JOHN 3:16
LET'S GET THIS STRAIGHT:
SAVED BY GRACE, JUSTIFIED BY FAITH
Let's look at a passage of Scripture, that most ignorant Christians blatantly use again and again out of context, with no knowledge of the purpose of the verses whatsoever. I do this with all humilty, as I was guilty of it most of my entire life.
Our scripture reading is coming from the book According to John, Chapter 3. We'll look at verses 1 through 21. I'll be using the New American Standard Version, but any version will work.
[color=33669]1- Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews;
2- this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him."
3- Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."
4- Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?"
5- Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6- "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7- "Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'
8- "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."
9- Nicodemus said to Him, "How can these things be?"
10- Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?
11- Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony.
12- "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13- "No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.
14- "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
15- "so that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life.
16- "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
17- "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
18- "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19- "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.
20- "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
21- "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."[/color]
Okay, for the sake of those who don't see the implications and doctrine in this passage, let me attempt to explain it.
The story begins with Nicodemus coming to our Lord in secret in the night, as he was a Pharisee, but wanted to know about Christ and His teachings. He knew that Jesus was authoritative in His teachings based on the works and miracles He had performed up to this point.
Now, what is Christ's IMMEDIATE response? Jesus all of a sudden becomes a street evangelist. Look closely:
3- Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."
4- Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?"
5- Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
What would make Jesus automatically give this man the "plan of salvation" as we call it? Christ saw that Nicodemus was seeking the Lord. He saw that he recognized the deity of Christ. Jesus knew that Nicodemus had been, essentially, called by the Spirit. Nicodemus gained a unique insight into the nature and work of Jesus and was seeking out to understand and make complete his knowledge of it. This is no work of man in his natural state, as Jesus points out:
[color=33669]6- "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.[/color]
In other words, only those who are born of the Spirit can be born again. It is nothing that man is capable of in his flesh.
Also, what are the implications of being born again? Well, what does it mean to be born? The birth process has three main steps:
[color=33669]1. Conception
2. Gestation
3. Birth[/color]
Now, let me ask you this Who of us had any part in their own conception, gestation, or birth? What parts of it did we contribute to? How did we help get this process started and how did we maintain the process? The answer is, obviously, none of us did! We had NOTHING to do with our conception. We had NOTHING to do with our development in the womb, and we had NOTHING to do with our birth. Now, knowing this, why would Christ use this analogy in regards to Salvation if He was talking about something that hinges on whether or not we have faith or believe in Christ? Did Jesus use a bad analogy? Was Jesus wrong about the process of salvation? Unless youre a heretic, we can emphatically say NO, and praise God for it!
Now that we understand that Salvation is not a process that we initiate or contribute to in its conception and development and birth, lets move along to Jesus next point to Nicodemus:
[color=33669]7- "Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'
8- "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."[/color]
The word wind is interchangeable with Spirit in the Bible, so it is no wonder Jesus used the same word to describe and beautifully paint a picture of how the Holy Spirit works. The Spirit comes to whoever it wishes to bring regeneration. We have no idea where it came from or how it came to us. We have no idea why it chose to come to us over someone else. It just happens. How do we know this is true (even if it seems un-fair to our culturally-relative worldviews)? Jesus said it, bluntly and clearly. He anticipated Nicodemus trouble with understanding this as well, and continues to explain how it works:
[color=33669]9- Nicodemus said to Him, "How can these things be?"
10- Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?
11- Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony.
12- "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?[/color]
Jesus makes a huge point here, and it is all based on the opening chapters of the book of Genesis. We are a fallen race, with no concept of Godliness or righteousness, in and of ourselves. We are WITHOUT any hope, whatsoever. By Grace and sovereign choice (where it wishes) God sends the Holy Spirit to us to bring regeneration in our hearts, which leads to repentance, faith, etc. Jesus bluntly tells Nicodemus that even if he was talking about normal, earthly things he would have a hard time comprehending them, and also that in regards to heavenly or spiritual matters, we have no capability of belief apart from the Spirit.
He then relates the faith of Gods chosen race (the Israelites) from the OT as their basis of salvation (salvation from hope in a coming Messiah) to a salvation of faith for a chosen people from ALL walks of life (not just Jews):
[color=33669]14- "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
15- "so that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life.
