We live in an extraordinary place. Actually, it is quite ordinary, at least to the Creator, but our half-opened, unfocused eyes pay little attention to how ordinarily amazing this world really is.

The apostle John started casting his vision in the opening verses of John 1. In the beginning was the Logos, the Word, and the Word was with God, in fellowship with God, and the Word was God, of the same essence. Before time, before the cosmos, the Logos and the Theos shared life. Life was in Him, and He made all things, including those who would be able to share His own life, the overflow of eternal life.

Existence could have been a million other ways because, hypothetically, God could have been a different God than He is in a million other ways. The world is the way it is because God is the way He is. Start with Him or His creation and you’ll learn more about the other; a spring inexorably produces a stream, a stream necessarily implies a source. Likewise, and most importantly, we are who we are because of who God is. God created men and women in His image, to reflect His own nature and essence. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men (John 1:4). We can’t look at another person and call them ordinary unless our understanding of ordinary includes an eternal comprehension of God.

Again, the world, and the men in the world, are what and who they are because of who God is. And we desperately need a junior higher here to make us ask, Why?

One purpose is revelation. God speaks and makes to show off Himself. Showing off on His part is okay because He isn’t exaggerating even one less excellent attribute in order to get attention that He doesn’t deserve. All of Him, each and every attribute of His carries glorious meaning; His attributes define reality: wisdom, power, righteousness, etc.

We examine the world to learn about God. The Mandelbrot set reveals a God of mathematical precision, faithfulness, and fun. The galaxies reveal a God beyond dimensions and who defines handiwork. The inspired Word reveals a God of holiness, a law of expectations for His creatures. We gather up as many knowledge nuggets as we can because God reveals Himself. We feel a duty not to lose any detail, to let no rock remain unturned, lest we fail to glorify Him by our ignorance.

Sin ruins our study. Sin keeps men ignorant. Sinful minds are darkened minds; they can’t see or interpret accurately. Through Jesus, God grants repentance that leads to a knowledge of the truth.

But revelation of Himself is not the primary purpose of creation or the inspired Word or the incarnate Word. God’s utmost concern was not the transfer of information. He is not at work writing an eternal story where He proves that He can fill His heavenly mantle with the Teacher of the Year awards. He isn’t primarily proving that He can get all the dummies in the class to pass.

His goal is not less than overcoming sinful ignorance, but it also is not limited to that. He created for sake of revelation, but He also created for sake of relationship. He tells us about who He is, but He also shares Himself with us. He writes a story with certain facts so that we could have a certain fellowship. His goal is overcoming sinful separation in order to show His heart.

The incarnation and crucifixion of the Logos, the Son of God, reveal God’s heart, and His heart, what drives Him, is His love. It is a love incomprehensible, our minds could not conceive. For those who would believe there is mercy that forgives our sin and makes us like His Son, all because we are loved forevermore. This is the glory of the cross—that we might have eternal life, knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ who He sent.

God glorifies Himself through revelation: showing off His excellent attributes AND through relationship: sharing His eternal joy.

As we considered last Lord’s day, God is making an eternal society, a people who fellowship with Him and with each other with His own Trinitarian joy. He is not making a celestial class of theological grad students writing thesis papers. Forgiveness is about restoration of fellowship. That’s why He promised that one day,

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:33–34)

Whatever will we do without teachers to fill our truth tubes? We’ll be just fine, because God’s heart is to save men for relationship.

John 3:16-21 exposes both the heart of God and the heart of men, in particular, we see God’s love at work and men’s love at work. God’s love pulls men into fellowship in light and the love of men pushes them into the separation of darkness. The good news is that God sent His Son to do something about the perishing people. That was His plan from the beginning.

His Eternal Commission (v.17)

After the lighthouse of verse 16, the apostle repeats the point.

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:17)

Who does John have in mind while writing this summary? Who does this verse answer? Men who question the heart of God.

The heart of God is a loving heart, a gracious heart, a saving heart. That’s who He is. The world and who we are in it are made for Him to show His heart and share it with those who believe. This is the eternal commission from the Father to the Son.

God did…send His Son into the world…in order that the world may be saved through Him. This was the Son’s mission, His purpose. The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). He came to save His people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). He came to die that others may live. He came to bring us to God (1 Peter 3:18). He came that all those believing will have eternal life (John 3:15, 16).

John states the negative first, God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world. Here is a place where the NAS may be better: “into the world to judge the world.” The KJV and ESV view the end of the judgment, since “judge” may s the process of deciding rather than the verdict.

The point is that God sent His Son to save, not condemn. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us in order to take judgment rather than make judgment.

A couple things. Why would anyone think that Jesus came to judge/condemn the world? First, because those who are out of fellowship usually think everyone else is out to get them. Those who are in the dark, who love darkness, think the light is always attacking. John explains that the mission of the Light was to liberate those in darkness, damn them to darkness.

