John 3:14-21
Jesus said to Nicodemus, “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.
“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.
“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God.”
Introduction
Note during the advent season that the passages keep drawing us back to the Person and work of the Jesus Christ. Each week, during Lent, we are reminded of the centrality of Christ and the Cross.
Week #1 — Christ’s Baptism and it’s relation to the Cross work
Week#2 — Peter’s rebuke of Christ for speaking about his coming suffering and death
Week#3 — Jesus Cleansing of the Temple and His coming death & resurrection as a confirming sign for his authority
Week#4 — Christ’s conversation with Nicodemus regarding about Christ’s coming “lifting up.”
Lent then, in our Lord’s Days is emphasizing the work of Christ. This season is not so much about our work as it is about Christ’s work for His people. Christ and His Cross-work is our contemplation during this season. The season is only about our self denial in light of Christ’s self-denial in making Himself of no reputation and so becoming obedient even unto the death of the Cross.
Lent brings us back to the Cross and it is good that we should be brought back. There are those who would tire of the Cross saying, “Yes, yes, we know all that. What we need is instruction on how to live the Christian life.” And that is true. We do need instruction on how to live the Christian life but the beginning of all instruction on how to live the Christian life is a firm grip on the meaning of the Cross. That this necessity exists to get a firm grip on the Cross is due to the fact that there is no living the Christian life that is acceptable to God apart from the premise of the Cross. That this necessity exists to get a firm grip on the Cross is due to the fact that apart from the preaching of the Cross it is sure to be the case that instruction in godly living, as disconnected from the Cross, will likely result in some form of ugly self-righteousness because we see ourselves as such good people because of how we please God. Apart from the preaching of the Cross our obedience is likely to become “legal” as opposed to “evangelical.” It has been my experience among Theonomists that our zeal for God’s law often times keeps us from returning to the Cross. It is as if we forget that the Cross is not merely the beginning of the Christian message but rather is the message that is interwoven with all our attentiveness to God’s Law.
And so during Lent we preach Christ and Him crucified. We don’t preach that in a vacuum. We don’t preach Christ Crucified apart from Christ as the incarnation of God’s Law Word. We don’t preach Christ Crucified as if Christ crucified as no implications for our ongoing sanctification.
Here we come to John 3 and Jesus’ interview with Nicodemus. Nicodemus comes under cover of night in order to try and get his mind around Jesus of Nazareth. We might say that Nicodemus, as a ruler, is of the establishment and He is here trying to understand what to him is the anti-establishment. In the context of this discussion Jesus reaches back to an OT account and help define Himself and His intent to Nicodemus.
I.) Christ’s Appeal To Revelation
OT Wilderness Serpent Account — Numbers 21:4-9
In the account from Numbers, referenced by our Lord Christ in John 3, God’s people murmured against God’s calling them into the wilderness. As a punishment God sent poisonous serpents into the Israelite camp. When the people repented, God told Moses to fashion a serpent out of bronze and lift it on a pole, so that anyone bitten by a serpent could look and live. The serpent, thus in the Numbers account, was a mark of God’s anger and God’s mercy. God’s people might be saved by the mercy of God from the anger of God, if only they would look upon the image of that which would have brought about their death.
We might note then, that just as a likeness of that which destroyed the Israelites was lifted up as the ordained means of their salvation in the wilderness, so the Lord Christ, who was born “in the likeness of Sinful flesh,” (Romans 8:3) is lifted up as the ordained means of our salvation. As they then must look outside themselves, to the likeness of the serpent, as on a pole, in order to be saved, so we must look, outside ourselves, to He who was born in the likeness of sinful flesh, as impaled on a pole, in order to be saved.
Further we would note that in both cases destruction and salvation are found in God. God sent the serpents to destroy and God sent the bronze serpent as the cure to their destruction. Just so with Christ. God sends the Lord Christ as man’s destruction (“He who does not believe in Christ is condemned already” vs. 18) and God sends the Lord Christ as man’s salvation (“He who believes in Christ is not condemned”).
They looked to an image that was causing their destruction in order to be saved. The Lord Christ would have us look to Himself as the exact representation of God’s nature (Hebrews 1:3) as the one who is receiving our destruction that we might be saved.
This passage reminds us again that there is no salvation for those outside of Christ apart from looking to a known Christ. Away with all notions that there is salvation outside of a known Christ as combined with a knowing looking to Him as our only salvation.
Further, we would note that there is no salvation apart from the grace given understanding that we have been sin bitten and so apart from a healing look upon our savior there is only condemnation.
II.) Christ’s Language of Being “Lifted Up.”
The Lord Christ says he must be ‘Lifted up”
This idea of being lifted up becomes a mini-theme in John’s Gospel. It is used here in connection with the OT account of serpents raised for healing. Once that connection is made then we can hear the same connection where it is used elsewhere in John’s Gospel.
