2. The test of true love

The way of the cross in John

22 March 2009

John 3:14-21

In John, we have identified that Jesus is on the journey that leads to the cross. We observed Jesus turning over the temple tables in the context of the Passover festival … and people saw the miraculous signs he was doing and were ‘believing in his name’ (John 2:23)

This response has to be understood against the broader scheme of John’s thinking: he wants us to see that people were indeed responding, but not necessarily in the fullest sense … this may also hint at his experience of what was happening in the early Christian community, which may have had those who initially showed evidence of belief but didn’t follow through in a consistent way – especially when the ultimate test came.

John 3 is dominated by so much that is of central importance to John. We have the account of Nicodemus visiting Jesus by night, which is unique to John. In this encounter, we have the introduction of the new life through the Spirit which is encapsulated in the term ‘the new birth’. It touches on themes in the teaching of Jesus that will develop in the following chapters and the main thrust of this chapter speaks of God’s gracious love.

At times it is difficult to delineate between what were intended by the writer to be the words of Jesus … and those which are commentary by the narrator.

The true test of love is explained in what I call ‘the text of texts’. One Sunday evening one of my colleagues said to me before the service, as we were about to pray, ‘It’s a good text tonight!’ I asked, ‘Are there bad ones?’ However you wrestle with that question, there is no doubt that this text has a unique role in the evangelistic life of the church.

Text: John 3:16 –
‘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.'

I propose to examine these familiar words from the perspective of the way of the cross. The broader section of John 3:14-21 seems to be part of the preaching/teaching of the developing church. Martin Luther described this text as the ‘Gospel within the gospels’.

Jesus’ journey to his cross is found even at the outset of his ministry – in fact it could be said to be the whole purpose of why he came. He entered our human experience to demonstrate the love which God has for us, which will be seen supremely in the cross itself. God gave himself to us in Jesus: holding nothing back.

In John’s gospel, eternal life is not an unlimited length of life that extends beyond death. Eternal life, rather, is a new quality of life that has been brought about in the person of Jesus. Those who believe in Jesus Christ, who believe in the One who has been given in the cross, receive this gift of eternal life now. It is the source of our new life and our whole purpose for life. (5:24)

There is great power in the thought that ‘God so loved the world that he gave …’ There is a body of thought which suggests that ‘world’ can be seen as neutral. That is particularly true in Paul’s writings. In this particular context, I would suggest that the world, at least in part, has negative overtones – the world in its alienation from and hostility to God’s purposes in creation.

Andrew T Lincoln explains: “God loves that which has become hostile to God.”

The force of the argument then is not that the world is so vast that it requires an immense love to embrace it, but that it takes a special kind of love to take on the power that opposes it! It is the only place in John where we read of God the Father loving the world, but we have a similar thought in 1 John 4:9-10. William Temple’s celebrated notes on John’s gospel add, “No object is sufficient for the love of God short of the world itself.”

In the Old Testament, we read how God loves all that he has made, including and especially his people (Exodus 34:6-7; Deuteronomy 7:7-8).

The New Testament picture is of love demonstrated in the person of Jesus Christ. Barnabas Lindars described John 3:16 as ‘the most celebrated expression of the Gospel to run from his pen’.

God’s love extends beyond merely geographical locations or even the universe itself, but to every aspect and sphere of human life. Leon Morris talked about love focused in his ‘one of a kind Son’. The greatness of God’s love can be understood in at least three ways:

It is the greatest love that life can offer

At the heart of life is love – not a sentimental stirring of the emotions, but a meaningful concerned embrace by God for the whole created order … and the human experience, irrespective of its condition.

God’s whole purpose is to love … and this love transforms our lives as we receive it. It is a love that reaches beyond the narrow confines of our understanding, relationships and allegiances, breaking down and bringing about a life which is new, refreshing and restoring.

Love is the mainspring of life itself. It is God’s solution to the brokenness of life, bringing to fruition both the possibility of and hope itself in difficult circumstances.

In the section that follows (v.v. 17-21) we are presented with the outstanding paradox of John’s gospel – the paradox of love and judgement.

When a person is met by God in the person of Jesus Christ, he or she is presented with a choice to make. To react with hostility is to deny the life which he offers. To choose love is to choose life.