16- "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.[/color]
Out of context, this verse would obviously mean a much different thing. But, we must realize that in proper interpretation of Scripture, there are three main principles of interpretation: Context, context, and context.
From a proper view of the entire passage, we see that Jesus is showing that the exclusivity of salvation to Israelites has been expanded through Christs coming and the New Covenant, which He would soon after explain and put into action, to include people from other backgrounds and walks of life (not just Israelites).
In the original Greek, which all proper Scripture interpretation should be made from (in hard to understand areas), we CLEARLY can see that the word world is in NO WAY a blanket statement referring to all of mankind. It is a word used to express a group of people chosen out of a larger group of people or whole. In other words, the New Covenant would not be only for Gods chosen people of LITERAL Israel, but the chosen Israel would be expanded to include people from all over the world (this is made very clear by the Apostle Paul in Romans 10-11). As an aside, another improper view of this verse is in relation to the word so in English. Most people see this as a word for emphasis on how great Gods love is for the world, when, in fact, the original English meaning of this added word was merely for the sake of declaration. For example, if you said I think we should design a shirt like so., you arent meaning you should SOO make a shirt, but that you should make a shirt in a certain way. A better translation would be God showed His love for people of all walks of life in this way: But, traditional translation of the verse stands in most translations of the Bible.
Jesus finishes this discussion with Nicodemus by explaining the nature of belief in Himself and what the implications for that were.
[color=33669]17- "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
18- "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19- "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.
20- "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
21- "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."[/color]
We can take great joy in the fact that the ONLY reason for Christs coming was not possibility of judgment, but the creation of a New Covenant for people from all nations to enjoy, as Gods Spirit wills.
Christ CLEARLY explains that people who do not believe have already been judged. This makes more clear passages such as the introduction of Pauls letter to the Ephesians where he says that Gods chosen people were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. This would only leave to conclude that there were some chosen before the foundation of the world that would NOT believe in Christ and would be judged as Christ explains here.
Jesus further explains the fallen nature of mankind and his love and natural tendency towards evil and hatred of being exposed by the Light. No one likes to be told when they are sinning and no one wants to be found out by God in their sin. This has been the same way since the beginning of time when Adam and Eve hid themselves from God in the Garden of Eden after Eves sin.
Now, the last verse of Jesus discussion with Nicodemus is very important to the purpose of Christs coming and the Atonement. We come to the Light as a result of Christs works alone, and by the imputed righteousness from His blood, ALONE. It is all Christs work. All good deeds we do as a result, then, is Christs righteousness being manifested (or wrought) in and through us by God. Therefore, a chief purpose for our being saved by faith in Christ, wrought by the Holy Spirit as it wills, is the display of the glory of God through our good deeds which Christ does through us.
If salvation was about nothing more than Gods love and our cooperation with God, then we must assume a few things, and they arent very pleasing.
[color=33669]1. Christs blood wasnt sufficient to save us - it requires extra work on our behalf (cooperation by faith)
2. God intended to save the whole world, but He cant seem to accomplish it (He is, in a sense, up in Heaven with His fingers crossed, hoping someone will choose Him!)
3. Jesus Christ, in all His primary teachings about the nature of Salvation and the purposes for His blood Atonement, was lying. Jesus Christ was a liar.[/color]
This, in my opinion, is nothing more than heresy in its purest form. We do NOT have a Bible that teaches a salvation by works, so why are so many preaching it? We do NOT have a God that is weak, incapable, or DEPENDENT ON OUR ACTIONS. God is the Creator and we are His creatures. He has every right to do as He wills and wishes whatever He wants with us. Furthermore, no one that desires to be saved is turned away. All that believe, believe because the Spirit has willed and wished to come to them and bring them a new life by being born again.
In summary, just remember this analogy of being born.
We are conceived by the Holy Spirit in the work of regeneration, we develop this new person through our understanding of our sinfulness and a desire to repentance and faith in Christ, and when we are re-born, we do just like a newborn baby:
We cry our eyes out.
We are brought into the world as a new creation, forever indebted to the glory and sovereignty of Gods immeasurable Grace.
[color=33669]- Gabriel V. Martini[/color]
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.
