh yea? God is no sugar daddy or Santa Clause. He is God! And He demands the respect, obedience, love, devotion, honor and glory due Him. So
etc. I like Deuteronomy 7:7-8. God says, “The Lord (speaking to Israel then, still applicable today) did not set His love upon you, nor choose you because ye were more in number than any people, for ye were the fewest of all people. But because God loved you, and because He would keep the oath which He had sworn unto your fathers, hath the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.” No, it was all the Lord’s doing, nothing which they could pat themselves on the back for. Also, in I John 4:19, “We love Him because He first loved us.” So I had nothing to do with my Lord’s deci- sion to love a wretch like me. God’s love is eternal, it is immutable. That means it does not change. Didn’t Jeremiah cry out, “The Lord hath ap- peared of old unto me, saying, ‘Yea! I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.’” (Jeremiah 31:3). I find it touching as a believer to hear of this everlasting love only God can render. It sure is to me. Paul, in Ephesians, says, “He hath chosen us in Him before the founda- tion of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.” How great to know God’s everlasting love chose this sinner be- fore the earth’s foundations! Do you not see God’s great love to His chosen ones? The Lord Jesus, having loved His own, which were in the world, He loved them unto the end (or to the uttermost. (John 13:1). There was a time when I couldn’t see right from wrong, when I was unruly, unholy, unlovely but yet, I was chosen to be His and what a comfort to know that He loves to the end. God is sovereign so His love is sovereign (supreme).
(Continued in the next edition of Wisconsin Christian News)
when God says “the wrath of G o d a b i d e t h ( present tense) on him,” God m e a n s what He says! Again let us go to the Word. Did God l o v e Pharoah?
But just because we read God
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