The importance that love gives to our being

Love is essential to life; it is not passive; by nature it is giving. In all our care for people, in almost every aspect of Wesley Mission, we know how important love is. For example:-

In our Out of Home Care, we endeavour to bring love into the lives of children and families … just two weeks ago we extended that objective by developing work which seeks to keep brothers and sisters together as we offer care.
For those who come for Emergency help, we recognise that the deepest need is for loving care … this is difficult, because the increasing financial crisis has become a major cause of homelessness in Sydney … and latest research confirms this.
In people’s search for life through Jesus Christ, we know it is a desire for meaning and purpose which only makes sense in the love of God.

The gift of love which God imparts in Jesus Christ opens up the pores of our very being … so we can breathe again. This allows the strings of our emotions and personality to make music. It is a most wonderful gift which gives meaning, dignity and significance to life itself.

The energy that love gives to our living

John’s gospel speaks most clearly of love. So often it seems difficult to describe God’s love except in terms of what he has done. In John 15, we read, “My command is this: ‘Love each other as I have loved you.’” (John 15:12) Love always delights to give … and love is altogether more than looking at what God does, but receiving what and who God is. It is here that we discover the power of what he does.

I have a friend who was a bachelor and folks had assumed he would remain so until, as the song says, ‘his dying day’. However, he shocked everyone when he fell in love. It brought out of him colours people had never seen before, humour people had never heard and energy for life which folks would not have readily associated with him.

In the most amazing ways, I have seen love transform lives by the power which it generates. It has energy that:-

increases the capacity of concern for others.
broadens the understanding of and reach of compassion.
deepens the spiritual grasp on life … in all kinds of ways

The difference love makes to our serving others

The love that God has offered to us in Jesus Christ is the motivation that inspires so much of what we seek to do. It was C S Lewis who popularised the different kinds of love. He explained: “Charity means love. It is called Agape in the New Testament to distinguish it from Eros (sexual love), Storge (family affection) and Philia (friendship). So there are four kinds of love, all good in their proper place, but Agape is the best because it is the kind of love God has for us and is good in all circumstances.”

Love takes us so much further –

It is an extra mile of care … when we are tempted to give up.
It is an extra portion of compassion … when it would be so easy to deny care to the unattractive and the damaged.
It is an extra helping of concern … which reaches into people’s lives, through the tough veneer of selfishness.

G K Chesterton once reflected about the common saying, ‘Love is blind’: “Love is not blind; that is the last thing it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind.”

It is the greatest gift that you can receive

In life, there is nothing more wonderful than to experience someone giving their love to you. It may be cheapened by those who degrade it by abuse; it may be taken for granted; but there is no questioning that it is the most invigorating and life-giving of experiences. Robert Heinlein wrote: “Love is a condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” If we can recognise this in the gift of human relationships, how much more so when we speak of God’s love?

F F Bruce wrote in this context: “No sacrifice was too great to bring its unmeasured intensity home to men and women: The best that God had to give, he gave – his only Son, his well-beloved. Nor was it for one nation or one group that he was given: he was given so that all, without distinction or exception, who repose their faith on him might be rescued from destruction and blessed with the life that is life indeed.”

This greatest gift is seen in:-

The delight of the giver

A gift is important only in relation to the one who gives. The greatest pleasure belongs to the person who gives. For example, a parent’s delight at a gift which is longed-for is immeasurable. I can recall being able to offer a gift to a young person who had been unable to contemplate some study but, through another’s generosity, it became possible. The delight of the hidden giver was far greater than that of the one who received.

The gift of love is so much greater than material gifts. How many times have people chosen to give ‘things’ rather than affection? In fact, it is often easier to give twenty dollars rather than even a modicum of care!

An anonymous writer once commented that givers can be divided into three types: the flint, the sponge and the honeycomb. Some givers are like a piece of flint – to get anything out of it you must hammer it, and even then you only get chips and sparks. Others are like a sponge – to get anything out of a sponge you must squeeze it and squeeze it hard, because the more you squeeze a sponge, the more you get. But others are like a honeycomb – which just overflows with its own sweetness. That is how God gives to us, and it is how we should give in turn.

The desire of the recipient

The life-giving gift of God in Jesus is not only that which brings delight to the giver, but also meets the greatest desire of the human spirit. There is a longing which God satisfies through the gift of his Son and this is the core of Christian experience.

