← The Daily Blade: Joby Martin & Kyle Thompson
The Daily Blade: Joby Martin & Kyle Thompson
#142 - Joby Martin // Unraveling Scripture's Most Famous Verse: God's Ultimate Love Story
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Welcome to the Daily Blade. The word of God is described as the sword of the spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.
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All right. Day four. The most famous verse probably in all of America for sure, and it's John 3:16. So you already know this one. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. Now again, this verse comes right after Jesus gives the snake illustration from numbers 21, so that Nicodemus can begin to get his head around what Jesus Christ came to do. He did not simply come to do miracles. He did not simply come to teach stories. He did not simply come to give us a moral example. He came to give his life as a ransom, as a sacrifice. And so he says, for God so loved the world that the reason that Jesus came is to not start a new religion. The reason that God came in the form of Jesus Christ is because of God's love. That God's mission in the person and work of his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ is about love for God. So love, that word so is an amplifier, it's a magnifier that God doesn't sort of love us or kind of love us, but he lavishes his love on us. I love the way John says it. He says, oh, what manner of love the Father has lavished upon us that we would be called children of God. For God so loved the world that he gave that when you love somebody, love is our joy in the Lord towards one another at great expense to ourselves. So we are never more like Jesus than we when we are giving of ourselves. For God so loved the world that he gave his. The English translates it his only begotten Son or His one and only son. The Greek literally is monogenous. So even if you don't know Greek, you can figure this out. Mono means one. Genus means like gene. It means of the same essence. One and only is not enough. I have one and only Harley Davidson, but it is not monogenous of me. It's just a possession of mine. Jesus the Son is of the same essence as God the Father. And God the Father so loved the world that he gave, gave his monogeneous, of the same essence Son, that whoever believes and whoever means whoever doesn't matter what you've done or where you've been or how Long you've been doing it, or if you were raised in church or not. Whoever believes in that word believes is pistuo. It doesn't just mean believe that. There's a lot of people believe that God created the world and sent his son Jesus to die on the cross. Demons even believe that and shudder. But they have not pistuo. They have not trusted in. They have not believed that when Christ died on the cross, somehow it counted for them. But whoever believes or trusts or pursuos in Jesus should not perish, but have eternal life. Now, I told you that Jesus was the master teacher, that when he lays out the gospel for Nicodemus, it goes right over his head. And so he was going to use two rabbinical tricks. The first one, it's really a ramez. He tells him part of a story, knowing that Nicodemus would know all the rest of this story. What he's about to do right here is what's called proto Logos. In Greek, it's called proto logos, the first words, the moment that Jesus says, for God the Father so loved the world, he sent his only begotten son. Then Nicodemus, who was a scholar, a Hebrew scholar, and he had memorized literally the entire Old Testament. One of the things that was very important is the first times the words were used and the first time in the Bible. The Bible talks about a father's love for his son and a sacrifice being there is talking about Abraham and Isaac. Now, this is review from just a few weeks ago. Kyle covered this already, but let me just repeat it, okay? Again, if you look at the incident, the event of the Bible, of Abraham being told by God to take his son Isaac, the son of his love, the son of his promise, and take him up on a mountain to sacrifice, then what you see is a foreshadowing of what Jesus is going to do. And remember, Jesus is trying to teach Nicodemus who Jesus is. And so when Jesus says, for God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son, then Nicodemus would be thinking, okay, the first time this is ever used is Abraham's love for Isaac. A father that loves his son, a son of promise, a son of his love, a miraculous son, a son of faith. And this son, Isaac, carried the wood for the sacrifice up a mountain. And that mountain is called Mount Moriah, which means the Lord will provide. And this son, as Kyle covered, and I've covered before, when Isaac goes up the mountain to be sacrificed, he has to trust his father. He is at least a teenager he could be as old as 33. Scholars kind of fight about that, but whatever, his dad would have been 100 years older than him. This means that the son willingly laid himself down on the altar at the will of the Father. And yet the reason that Abraham could lift up the knife to take his son is because he believed God. He trusted that God keeps his promises. And so he says, we will go worship and we will return. And then, sure enough, as Kyle pointed out a few weeks ago, that an angel of the Lord says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Abraham, hold up. And then Abraham looks and there is a ram, an adult male lamb with his head caught in a, in some thorns. It is to point us to the fact that the Lamb of God, Jesus, had a crown of thorns on his head. And God essentially out Mount Moriah says, hey, Abraham, I know that you believe me. We're not going to sacrifice your son in a few thousand years, we'll sacrifice mine. And so what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus is, I am that sacrificial son. I am the lamb that will be the substitutionary atoning sacrifice. I am the one that has been sent to die in your place. And whoever believes in me receives eternal life. Amen.
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Thank you for listening to today's episode. Before you go, if you want to help, equip other men for the fight, Share this podcast around and leave us a five star rating and review. Stay sharp.