ONE OF THE PROBLEMS with religion is: You can believe all the right things – that is, you can be orthodox in your faith – but it can be a dead orthodoxy. You know what I mean? It can appear lifeless, certainly not vital and contagious. Same thing with our conduct. We may behave ourselves quite well – you know, do the right things, live good lives. But our morality can have the effect of making us smug and self-satisfied. We believe what we’re supposed to believe, and we do what we’re supposed to do. But there’s no joy in it.
So, can we avoid these things? Can we escape the trap of dead orthodoxy –believing the right things, to be sure, but with no passion – and can we be more than simply “good” people, living conventionally moral lives but that’s all? In other words, how can we have a vital, engaging, contagious faith? And, if so, how?
It starts with God. Doesn’t it? I mean: Any life we have begins with God. That’s what Jesus says here in John, chapter 3. An authentic faith is a gift of love that comes straight from the heart of the triune God. And what God gives in love, we receive by faith, so that we may live in hope. That’s the message of the most well-known Bible verse of all time. What does it say? John 3:16? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
The first thing I notice in that verse is that God gave, and his gift was motivated by love. God gave in love. Today is Trinity Sunday, and if you look at this passage as a whole, what you will see is that all three Persons in the holy Trinity are involved in giving this loving gift. Jesus, remember, is talking to Nicodemus, a religious leader of the day, and Nicodemus, we learn, is like a lot of people in our own time. He is orthodox in his faith; he is upstanding in his conduct. But he is not alive spiritually. He needs to be born “a second time.” So Jesus explains what happens in the new birth, and he does it in a Trinitarian framework. He begins with the Spirit, he proceeds to the Son, and he ends with the Father.
If we reverse that order and begin with the Father, we see that, in love, the Father gave his Son. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” The apostle Paul says in Ephesians that “he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love” (Eph. 1:4).
The Son, in turn, gave his life. Later in John’s Gospel, Jesus says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (Jn. 6:51). In other words, Christ’s love impelled him to die for us.
In fact, here in John, chapter 3, Jesus says to Nicodemus that, “just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (vv. 14f.). Now, what’s Jesus doing here? He is recalling an account given to us in the Old Testament book of Numbers, a story with which Nicodemus is no doubt familiar. The incident took place in the wilderness, when God’s people of old were traveling to the Promised Land. The way was hard, and the people grew impatient. And they complained about Moses’ leadership and they even “spoke against God.” So, we are told, the Lord sent poisonous snakes into the camp, and those who were bitten died. And, as you might imagine, the people cried out for mercy, and God showed mercy. He told Moses to form a bronze serpent and put it on a pole so that it could be seen from every point in the camp. When people were bitten, if they looked up at the bronze snake, they would be healed.
So, what is Jesus telling Nicodemus? He is telling him that he – Jesus, the Son of Man, as he calls himself – will be lifted up just like the serpent was. His “pole,” of course, will be the cross. And all those who look to the cross – all who look to him – will “pass from death to life” (Jn. 5:24) – pass from spiritual death to eternal life. All that’s required is to look to him!
But who will look to him? Who will put their faith in Jesus Christ for eternal life? The truth is that, without this eternal life, we are spiritually dead. Paul actually says in one place that we are “dead [in our] trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). And to be spiritually dead, according to Scripture, is to “live in the futility of [our] minds,” to be “darkened in [our] understanding, [and] alienated from the life of God” (Eph. 4:17, 18). People who don’t understand spiritual things, people who are alienated from God, do not look to the cross. They cannot. In fact, the Bible says that “no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God” (1 Cor. 2:11).
So, this is the role the Spirit plays. In love, the Father gave the Son. In love, the Son gave his life. And in love the Spirit gives us life. The way Jesus puts it here in John, chapter 3, is: “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit” (v. 5) – that is, without being born naturally and supernaturally. This is what Jesus means when he talks about “being born from above” (v. 3). The Spirit illumines our minds so that we can understand the gift that God is giving us in Christ, and he awakens in us faith, so that we can receive the gift.
And that’s how the gift becomes ours. What God gives in love, we receive by faith. What did we read a moment ago? “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him….” Let me stop there and ask, “What does it mean to believe in him?”