LET'S GET THIS STRAIGHT:
SAVED BY GRACE, JUSTIFIED BY FAITH
Let's look at a passage of Scripture, that most ignorant Christians blatantly use again and again out of context, with no knowledge of the purpose of the verses whatsoever. I do this with all humilty, as I was guilty of it most of my entire life.
Our scripture reading is coming from the book According to John, Chapter 3. We'll look at verses 1 through 21. I'll be using the New American Standard Version, but any version will work.
[color=33669]1- Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews;
2- this man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him."
3- Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."
4- Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?"
5- Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
6- "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7- "Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'
8- "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."
9- Nicodemus said to Him, "How can these things be?"
10- Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?
11- Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony.
12- "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
13- "No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.
14- "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
15- "so that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life.
16- "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.
17- "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
18- "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19- "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.
20- "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
21- "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."[/color]
Okay, for the sake of those who don't see the implications and doctrine in this passage, let me attempt to explain it.
The story begins with Nicodemus coming to our Lord in secret in the night, as he was a Pharisee, but wanted to know about Christ and His teachings. He knew that Jesus was authoritative in His teachings based on the works and miracles He had performed up to this point.
Now, what is Christ's IMMEDIATE response? Jesus all of a sudden becomes a street evangelist. Look closely:
3- Jesus answered and said to him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."
4- Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he?"
5- Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
What would make Jesus automatically give this man the "plan of salvation" as we call it? Christ saw that Nicodemus was seeking the Lord. He saw that he recognized the deity of Christ. Jesus knew that Nicodemus had been, essentially, called by the Spirit. Nicodemus gained a unique insight into the nature and work of Jesus and was seeking out to understand and make complete his knowledge of it. This is no work of man in his natural state, as Jesus points out:
[color=33669]6- "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.[/color]
In other words, only those who are born of the Spirit can be born again. It is nothing that man is capable of in his flesh.
Also, what are the implications of being born again? Well, what does it mean to be born? The birth process has three main steps:
[color=33669]1. Conception
2. Gestation
3. Birth[/color]
Now, let me ask you this Who of us had any part in their own conception, gestation, or birth? What parts of it did we contribute to? How did we help get this process started and how did we maintain the process? The answer is, obviously, none of us did! We had NOTHING to do with our conception. We had NOTHING to do with our development in the womb, and we had NOTHING to do with our birth. Now, knowing this, why would Christ use this analogy in regards to Salvation if He was talking about something that hinges on whether or not we have faith or believe in Christ? Did Jesus use a bad analogy? Was Jesus wrong about the process of salvation? Unless youre a heretic, we can emphatically say NO, and praise God for it!
Now that we understand that Salvation is not a process that we initiate or contribute to in its conception and development and birth, lets move along to Jesus next point to Nicodemus:
[color=33669]7- "Do not be amazed that I said to you, 'You must be born again.'
8- "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit."[/color]
The word wind is interchangeable with Spirit in the Bible, so it is no wonder Jesus used the same word to describe and beautifully paint a picture of how the Holy Spirit works. The Spirit comes to whoever it wishes to bring regeneration. We have no idea where it came from or how it came to us. We have no idea why it chose to come to us over someone else. It just happens. How do we know this is true (even if it seems un-fair to our culturally-relative worldviews)? Jesus said it, bluntly and clearly. He anticipated Nicodemus trouble with understanding this as well, and continues to explain how it works:
[color=33669]9- Nicodemus said to Him, "How can these things be?"
10- Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?
11- Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony.
12- "If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?[/color]
Jesus makes a huge point here, and it is all based on the opening chapters of the book of Genesis. We are a fallen race, with no concept of Godliness or righteousness, in and of ourselves. We are WITHOUT any hope, whatsoever. By Grace and sovereign choice (where it wishes) God sends the Holy Spirit to us to bring regeneration in our hearts, which leads to repentance, faith, etc. Jesus bluntly tells Nicodemus that even if he was talking about normal, earthly things he would have a hard time comprehending them, and also that in regards to heavenly or spiritual matters, we have no capability of belief apart from the Spirit.
He then relates the faith of Gods chosen race (the Israelites) from the OT as their basis of salvation (salvation from hope in a coming Messiah) to a salvation of faith for a chosen people from ALL walks of life (not just Jews):
[color=33669]14- "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
15- "so that whoever believes in Him will have eternal life.
