Thank you to John for this week’s MWB
What is the world coming to? That question may be asked perplexedly, or despairingly, or perhaps cynically. It may be a question you have asked, or are asking now. It’s a good question. It is a question addressed by the Bible passage for today – John 3:16-17.
(v16) For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone believing into him may not perish but may have eternal life.
(v17) For God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.
The well-known v16 speaks of God’s Love for the World. The Greek word here is “kosmos”, which is used more than 70 times in John’s gospel (far more than in the other gospels). What a wonderful world (universe) God has created….but “though the world was made through him (the eternal Word, the Lord Jesus Christ), the world did not recognise him” (John 1:10). Despite that, God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son.
“What is the world coming to?” is a good question. But a far better question is “Who has come to the world?”
v17 speaks of God’s Purpose for the World. The reason God sent his Son was to save the world. Sometimes Christians give the impression that the only reason Jesus came was “to save us from our sins”, but that is a narrow, non-Biblical view. God’s purpose was (and is) rescue/salvation for the whole of God’s creation. So the apostle Paul writes that “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). Thus God will bring about the “new heavens and new earth” that he has promised (Isaiah 65:17; 66:22; Revelation 21:1).
Meanwhile, we are to live in the light of God’s love and purpose for the world, including us!
(PS: try memorising v16 and v17!)