For God So Loved The World

John 3:16

"God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son." As we take a look at this, we must understand that "begotten" means "procreated or generated." Jesus was born of a woman yet, was not the seed of a man. Instead, He was the seed of God. He was "generated" by God and placed in the womb of a woman. This was a birth in the world but not of the world.

God did not love how the world had become but through benevolence He sent His Son. It was because of how we had become that this was done. He sent Jesus to us because we needed to be saved. He came to be the sacrifice for all mankind. He came not to condemn, rather to offer a way that we could be saved.

Another thing we must understand is that this is to "whosoever believeth." And what must we believe? We must believe that Jesus was the only begotten Son of God and that God sent Him to the world. Not that He sent Him to be part of the world, yet He was sent to the world. He was sent to offer salvation to all who believe in Him.

It is because of love that God sent Jesus. He sent Jesus because He desired for us to be happy even though we are sinners. God hates wickedness, yet He still has desires for all sinners. Just as we, as earthly parents, hate when our children do wrong we desire for them to be happy, productive children. We do not always approve of the conduct of our children, yet we always love them.

This is one that will hit many close to home. I am a child that most definitely fell into that category. I was out running around and doing things I should not have been doing. My parents, though they were disgusted by my conduct, never stopped loving me.

God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He may not approve of the sinful conduct of our actions. But He loves us so much and so He made the ultimate sacrifice. He created a Son, placed that Son into a woman womb and had Him born of a woman. Jesus was normal in His life here on earth. He grew up the son of a carpenter and when the time was right He was led to begin His ministry, or His career if you will, here on earth.

"God sent His Son." Why did He send Him? He did not send Him to condemn the world. Instead, He sent Him to save the world.

In order to have condemnation there must be judgment. To condemn means to pronounce to be wrong. This requires us to look at judgment and get a complete understanding.

Matthew 7:1-2 Mat 7:1 Judge not, that ye be not judged. Mat 7:2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

In Matthew 7:1-2 we are told that if we judge we shall be judged. It, however, takes it a step further. How we judge is how we will be judged.

God did not send Jesus to judge us and to condemn us. He had already judged and condemned us. He sent Jesus to offer salvation through the ultimate blood sacrifice. He sent Jesus to be the payment for all of our sins. He was sacrificed so we would no longer have to die. We now can have everlasting life because of the shed blood of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.

We must stop judging and start offering solutions. God could have judged us and condemned us and offered no solution. Instead, He offered a solution in the way of the sacrifice of His only begotten Son. Now we must begin to do the same thing. We must begin to not just condemn, we need to offer a solution.

Suppose you are asked to sit on a jury, you listen to both sides present their case. Then you have the responsibility to render a judgment or decision. The trial doesn’t end with just the condemnation part of the trial. It goes on to a sentencing phase. It is in this phase that the judge must give justice. This is where the judge must offer the solution to the judgment. The judge must look at all aspects of the case, those involved and other factors. This is supposed to be a just solution, but that in itself is another message. The judge then must, through a solution, hand out justice. The justice must be a fitting punishment for the criminal and at the same time justice for the victim. The judge will place the criminal in a prison for a period of time or maybe just place them on probation. In both cases it is supposed to serve as punishment for the crime. Then the judge may add restitution responsibility upon the criminal, to compensate the victim.