16- "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.[/color]
Out of context, this verse would obviously mean a much different thing. But, we must realize that in proper interpretation of Scripture, there are three main principles of interpretation: Context, context, and context.
From a proper view of the entire passage, we see that Jesus is showing that the exclusivity of salvation to Israelites has been expanded through Christs coming and the New Covenant, which He would soon after explain and put into action, to include people from other backgrounds and walks of life (not just Israelites).
In the original Greek, which all proper Scripture interpretation should be made from (in hard to understand areas), we CLEARLY can see that the word world is in NO WAY a blanket statement referring to all of mankind. It is a word used to express a group of people chosen out of a larger group of people or whole. In other words, the New Covenant would not be only for Gods chosen people of LITERAL Israel, but the chosen Israel would be expanded to include people from all over the world (this is made very clear by the Apostle Paul in Romans 10-11). As an aside, another improper view of this verse is in relation to the word so in English. Most people see this as a word for emphasis on how great Gods love is for the world, when, in fact, the original English meaning of this added word was merely for the sake of declaration. For example, if you said I think we should design a shirt like so., you arent meaning you should SOO make a shirt, but that you should make a shirt in a certain way. A better translation would be God showed His love for people of all walks of life in this way: But, traditional translation of the verse stands in most translations of the Bible.
Jesus finishes this discussion with Nicodemus by explaining the nature of belief in Himself and what the implications for that were.
[color=33669]17- "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
18- "He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
19- "This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.
20- "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
21- "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."[/color]
We can take great joy in the fact that the ONLY reason for Christs coming was not possibility of judgment, but the creation of a New Covenant for people from all nations to enjoy, as Gods Spirit wills.
Christ CLEARLY explains that people who do not believe have already been judged. This makes more clear passages such as the introduction of Pauls letter to the Ephesians where he says that Gods chosen people were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world. This would only leave to conclude that there were some chosen before the foundation of the world that would NOT believe in Christ and would be judged as Christ explains here.
Jesus further explains the fallen nature of mankind and his love and natural tendency towards evil and hatred of being exposed by the Light. No one likes to be told when they are sinning and no one wants to be found out by God in their sin. This has been the same way since the beginning of time when Adam and Eve hid themselves from God in the Garden of Eden after Eves sin.
Now, the last verse of Jesus discussion with Nicodemus is very important to the purpose of Christs coming and the Atonement. We come to the Light as a result of Christs works alone, and by the imputed righteousness from His blood, ALONE. It is all Christs work. All good deeds we do as a result, then, is Christs righteousness being manifested (or wrought) in and through us by God. Therefore, a chief purpose for our being saved by faith in Christ, wrought by the Holy Spirit as it wills, is the display of the glory of God through our good deeds which Christ does through us.
If salvation was about nothing more than Gods love and our cooperation with God, then we must assume a few things, and they arent very pleasing.
[color=33669]1. Christs blood wasnt sufficient to save us - it requires extra work on our behalf (cooperation by faith)
2. God intended to save the whole world, but He cant seem to accomplish it (He is, in a sense, up in Heaven with His fingers crossed, hoping someone will choose Him!)
3. Jesus Christ, in all His primary teachings about the nature of Salvation and the purposes for His blood Atonement, was lying. Jesus Christ was a liar.[/color]
This, in my opinion, is nothing more than heresy in its purest form. We do NOT have a Bible that teaches a salvation by works, so why are so many preaching it? We do NOT have a God that is weak, incapable, or DEPENDENT ON OUR ACTIONS. God is the Creator and we are His creatures. He has every right to do as He wills and wishes whatever He wants with us. Furthermore, no one that desires to be saved is turned away. All that believe, believe because the Spirit has willed and wished to come to them and bring them a new life by being born again.
In summary, just remember this analogy of being born.
We are conceived by the Holy Spirit in the work of regeneration, we develop this new person through our understanding of our sinfulness and a desire to repentance and faith in Christ, and when we are re-born, we do just like a newborn baby:
We cry our eyes out.
We are brought into the world as a new creation, forever indebted to the glory and sovereignty of Gods immeasurable Grace.
[color=33669]- Gabriel V. Martini[/color]
Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.