Last year saw the death of Arthur Miller, the playwright. His classic play was ‘Death of a Salesman’, which focuses upon Willy Loman whose life falls in on him. Willy Loman was a good guy convinced that to be ‘well-liked’ and have the right contacts was the way to success in life. Willy lived by this pattern and taught it to his sons. They saw him carry his deception almost to the end, when it all collapsed. The response to the play was immediate and startling. When it went to Europe, journalists were amused that America – the land of the success story – could produce a play about failure.

A journalist asked Miller for his opinion of the play and he explained that it dealt with the deep concerns of every person. He said, “the fear that one has lied to one’s self over a period of years in relation to one’s true identity and what one should be doing in the world. What the play does is to make the individual ask himself whether his rationalizations about himself are not leading him to an ultimate rendezvous with a dreadful reckoning.”

The deep longing of the human spirit is met in Jesus Christ – not in lifting us, but in confronting us with ourselves and our need for love which God offers us in the cross.

The demand which love meets in the gift

The gift of God’s love is a gift which is offered at our point of need. John uses the example of the great leader of the nation, Moses, lifting up the serpent in the wilderness in a reference to Numbers 21:4-9. On their way from Egypt to the Promised Land, the people were weary and blamed Moses for leading them to death in the wilderness. There are scenes which involve serpents and Moses responds to God by putting a fiery serpent on a pole and lifting it before the people. Those who lifted their eyes to the bronze serpent held high by Moses lived!

John compares Jesus’ own lifting from the earth … that is his death on the cross … to the lifting of the serpent. Those who lifted their eyes lived through his death. Likewise, as we look at what is beginning to fall across the ministry of Jesus … that is the cross … we see that this will be his greatest gift of love and it will meet us as we are.

Thomas Traherne, poet and religious writer, once described the cross in this way: “The cross is the abyss of the wonders, the centre of desires, the school of virtues, the house of wisdom, the throne of love, the theatre of joys, and the place of sorrows; It is the root of happiness and the gate of heaven.”

It is the greatest choice you will ever make

Love is a choice to make and not just a gift to receive. Understandably, we have talked about love in relation to a gift and its reception into our lives, but it also presents us with a choice.

As we have said, for the Jews in the wilderness the cure for their despond and despair was to look at a representation of the very creature they feared. In a way that is unique. God has given us in the cross a choice to make … will we choose his way or continue in our selfishness?

God gives us such a choice because of:-

The respect for us which God demonstrates

God will not force his love upon us. It is not his way. God has a higher view of the human condition than we do. That is not to minimise the reality of sin and selfishness, but the love of God is –

able to restore the brokenness of fractured lives.
willing to accept the heart that is contrite and ready to begin again.
ready to remake our lives with a new vision and purpose.

God’s love is such that ‘he gave …’ This is the mark of authentic love. God gives of himself … and allows us to respond to him.

Frederick Buechner contends: “The world says, the more you take, the more you have. Jesus Christ says, the more you give the more you are.” We see the love of God poured out in his generosity toward us.

The response from us for which God looks

In these early chapters of John, as we see Jesus already well and truly set towards his cross, we also recognise that there is not only a choice but a response that must be seen in our lives. In John’s gospel we hear Jesus making explicit claims about himself … and each requires a response.

The response to the gift of God is explained in the small but important thought of ‘receiving’ and ‘believing’. We have read in the Prologue: “Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1:12)

There are some expressions of Christian living which deny any participation on our part in the story of salvation. However good and decent proponents of such an approach are, I consider the concept an inadequate way of understanding faith and living. It inevitably creates an exclusivism which denies the very centre and purpose of the coming of Jesus for all the world (v.17).

The restoration of dignity which God offers

The essence of the saving news of Jesus Christ is unmistakably plain … in a language which people from all places could receive. This gospel is much more than a formula or a pattern; it is the way God restores our lives and gives them worth … what I want to call ‘a holy dignity’.

A dignity which affirms that we belong to God.
A dignity which restores our lives that have been broken by sin and selfishness.
A dignity which creates a new opportunity to live as if for the first time.

Real dignity in life is never gained by position and importance and certainly never lost when position is removed. What really matters is the love of God, which brings real purpose, outlasts time and places eternity in the heart.

Philip Massinger, the dramatist, wrote, “True dignity is never gained by place, and never lost when honours are withdrawn.” That is why the cross will ever remain the point at which the love of God is seen in all its beauty and grace. ‘So despised by the world’ and yet our saving grace!

Christian Life