The next phrase tells us what He does, He sends His only
Son! This is once and for all the proof of God’s love to us. It’s a spreading
love, a concrete love, a giving love. God gave willingly, and Jesus came
willingly. He is the only Son! There’s no one else like Him. He doesn’t have
equals, He doesn’t have a competitor, He is the only Son of God. Everything in
the Bible leads up to His remarkably unremarkable appearance. Every moment and
movement of history is about Him and Him. He alone is our hope, our Saviour,
our joy and our chance to have a relationship with God. Into our cold, dark,
loveless world, stepped love, and light and hope Himself. Only Jesus is the
proof that God loves us.
And what a love it is! Jesus didn’t come to start a new
religion. He didn’t come to give us a how-to program, or twelve steps to a
better weekend. He came to start humanity all over again. He didn’t come to
give us things to do, He came to make us new. Jesus life was obedient to God.
We don’t do that, we can’t obey God, we can’t live lives that line up fully
with His Word. We can’t obey. Jesus death was sacrificial. That was the plan
all along, and we can’t do that. We can’t die for someone else’s sins, and our
death doesn’t rescue us from the punishment our sins deserve. Jesus
resurrection was victorious. That’s what we need. We need victory over sin, we
need rescue from death. But we can’t do it. We can’t do anything we need so
Jesus did all of it. Jesus is everything we could never be!
Our culture, and every religion is based on the idea of
people getting what they deserve. In the Gospel we learn that we deserve
nothing, but that because He loves us, in Christ, God gives us everything.
And this love saves us from death, and gives us life.
whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Those are the only two options on the table. Death or life.
Death doesn’t mean to cease or to stop. It doesn’t mean oblivion. It means the
everlasting torment of eternity away from the love of God. Away from the
goodness of God, in the cold, dark, sin filled place called Hell. That’s one
choice, and the other choice is life. Life is know Jesus Christ, life is the
opposite of the horrors of Hell, it’s the joys of Heaven. But those are the
only two choices. We don’t like to think about death, we don’t like words like
perish, but we’re forced to by this verse.
So how can we escape perishing? How can we make sure we’re
headed for life not death? How can we be sure that Christ’s death pays for our
sins? Because of the phrase we skipped. Whoever believes in Him. Believes
doesn’t mean what we often think it means. It doesn’t mean to agree with
something or like something. like believing in recess or ice-cream. It means to
become part of, to believe into. The one who believes has Christ as the centre
of their life, and the centre of their plans. He’s not the side dish anymore,
He’s not a weekend distraction, He’s the main course.
What matters then is not how good or how bad we are, but
whether or not we believe in Christ. Whether or not we’re ‘in Him.’ God, in His
love, has proved His love by giving us His Son. We must walk out of the
darkness into the light and accept Him, or face everlasting death. God has made
things simple, do you believe in Jesus? Are you 'in' Him?
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