— John 8:28, 12:32, 19:18
8:28 Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself, but as my Father hath taught me, so I spake these things.
12:32 And I, if I were lift up from the earth, will draw all men unto me…. 34.) Repeated back to Christ by audience.
“Lifted up” (hypsoo) — The word can also mean “exalt.” It could be said that “one was lifted up to a high position.” As such we hear it as a referent both to Christ’s own Crucifixion and to His exaltation.
So, when the Lord Christ speaks of his being “lifted up” there is communicated a double meaning. The first meaning of course is as a pointer to the Crucifixion. Christ will be lifted up on the Cross and suspended between Heaven and Earth giving a visual of being the Mediator — the one who stands between God’s Wrath and Man’s Peace with God. Here the idea of Christ’s being lifted up speaks to the apex of His humiliation.
However, the idea of being “lifted up” can also refer to the exaltation of Christ as He is “lifted up” from the Dead and is “Lifted up” to the right hand of God, communicating power and majesty, in His ascension.
So, we would say that in terms of human agency, of course, the cross is a “lifting up” that communicates a profound humiliation and defeat. But in Christ’s language, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension are collapsed into a single movement of divine agency: Jesus is “lifted up” by God.
III.) Clearing Up The Usage of “World”
A good many Evangelicals make the mistake with John 3:16 to make it read that God loves each and every individual that has ever lived. This is simply not true. The word “world” in John 3:16 is used in order to reveal that God’s program of redemption was not merely for the Jewish tribe. Our Lord Christ says “world” here so that the Jews might understand that His work went beyond the borders of Israel. We know that “world” here does not mean each and every individual who has ever lived because of John’s own Gospel. John’s Gospel is perhaps the most Calvinistic of all the Gospels. In John’s Gospel we chapters 6, 10, and 17 we find Jesus repeatedly making distinctions between people he came to save and people He didn’t come to save.
6:39″And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. 40For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
Here John, quoting Jesus, clearly makes a distinction between people whom the Father has given to Jesus and people whom the Father has not given to Jesus. Why didn’t the Father give everyone to Jesus? The answer is because the Father does not love everyone.
10:26but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all[d]; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. 30I and the Father are one.”
Here the inspired Apostle clearly records Jesus saying that there is a distinction between those who hear His voice and those who don’t and goes on to say that the reason that they do not believe is because those who do not believe are not His sheep.
Why are they not His sheep we might ask? The answer is clearly because the Father does not love them.
Note also here the verse that teaches that those who belong to Jesus can’t not fall away.
17:9I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.
Jesus here prays for His people and decidedly not for those who are not His people. Jesus makes a distinction between those who are His and those who are not His.
Why are some His and some not His? The answer is that the Father does not love all people.
God does not love everybody. Jesus did not come to die for everybody though the death of Christ is sufficient for whosoever believes. If you have been given belief you can be sure that Christ died for you.
This is because there are a few that are like Esau whom God hates (See Romans 9). These were hated before they were born or did anything good or bad.
However, having said that we note that God sent Christ that those set apart for salvation might be saved (17), and in the doing of that the whole Cosmos will be saved and renewed by the finished work of Christ. The fact that Christ has come to save the world indicates an expansiveness of God’s grace. True … all will not be saved but so many will be saved that it will be rightly said that the whole world was saved and renewed by the death of Christ.
IV.) Series of Sharp Anti-thesis
condemnation (17-18) and salvation (17)
(Condemn = Penalty after sentence // Language from the courtroom)
This text reminds us that all people stand either in the way of salvation or in the way of condemnation. There is no third way or tertim quid.
Reminds us that our problem is forensic or legal and so requires a legal solution.
Part of the problem in the church today is that we make Christianity about our subjective experiences or our emotive disposition but Christianity, while affecting those realities primarily speaks to our objective legal position. We are either in the way of legal condemnation or we are in the way of legal vindication (salvation). God has a lawsuit against us and our condemnation or vindication rests not upon our experience or emotive dispositions but rather the verdict rests upon our legal relation to the one who God provides as our legal substitute. If we believe in and upon Christ we are vindicated (saved) if we believe not we remain in the legal position of being condemned.
This brings us to another anti-thesis
belief and unbelief (vs. 18)
stay in the darkness and come into the light (19)
This preference for darkness among those who belong to darkness should serve as a reminder for our evangelism. Men do not refuse to come to Christ because they cannot understand the the light of truth. Men refuse to come to Christ because their preference for darkness will not consent to understanding the light of truth. The problem in evangelism is often not the message but those hearing the message. This is absolutely necessary to keep in mind.
John begins this chapter by telling us that Nicodemus comes in the dark. By the end of John’s Gospel (19:39) Nicodemus is out in the light.
do evil and doing what is true (20)
Conclusion
The Cross