The Protestant Reformers gave serious thought to this question. They asked what it was that made faith “saving faith.” And this is what they concluded: Saving faith requires, first of all, that we know what to believe and, second, that we believe what we know. For example, we need to know that there is a God who created the world and everything in it, and therefore he has a right to expect from us obedience to his commands. We also need to know that not one of us has in fact lived up to God’s expectations – that we are all, every one of us, sinners; we have disobeyed his commands – and, therefore, as we have said, we are spiritually dead. We need to know that God, in love, has remedied this situation by giving us his Son, Jesus Christ, who did obey his Father, and who did so perfectly, and who gave his life in payment for our sins. This is what we need to know, and we need to believe what we know. In other words, we need to assent to these truths with our mind.
But all of that – essential as it is – is not yet saving faith. We must know what to believe, and we must believe what we know, but that is not enough to save us. The book of James in the Bible says that “even the demons believe” this much (Jas. 2:19). They know the facts, and they concur that they are true. What’s missing is trust. And that’s the critical element in faith. We must know what to believe. We must believe what we know. And we must also trust that it is so. What I mean is: We must put our trust in Jesus Christ. Remember the old hymn that says, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness”? “I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.” That’s saving faith.
And it leads to enduring hope. What God gives in love we receive by faith so that we may live in hope. Or, as John 3:16 has it, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him” – and here is the hope part – “may not perish but have eternal life.” I just want to say one thing about hope. In common usage, we sometimes equate hope with wishful thinking, but in the Bible that’s not what hope is. No. What hope is, is confident assurance that God will keep his promise. God has said that, if we trust in Christ and Christ alone for eternal life, we will not perish – ever. And when you know you’re secure in this promise, it affects how you live. You live hopefully. You live expectantly. You live joyfully.
God has given us a great gift in his Son. He has given us eternal life. A lot of people yawn at this announcement. They don’t get it. They don’t see the point. If they happen to be religious, their religion is something of secondary value. They don’t know what they have – or what they think they have – and so their lives have nothing to show for it. They may mentally assent to the right things, they may even live a “good” life, but they haven’t received God’s gift because they haven’t entered a relationship of trust with him.
Thankfully, that is not true of you. Or, at least, I pray that it is not. You are the “twice born.” You have been born not only physically but also spiritually. The Spirit has breathed life into your spiritual lungs, and you are a new creation. You know that God, in love, gave you life. The Father gave his Son, and the Son gave his life so that the Spirit might give you life and you might live forever. You know these things. You assent to them with your mind. But, more than that – because, as we said before, that, as necessary as it is, it is never enough. So, more than that, you have put your wholehearted trust in Jesus Christ, who is your only Savior.
This is what I pray is true for you. And it is right for me to desire this for you. Paul longed for this for those in his charge. In a letter to the people in Corinth, he said to them: “Examine yourselves to see whether you are living in the faith. Test yourselves,” he said (2 Cor. 13:5f.). I want to encourage you to do that. I want you to test yourself, to give yourself a heart check-up. I want to ask you to set aside some time this week to reflect on four questions. Look into your heart of hearts and ask, first of all, “What do you believe will truly bring you satisfaction?” Is it God, or do you actually rely on something else? John Piper once said, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” Are you satisfied in God? Ask yourself that. The second question is this: “What do you fear most?” Do you fear that you will be disappointed in your life, or do you fear that God may be disappointed in your life? Do you fear that your heart will somehow be broken, or do you fear that God’s heart will be broken? Ask that of yourself. Third: “What is truly the desire of your heart?” Is it that God may be glorified? Is that what you want more than anything else? Is it? And fourth: “On what or on whom do you place your ultimate affection?” We all know the Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). Do you love God with such complete abandon? Or, if not – and who does, really? – do you at least long to love God this way? I urge you to examine your hearts for the answers to these questions.
What God gave in love we receive by faith, so that we may live in hope. God has given you life in Christ. Have you received it? Does your life show it? It is no small gift. I urge you to desire it, and if you have received it, I urge you to treasure it.