Why would anyone think that Jesus came to judge the world? Second, because Jesus Himself said so.

Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.” (John 9:39–41)

John does not contradict Jesus. He didn’t forget what he wrote in chapter 3 by the time he got to chapter 9. The “judgment” in 9:39 is a saving purpose, isn’t it? If those who think that they have life don’t, isn’t it loving to show them that they don’t? That’s exactly how John can follow up Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in 3:1-15, a conversation in which Jesus may appear to condemn Nicodemus, by saying that Jesus didn’t come to condemn. Don’t be satisfied with superficial answers. It is judgment to let people have what they think they want. It is saving to rescue them from their perishing.

God’s eternal plan is to show and share Himself and that love is of one kind, not another. It’s a love so amazing that it required conflict to overcome.

Consider Revelation 13:8 (see also 17:8).

and all who dwell on earth will worship [the beast], everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. (Revelation 13:8)

There is a “book of life,” a book full of names of those who will share His eternal life by not worshipping wrongly. This book was published before the fact; the names were written “before the foundation of the world” when the Word was with God. Genesis 1:1 had not yet happened. Nothing was made yet, no sin committed yet. God’s plan was to share His life with an eternal society, and He knows all the names on the roster.

But The Book of Life is the short title. The longer title is: The Book of Life of the Lamb Who Was Slain. According to John, He is the Son, the Logos, the Lamb; those are eternal realities. He is God, the revelation of God, and the redemption of God. John the Baptist cried out, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) He came to save. He came to forgive. He came to give eternal life, to share Triune fellowship with a new society.

Our Existing Condition (v.18)

God sent His Son to save because His heart is a loving, saving heart. The Lamb was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times (1 Peter 1:20), in the fulness of time (Galatians 4:4), because men were perishing. Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world because the world was already condemned.

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:18)

No man is morally or spiritually neutral. After Adam, all men come out as sinners, they are born in deadness, born separated from God. “Many died through one man’s trespass” (Romans 5:15), “one trespass led to condemnation for all men” (Romans 5:18). Therefore, if life is in Christ, then all those not in Him cannot have life.

Though the vocabulary keeps changing in chapter 3, the point is the same. No man can see the kingdom of God (3:3), no man can enter the kingdom (3:5), every man will perish eternally (3:16), and every man is condemned (3:18); these are all the same thing. It is all being separated from God, having no life.

Men come out condemned; they are condemned already or “judged already” (NAS). John clarifies this in verse 36.

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him. (John 3:36)

The wrath “remains,” it “abides” (NAS) meaning it is already there. The existing condition is condemnation.

It may seem confusing in verse 18, but men are not neutral and then when they hear about Jesus they receive or reject, and based on that are condemned. Men are under condemnation whether or not they hear about Jesus or not.

Only believers are not condemned. Believers live and share God’s life. That’s why John says, “condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” Without the remedy applied there can be no healing. That doesn’t mean that rejecting the remedy caused the disease. Because I don’t receive the heart transplant doesn’t change that I needed a new heart in the first place. Believing is the only way to life.

Conclusion

We’ll see more from the heart of man in verses 19-21 next week. Men love darkness and hat the light. God’s heart is to save.

I’ve really been wrestling with why this is so valuable, why not just make this point—that most of us know—and keep moving?

As a great commission resource, John writes that we might believe; “these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). Because we can tell others that God’s heart is to save, and we can either be faithful or misrepresent it.

We misrepresent His heart of love if we leave others comfortable in their unbelief. Salvation isn’t a better life than you have, salvation is life. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Without Him you will not see life and the wrath of God remains on you.

As real as His love is, that’s how real His wrath is. As real as the fellowship of joy is, that’s how real the misery of separation is. Because He’s in charge of both. He is telling the story. His story involves conflict and war and blood. The threats are real. The condemnation is real.

He is life, light, and love. His story includes death, darkness, and hate in order to show off who He is. He reconciles rebels. He forgives lawbreakers. He saves perishing. He heals sick. There is no victory without conflict, no love without crucifixion. Peace comes at a cost.

We should not get comfortable AND we should not get impatient. God’s eternal plan is to create an eternal society. That means that our failure to reconcile with each other is unacceptable AND God is no less control over the darkness and division among us. You cannot make someone else “get it” anymore than you caused yourself to be born again. Some claim to see and those Jesus judges so that they become blind. If they don’t acknowledge their guilt, they remain blind in guilt.

We will continue in this battle until the serpent’s destruction is finished. We cannot fix the broken fellowship faster than God. But we can believe. We can come to the light. We can proclaim the eternal mission of God to save believers to share His life. We can rejoice because we are not condemned.